Raymond Cardinal Burke, Papabile

IN TWO previous write-ups, I speculated that the Pope renounced the papacy in order to give way to a younger, more robust disciplinarian who will embark on a massive, no-nonsense cleansing of the Church of liberals and Modernists to keep the faith pure as it was when Jesus handed it down to the Apostles.

I said that it is to bring back ecclesiastical discipline in the Church – dogmatic, moral, liturgical, exterior, that the Pope renounced, to give way to a much-needed CPR on a Church pummeled from all sides by heretics and liberals many of them from among her ranks: Catholics (including priests) who approve of contraception, abortion, euthanasia, married priests, divorce, same-sex unions, LGBTs, de facto unions, IVF, yoga, among others.

I insisted that the only way this could be done is to have a Pope who’s a no-nonsense disciplinarian.

Today, I’m going to start suggesting specific names from among the cardinals. I’ll start with Raymond Cardinal Burke, 64, Prefect of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura (the “Supreme Court” of the Catholic Church).

So what makes me choose Cardinal Burke over more popular names touted in the press: Scola, Ouellet, Sandri, Erdo, Bagnasco, Scherer, Schoenborn, Turkson, Tagle?

Well, there’s the very basic question: did he show he could be trusted in small things? In my opinion, we cannot trust with monumental things one who cannot be trusted with little things. I don’t much to go by, but I will cling to one little statement he made which, in my opinion, speaks volumes about the question at hand. In an interview, he said: “Whenever I’ve done whatever’s been asked of me, I’ve always found happiness in my work as a priest, and I continue to find that today.”

Cardinal Burke also understands the threat to mankind from a world increasingly becoming secular. In my opinion, this is very important. Unless the new Pope acknowledges the serious threat posed by creeping secularism abetted by liberals inside the Church, he can never act decisively against it.

It’s good that Cardinal Burke does.He’s down-to-earth enough to see the looming persecution in the horizon: “Yes, we’re well on the way to it,” he said in an interview with David Kerr of EWTN News/CAN, from whom I got much of the things I’m writing about here (http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/cardinal-burke-talks-about-rome-the...).

But what I find especially heart-warming is Cardinal Burke’s urging of the faithful to bear witness as a way of addressing the problem: “If Christians do not stand strong, give a strong witness and insist on what is right and good for us both as individuals and society, this secularization will in fact predominate, and it will destroy us.”

Likewise, the cardinal bats for a “New Evangelization” starting with faithful families. He also likes to bring back reverence in liturgical worship. For instance, he’s all for greater access to Traditional Latin Mass (TLM).

And, the sweetest music of all, he wants a return to discipline, which he defines as a return to the rule of the Canon Law in Catholic life. Describing Canon Law as “the fundamental discipline which makes possible our life in the Church,” he bats for a renewed study of the Canon Law by the faithful, the better for them to be able to internalize it, and, having internalized it to apply it. (To be continued)