Friday, July 26, 2013

Cardinal Burke on the Sacred Liturgy

There's a lot of awesomeness in the words of His Eminence, but let's just recap a few things

- The Churches teaching on worship is the same before, during, and after the Second Vatican Council.  Those who talk about how we should be glad that Vatican II "changed" the way Catholics worship, they are mistaken.    A clear statement that the liturgical reform we experienced was not the liturgical reform the Council Fathers had in mind.  This is pretty standard boilerplate stuff, but it appears that some of our friends at the big Catholic organziations need reminders of these things if the past few weeks have been any indication.

- The liturgy is God's gift to man, not man's creation.  This cannot be emphasized enough.

- Since the liturgy is the apex of everything Catholics do, there will never be authentic reform of the Church without an authentic liturgical reform.  We've made progress, but we still got a long way to go.
ZENIT: Some argue the liturgy is mostly about aesthetics, and not as important as, say, good works done in faith. What is your view of this argument that one often hears?

Cardinal Burke: It’s a Communist misconception.
El-Oh-El.

- Liturgical laws are meant for man, not man for laws.  They give us the freedom to not be a bumbling idiot in the way we worship God.

And most importantly:

-The moral decay and corruption within the Church goes hand in hand with the liturgical decay and corruption in our parishes.  If you change the way people worship, you change the way they believe.  This works both ways.  That new generation of priests that everyone tends to love as young, holy and doctrinally orthodox?  Even if they only celebrate the Ordinary Form, there's little that seperates them from working alongside or even being a traditionalist, save opportunity.

h/t Fr. Z


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