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Cardinal Raymond Burke

VATICAN CITY (LifeSiteNews) – Several prominent cardinals have voiced praise for the U.S. Supreme Court’s (SCOTUS) overturning of Roe v. Wade, saying that the overturn is a “just reward” for persevering prayers and efforts for the defense of human life.  

The statements come as Pope Francis stated that he is against barring pro-abortion politicians from receiving the Eucharist.  

Speaking to the National Catholic Register, the cardinals also urged pro-lifers to continue to fight for pro-life causes and legislation.  

Cardinal Raymond Burke, former head of the Apostolic Signatura, told the Register, “Thanks be to God, the fundamentally unjust Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade has been overturned.” According to Burke, the ruling is the “fruit of the perseverance of citizens in fulfilling their duty to safeguard and foster human life, especially the innocent and defenseless human life of the unborn.” 

Burke also affirmed that the fight to protect life from conception to natural death “is integral to the restoration of the foundations of life in society on the fundamental rights inherent in nature, taught by human reason, and confirmed by faith.” 

“Rights derive from nature, from objective reality, not from sentimentalism and self-interest, and their ideologies,” he continued. While maintaining that the faithful should give thanks for the ruling, he also urged the faithful to “recommit ourselves to the work of assisting mothers and fathers who have conceived a child to do what nature teaches them, namely, to protect and to bring to term the incomparable gift of new human life.” 

Burke also noted that SCOTUS delivered the decision to overturn Roe on the feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, stating “The glorious, pierced Heart of Jesus, supreme sign of God’s immeasurable and unceasing love of all human life, is the font from which human hearts received the grace to love in the same pure and selfless way.” 

READ: Pope Francis breaks silence on Roe reversal, criticizes denying Communion to pro-abortion politicians

Australian Cardinal George Pell shared Burke’s sentiment, telling the Register that the ruling was “an important victory for life, human rights, and indeed the best traditions of our Western way of life.”  

“It is immensely encouraging to the forces for good, not just in the United States, but especially in the Anglophone world — and throughout the West,” he continued. “It is a just reward for nearly 50 years of wise and brave, prayerful and persistent, spiritual and political activity.” 

We live in democracies which still retain the right to free speech; we have a right to political activity. This victory shows that we should never withdraw from the public square, must continue to intervene regularly in public discussion, and persuade the decent majority of the validity of our claims. 

“This is not the end of the story, but it might be the beginning of the end,” Pell continued. “In many ways, the Catholic Church in America, with its faith and vitality, its persistence in the midst of weakness, division and scandals, is a model for every local Church confronting modernity.”  

“[I] would like to congratulate all the pro-life forces, and especially the U.S. Catholic Church, on a magnificent victory,” Pell concluded. 

Cardinal Walter Kasper, former head of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Christian Unity and an advisor to Pope Francis, told the Register, If I am correctly informed, the U.S. Supreme Court decided that the American Constitution doesn’t recognize a right to abortion.” “I would also like to add that, even more, the Gospel doesn’t recognize such a right. Thus for us as Christians it is obligatory to engage ourselves in the protection of life,” the cardinal continued. 

“To be in favor of protection of life includes the obligation to help as much we can pregnant women who are facing difficult problems to find a positive solution for the baby and for themselves. Threat of punishment alone is no solution,” Kasper said. 

“[The] whole community needs to provide solid assistance to mothers, couples and the unborn, encouraging mothers in difficulty to see the pregnancy through and entrust the infant to reliable foster parents,” said Cardinal Michael Czerny, head of the Dicastery for Integral Human Development. Czerny also stressed that life “is sacred in all its stages, and, as such, all stages of life should be protected under law.” 

Trigger laws, attacks on churches, and the aftermath of the decision 

Since SCOTUS released its decision on June 24, several states have implemented, or are set to implement trigger laws, that ban abortion. Other states have laws in place that severely limit abortion. According to the Guardian, abortion is now either banned, restricted or could be banned or restricted in about 60% of the United States as a result of SCOTUS’ ruling. 

Some of the trigger laws have been subject to legal challenges, with trigger laws in Utah and Louisiana blocked by judges. Judges in Texas and Ohio have thrown out legal challenges to the states’ pro-life laws after lawsuits were filed by pro-abortion organizations seeking to stop them from taking effect. 

READ: Ohio Supreme Court refuses abortionists’ request to block state’s heartbeat law

Catholic churches have also been attacked in the wake of SCOTUS’ ruling. One graffitied message on a sign at a Church in Virginia read “THIS WONT STOP.” The attacks on Catholic churches started in the wake of a leaked draft opinion of the Dobbs decision in May, when pro-abortion organizations Ruth Sent Us vowed to interrupt Masses. 

Pro-abortion terrorist group Jane’s Revenge has also taken responsibility for several attacks on pro-life pregnancy centers and Catholic churches leading up to the Dobbs decision, and Republican lawmakers have petitioned the Biden administration to label the organization a terrorist group. The group has declared “open season” on pro-lifers after giving them a 30-day period to disband. 

Biden, Pelosi, and the Church 

President Joe Biden was also criticized by cardinals in their remarks to the Register. Former head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) Cardinal Gerhard Müller told the Register that while Biden claims to be a Catholic, “unfortunately he does not act accordingly.” He also noted that “neither he nor the Democratic Party nor the activists of the culture of death have the last word, but God in heaven, who told us: ‘Thou shalt not kill.’” 

“You can see the difference between the good shepherds and the hirelings, that the true followers of the apostles are guided by the truth of Christ instead of the approval of the mass media,” Müller added. 

Meanwhile Burke told the Register that Biden responded to the decision “in a way which denies the Catholic faith in favor of the anti-life ideology and its advance of so-called rights to privacy and to choice.”  

“His remarks are offensive to right reason and totally reprehensible in a Catholic,” Burke continued. “Catholics who practice their faith are good citizens — first, faithful to God’s law written on the human heart, they serve faithfully their homeland.”  

In May, Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone of San Francisco barred Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi from receiving Holy Communion for her support of abortion. Pelosi received Communion at a Jesuit parish in Georgetown the following Sunday, and the Archdiocese of Washington implied in an email mistakenly sent to a reporter that it would say nothing about Cordileone’s decision. 

The Catholic Church teaches that the Eucharist is the literal body, blood, soul, and divinity of Jesus Christ and thus also that no one who has committed a mortal sin is to present himself for Holy Communion until he has repented and confessed in the Sacrament of Reconciliation. 

Furthermore, Canon 915 of the Church’s Code of Canon Law instructs: “Those who have been excommunicated or interdicted after the imposition or declaration of the penalty and others obstinately persevering in manifest grave sin are not to be admitted to holy communion.” 

Pope Francis said this weekend in an interview that he was against barring pro-abortion politicians from receiving the Eucharist, saying When the Church loses its pastoral nature, when a bishop loses his pastoral nature, it causes a political problem. That’s all I can say.” Pelosi received Communion Wednesday at a Papal Mass in honor of Ss. Peter and Paul. 

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