Yesterday at the Rome Life Forum, Cardinal Raymond Burke, a most vociferous critic of the pope, gave a long presentation entitled “Fatima: Heaven’s Answer to a World in Crisis.” And here I sit, thinking that Christ was the answer. Burke’s talk was 5,166 words long, and about half of it had to do with Fatima, the evils of China, and the importance of consecrating Russia: red meat for the Catholic hard right. In the process he also managed to promote discredited conspiracy theories about the COVID-19 pandemic and misstate Church teaching on a number of points.
Cardinal Burke’s long-winded promotion of COVID-19 conspiracy theories.
BY: Scott Eric Alt • May 21, 2020 • Blind Guides & False Prophets
The valuable Mike Lewis at Where Peter Is has the story on Cardinal Burke’s latest brazen declaration of dissent from the Magisterium. I’ll get to all that, but first it’s necessary to remind ourselves that Burke has gone down this road before. Back in 2016, Burke spoke with reporters and declared that we can overlook Nostra Aetate because it’s “not dogmatic.” Of course, it does not matter whether it’s “dogmatic” or not; it’s the teaching of a Church council, and Burke is on indefensible ground if he thinks Catholics can just wave their hand at that.
A few months ago, when Taylor Marshall’s book Infiltration had just come out, someone asked me if I intended to write a review of it. I had no such interest, and already knew that Dave Armstrong planned to do so. But it occurred to me that it might help to put together, in a concise way, a documentation of Dr. Marshall’s frequent attacks on Pope Francis. (And as it turns out, he goes back in time and attacks every pope from Pius XII forward, as well as Vatican II.) I thought others might find this a valuable resource. 
Mr. Pavone is so much more than a Trump apologist; he struts and waves pompoms for the stable genius, and he will not be caught protesting anything, unless it’s abortion. Good Mr. Pavone loves America, and babies. And because he loves babies, he has typed many hundreds of characters on Twitter defending the separation of children from their families. That’s what happens when you violate the law, he says. (And the children at the border are a very different set of babies than the infinitely more precious babies yet to be born.)
In their generous service to the gospel ideal, some priests feel drawn to political involvement in order to help more effectively in reforming political life and in eliminating injustices, exploitation, and every type of oppression. The Church reminds them that on this road it is easy to be caught in partisan strife, with the risk of helping not to bring about the just world for which they long, but new and worse ways of exploiting poor people. In any case they must know that they have neither the mission nor the charism from above for this political involvement and activism.”
A legion of Taylor Marshall’s defenders seem to have picked up this claim from the false prophet himself: Demons speak the truth during exorcism; for they are compelled to by the power of Christ. One perhaps should be grateful they are attributing this truth-telling to the power of Christ rather than the demons’ native honesty. Small favors. Dr. Marshall never cited any source for the claim that demons tell the truth during an exorcism; he just said it’s “what I’ve been told.” He didn’t even do us the courtesy of mentioning who told him so. 
Some years ago, I came across an audio file of part of the exorcism of Anneleise Michel. Probably I had just watched “The Exorcism of Emily Rose” and was curious about the true story. Things like that interest me, but I don’t recommend you get interested; the audio, even in a language I could not understand, unsettled me. After Taylor Marshall recorded a ninety-minute podcast promoting things the demons said during the exorcism, I thought: Wait. Demons are liars. “There is no truth in him,” Jesus said. “He is a liar and the father of lies.” 
On Twitter, Fr. Frank Pavone wrote this: “There is an immigration crisis, the 1st immigrant is the unborn child. There is a #Crisis at the border of the womb. They are not being detained or deported, they’re being #dismembered. We’re not going to be able to welcome an immigrant when we can’t welcome our own children.” No, excuse me. This is exactly why people say that those who are pro-life care only about the unborn, not about the born. Exhibit 1 is the odious Frank “Coughlin” Pavone, who pits the unborn child against the migrant child.
