The Wanderer: Interview With Raymond Leo Cardinal Burke: The Faithful Are Suffering, But Schism Can Never Be Right

Editor’s Note: This interview took place in Rome on October 22, 2018, the Feast of St. John Paul II, during the final week of the October 3-28 Synod on Young People, the Faith, and Vocational Discernment and before its conclusion. See The Wanderer, November 1, 2018, p. 1 for an article based on this interview.

Q. Your Eminence, the first thing I wanted to ask is, many Catholics, following this Summer of Shame, think they are living through the worst period of Church history. Do you agree?

Cardinal Burke: It’s certainly among the worst, if not the worst. The Church has had other periods of great scandal. But this has dimensions about it that seem to be equal to or greater than other scandals that the Church has endured.

The primary scandal with the situation of Theodore McCarrick is, it’s clear, that he was able to lead this life of abuse of young people as a priest, and as a bishop, because he was protected and promoted. This is the source of the greatest scandal. And so, I think that we’ve reached a moment of terrible crisis that has to be addressed.

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