In a recent television interview, Cardinal Raymond Burke, head of the Apostolic Signatura, corrected the widespread misperception of Pope Francis’ comment about homosexuality when he said, “Who am I to judge?”
LifeSiteNews.com is reporting that the interview took place with Thomas McKenna of Catholic Action Insight who questioned the Cardinal about the pope’s comment, and when people are permitted to make judgments.
“We have to judge acts, we have to,” Cardinal Burke replied. “All day long we make judgments with regards to certain acts; this is what the natural law is: to choose good and to avoid evil.”
However, while we can judge actions as being gravely sinful, we can’t say a person is in grave sin because they might be committing the sin without realizing it is gravely sinful, or even because they may not be fully consenting to the behavior.
“That kind of judgment is a part, but the acts themselves we have to judge, we couldn’t live a good and moral life otherwise,” he said.
McKenna then asked if it would be wrong to interpret the pope’s phrase to indicate support for homosexual “marriage.”
The Cardinal said “yes”, and went on to address the topic of tolerance and intolerance which is at the heart of the debate about homosexuality.
“I’m not intolerant of people of same-sex attraction,” the Cardinal said. “I have great compassion for them and especially in our society today where many young people are led into the same-sex activity where they might not have been in the past because of complete relaxation of morals and a corruption.”
“I have great compassion for them but that compassion means that I want them to know the truth to avoid sinful acts for the sake of their own good for their own salvation and so you try to help the person,” he added. “Now that today isn’t well received by an aggressive homosexual agenda but that doesn’t mean that it’s not the right approach to take.”
If we remain silent about this issue due to pressure from an aggressive homosexual agenda, we would be “presiding over the destruction of our society.”
He went on to tell the story of a mother who approached him after a Mass to reproach him for writing about the evils of homosexuality. Her daughter was “married” to another woman, she said, and resented him for saying she was evil.
“No,” the Cardinal told the woman. “I said, ‘the acts which your daughter is committing are evil. Your daughter is not evil, but she needs to come to understand the truth about her situation.’”
There is too much misunderstanding about the matter today, the Cardinal concluded, “and sadly it leads to a lot of good people not doing what they should do, to help someone who is suffering in this condition.”
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