Cardinal Burke can’t “correct” the pope, but the pope can correct Burke.

ake Site News is blar­ing trum­pets again about the so-called “cor­rec­tion” of the pope by Car­di­nal Burke, et al. If Pope Fran­cis won’t answer the dubia, “we sim­ply will have to cor­rect the sit­u­a­tion.” Ahem.

Some­times peo­ple will ask me: “Alt! Do you still stand by that arti­cle you wrote, you know, the one where you said you changed your mind about Pope Fran­cis? Mr. Sko­jec declared that you had seen the light.”

Well, Mr. Sko­jec.

I do stand by my arti­cle. Recall I said the pope should answer the dubia, that the ques­tions were fair enough, and that not answer­ing them encour­aged con­fu­sion (and the leap­ing of miles on the author­i­ty of inch­es) when the pope could clar­i­fy and reign in.

Recall I also said it was “ill-advised” for His Emi­nence Car­di­nal Burke, et al., to make them pub­lic. And any talk of Burke or any­one else “for­mal­ly cor­rect­ing” the Holy Father is just imper­ti­nent mad­ness. That would be a schis­mat­ic act, in my view.

Go with me once more, dear read­er, to Don­um Ver­i­tatis. Let us look at §30.

If, despite a loy­al effort on the the­olo­gian’s part, the dif­fi­cul­ties per­sist, the the­olo­gian has the duty to make known to the Mag­is­te­r­i­al author­i­ties the prob­lems raised by the teach­ing in itself, in the argu­ments pro­posed to jus­ti­fy it, or even in the man­ner in which it is pre­sent­ed. [So far so good. This is what dubia are.] He should do this in an evan­gel­i­cal spir­it and with a pro­found desire to resolve the dif­fi­cul­ties. His objec­tions could then con­tribute to real progress and pro­vide a stim­u­lus to the Mag­is­teri­um to pro­pose the teach­ing of the Church in greater depth and with a clear­er pre­sen­ta­tion of the argu­ments.

And you know, this is exact­ly the spir­it in which Car­di­nal Burke has claimed, many a time and oft, that he has act­ed. The dubia are “hon­est ques­tions,” he says (as quot­ed by Fake Site). “We pro­posed them very seri­ous­ly,” he says. It was all done “with great respect,” he says. So His Emi­nence has, accord­ing to his own emi­nent­ly care­ful insis­tence, act­ed “with a pro­found desire to resolve the dif­fi­cul­ties.”

And yet Don­um Ver­i­tatis adds this:

In cas­es like these, the the­olo­gian should avoid turn­ing to the “mass media”, but have recourse to the respon­si­ble author­i­ty, for it is not by seek­ing to exert the pres­sure of pub­lic opin­ion that one con­tributes to the clar­i­fi­ca­tion of doc­tri­nal issues and ren­ders ser­vice to the truth.

But you know, that is exact­ly what hap­pened: Car­di­nal Burke “turned to the mass media,” and the media (all the usu­al sus­pects) began using the dubia as a weapon to stir up fur­ther strife and dis­sen­sion against Pope Fran­cis. That sort of atmos­phere, accord­ing to the CDF, does not achieve the “clar­i­fi­ca­tion of doc­tri­nal issues.” It does not “ren­der ser­vice to the truth.”

Rather it achieves the opposite—because the dis­cus­sion has now shift­ed from clar­i­fi­ca­tion to cor­rec­tion. If you say, “I don’t under­stand, can you clar­i­fy?” that is one thing. But when you say, “This papal doc­u­ment is in error, so I will take it upon myself to cor­rect the sit­u­a­tion,” that is very dif­fer­ent.

There cer­tain­ly is a tra­di­tion in the Church of seek­ing clar­i­fi­ca­tion of the pope through dubia. That the pope has not answered these involv­ing Amor­is Laeti­tia both­ers me. I don’t think that was best.

But there is not a tra­di­tion in the Church of a “for­mal cor­rec­tion” of the pope. And don’t talk to me about “Paul cor­rect­ed Peter.” Paul rebuked Peter for hav­ing sinned, for hav­ing act­ed con­trary to what Peter had taught to be true. Paul did not cor­rect Peter’s teach­ing. The pope is, Vat­i­can I points out, the Church’s supreme teacher and supreme leg­is­la­tor. “The sen­tence of the Apos­tolic See,” the Coun­cil says, is the “highe[st] author­i­ty [and] is not sub­ject to revi­sion by any­one, nor may any­one law­ful­ly pass judg­ment there­upon.” Those who say oth­er­wise” “stray from the genine path of truth.”

So no, Car­di­nal Burke can’t “cor­rect” the pope.

The pope, how­ev­er, can cor­rect him. I don’t say he should or he should not. But if you want to talk about “for­mal cor­rec­tion,” the pope is the only one with the author­i­ty to do that. If Burke were to try to issue some “for­mal cor­rec­tion,” the pope could say, “This has no author­i­ty in the Church.” He could say, “This con­sti­tutes a schis­mat­ic act.” He could dis­ci­pline Burke in any way he felt appro­pri­ate.

I don’t say he should or he should not.

“But Alt!” you say. “Isn’t Car­di­nal Burke right that “there are some acts that are always and every­where wrong?”

Indeed there are. And how do I know that? Because Pope Fran­cis said so in Amor­is Laeti­tia:

For the law is itself a gift of God which points out the way, a gift for every­one with­out excep­tion; it can be fol­lowed with the help of grace. (295)

Oh, so Pope Fran­cis means there are no excep­tions? Well, why do I need His Emi­nence to tell me this, and pre­tend it’s some sort of nec­es­sary “cor­rec­tion”? It’s right there in Amor­is Laeti­tia.

“Oh, but Alt! What about the inter­nal forum? What about foot­note 351? What about per­son­al dis­cern­ment?”

Yes. These are all about deter­min­ing degree of per­son­al cul­pa­bil­i­ty as it relates to sacra­men­tal dis­ci­pline. The pope under­stands some peo­ple are not ful­ly cul­pa­ble for the sit­u­a­tion in which they find them­selves, can’t extri­cate them­selves, and then pas­tors have to decide case by case what to do in mov­ing for­ward. There is no one-size-fits-all solu­tion here.

To rec­og­nize that does not entail deny­ing that some acts are always wrong, or that the law can be fol­lowed by every­one with the help of grace. Pope Fran­cis him­self says that.

How the one relates to the oth­er cer­tain­ly can be clar­i­fied for those who have dif­fi­cul­ty, or so as not to encour­age bish­ops to make miles out of inch­es. I real­ly, real­ly wish the pope would.

But “for­mal cor­rec­tion”? Stop it with that loose and dan­ger­ous talk. That’s more divi­sive and schism-encour­ag­ing than any­thing the pope has done. Take care the pope does not cor­rect you.