"Do Catholics Worship Mary?" Cardinal Burke Answers REAL Posts | Off The Clock

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Furniture, bedding, storage, decor, study essentials, all at prices you'll love. With fast shipping before move-in day. Get everything you need for back to school season. Shop Wayfair.com today. Wayfair. Every style, every home. Could God make a burrito so expensive that he could not buy it? I think there actually is a serious theological question hidden in there. They say, can God make a square circle? Well, it's a ridiculous question. A circle is a circle and a square is a square. God doesn't contradict himself. See, this is evidence as to why I want to ask my questions instead of taking them from Twitter. This one is going to be hard to top. It is my superlative honor and privilege to be joined at one of my favorite cigar lounges in Nashville for an episode of Off the Clock with His Eminence Raymond Leo Cardinal Burke. Your Eminence, thank you very much for coming. Thank you for the invitation. I'm pleased to be with you. This is not flattery whatsoever. Someone was asking me, one of my colleagues, right before we were in, gosh, where was it? Oh, it was in La Crosse, actually. He said, Michael, do you ever get starstruck meeting all these politicians and actors? And I said, not that much, really. But, you know, there are a few people I would. And then an hour or so later, you walked into the green room. I said, this is the example. This is where I get starstruck. It's Cardinal Burke. So, in any case, thank you so much. I really appreciate you making the time. We have posted to X, we've asked for all the questions that people have, faithful, agnostic, atheist. It's X, so it's infested with the demonic, at least the figuratively demonic, maybe the literally demonic. So, we'll filter around all of these questions. First, though, I should point out that 2031 is the 500th anniversary of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Yes. And you, obviously, are rather interested in that subject, with the shrine, etc. Yes, we're getting, we're making our plans for a five-year preparation for the quincentennial. And each year, we'll be devoted to one of the doctrines on Our Blessed Mother, that we come to know her better, more deeply, in order to know our Lord more deeply and to be more closely united with Him. So, we'll begin on December 12th of this year, with a year devoted to her Immaculate Conception. Then, the next year will be her Perpetual Virginity, then her Divine Maternity, the Assumption, and then her Mediation of All Graces, her Motherhood of the Church, we could say. So, I know people can go to sempervirgo.org. Yes, go there and you can register. And every day, we've taken on, thanks be to God, we have a wonderful staff to help me, but every day, I will send a meditation for the next, beginning on December 12th, for five years. There'll be a daily, daily meditation for people to help them to prepare for this historic event. I can barely muster a handful of tweets every day on my random musings, and you will have a teaching on the Marian dog. We started already now to get them ready because it's going to be a work, but it'll be a good work because there's a lot of misunderstanding and even ignorance about the mystery of the redemption and the unique role played by, the Blessed Mother as the Mother of God, the Son Incarnate. And this, God willing, these five years will help us to understand that mystery more deeply, and it's the mystery of our salvation. Well, okay, this brings us to our first question from Twitter, which is from Thiago Vinhas, who says, "Ask the Cardinal, why does he worship and pray for Mary, or maybe to Mary, if Jesus says he is the only way and no one comes to the Father, except through Jesus?" First of all, I don't worship Mary. I worship her divine Son, and that's what she's all about. The last words of our Blessed Mother in the Gospel at the wedding feast of Cana, she takes the wine stewards, this very embarrassing moment, they're out of wine for the wedding guests. She takes them to our Lord and says, "Do whatever he tells you." Absolute confidence that he would help them. And so we, our Lord, of course, he alone is our God, our Savior, but as he was dying on the cross to save us, he spoke to St. John, the Apostle and Evangelist, representing the whole church, "Behold your mother." In other words, he gave his mother to us as our mother, to, in that way that she was the first to accept him in her womb, the announcement of the Archangel Gabriel, accept the Redeemer into the world. She helps us to draw near to him and to accept him as our Savior. She's incomparable help. And how could we know God incarnate, God who united our human nature to his divine nature in the womb of the Virgin Mary, and not know his mother and love her? She, it was her fiat when she said to the angel, 'cause she couldn't understand how this could be that she, she was a virgin. She was a consecrated virgin, she couldn't understand how she would have this child, and the Archangel explained to her that it would be the work of the Holy Spirit. And then she said, "Let it be done according to your word." And that for us is the beginning of our salvation, because God the Son has entered the world, conceived in the womb of the Virgin Mary, to save us. - I think at a very plain level, I try to be respectful of my friends' mothers. - I would think so. - And I think the mother of God probably, probably deserves even more respect than that. - Exactly, exactly. - Okay, the next question is from Tyler, sorry, Thomas Bowers. "How does a person who believes in a higher power, but not the church, find a way to come to Christ?" You know, this became very popular in recent decades. People felt spiritual, but not religious. They believed in some higher power, but not organized religion. And so, I'm kind of dismissive of that now, even though I once thought that as a teenager. Maybe that's why I'm dismissive of it now. But I think there are a lot of people who earnestly think, look, I want to find God, but I don't know, I don't buy this church stuff and the smells and the bells. Why does it need to be organized and so formal? - I think that, first of all, that a person has this attraction to the supernatural, to the divine, is already a sign of grace at work. And then they need to answer the question, who is God? And that, we find the answer to that in his revelation of himself in the Holy Scriptures and in the whole tradition of the church, which embodies both the covenants of the Old Testament and the new and eternal covenant of the New Testament. And I think, basically, there's only one way that they will be able to respond to that attraction, and that is in the Catholic church, where in which the fullness of the revelation of our Lord is taught. St. Paul, you might remember, he spoke in the Areopagus. And the Athenians, at that time, were very progressive people and so forth. So they had this altar to what they called to the unknown. And he spoke to them. on their own terms. - That's exactly it. that we can't, God calls us to himself, but in the integrity of his own being, not to make our own God, like in the Old Testament, the story of the Tower of Babel, the people thought that they could build a structure to reach up to God instead of worshiping, exactly as you put it, worshiping in the way in which God teaches us, and they had it all in the Old Testament scriptures, and all of the details about divine worship to respect God as the origin of all being, the source of all being, and our participation in his being, but as his children, not as other gods. Right, right. Well, on the particulars of what God tells us to do, we have a question from one of our Hebraic writers here. This is, let me see if I can pull it up, here it is. This is from, I lost it, here we are. This is from my Jewish friend who happens to be sitting right over there, who's an associate producer of this show, Jacob Falach, who says, with respect to his eminence and Catholics at large, how do, you never, nothing good is going to follow from that. With respect to, no offense intended, you know you're going to hear the most offensive thing ever. He says, how do Catholics reconcile the belief that Jesus is the figurative third temple as described by the prophets, as well as the final sacrifice for humanity's sin, when Ezekiel specifically gives the temple's measurements, 500 by 500 cubits, and also says sacrifices will occur on it by the priests. Was Ezekiel therefore a fraud, according to Catholic belief? Well, no. All the prophets are preparing the way for the fulfillment of what they were teaching. And yes, the temple was a prefigurement of God's work. of God's work. of God's work. He was dwelling with us in the most extraordinary, most perfect way possible, by taking our own human nature, uniting it to his divine nature, becoming one with us in order to save us. And so in the Old Testament, Ezekiel, all the law and the prophets, as it sometimes is called, is all pointing, leading to our Lord. And he himself said in the Sermon on the Mount, I've not come to you, I've come to abolish the law and the prophets, but to bring them to their fulfillment. And so we understand that all of the care for the dimensions of the temple, for the appointments in the temple and so forth, all of that is in view of this perfect dwelling of God with us by the redemptive incarnation. And so we accept, as the book of the prophet Ezekiel is part of the canon of Holy Scriptures for us, as it is also for the people of Jewish faith, and we see nothing contradictory in it. Yes. You know, I was just reading through Genesis yesterday, actually, and it occurred to me, a lot of the commentary, especially from atheists and unbelievers, is they'll try to debunk the Bible. And if you try to debunk the Bible, you will succeed at whatever it is you're attempting to do. You know, even in the first two chapters of Genesis, you can find an apparent contradiction, which is in one of the tales of the creation, the plants come before the humans. And in the other tale, the humans come before the plants. So in modern times, people will just say, well, there you go. There's a contradiction. It's not inerrant. It's not divinely inspired. I can go on and do what I please. But if you, you're not going to get a lot out of the book if you begin that way. If instead you begin and you say, well, look, based on this historic fact, namely that the crucifixion and resurrection of our Lord, if we can like believe that this book has something to offer us, that maybe, you know, 2000 years of Christians haven't all been a bunch of adults, then you can say, okay, well, there are actually different angles on the account of creation, a cosmic angle and an anthropological one. You know, when our Lord says to forgive our brother 77 times, he's not telling us not to forgive him 78 times. That's right. It seems to me that if Ezekiel is giving numbers for the temple, there might be a deeper significance to that, figurative or moral or anagogical. Of course, it's the order of God, the order that he intended from the beginning, which was disrupted by the sin of Adam and Eve. And so this right order, this proportion, the beauty of it, all of that is meant to bring us back to him. And eventually, to recognize him at his coming as the anointed of the Lord, the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. And so that's the way, yes, and you point out for centuries, the most learned of men have been studying the Holy Scriptures, writing commentaries on them, and only to preach the faith, to announce the faith to others. Not to come up with these artificial contradictions, as you say, to debunk the Bible. Yeah, good luck, good luck. This is one thing we need to get over, that our generation is the first to discover the truth about things. All of us, our life is a gift, and also so much culture and knowledge is given to us a gift, and the faith of most of all. And we ought to be deeply grateful for that, and to deepen it, not to be prideful and think that, "Well, I can do better than this." Yeah, you know, I think about this in particular with regard to St. Thomas Aquinas, because I go back to St. Thomas so frequently. I just think, when I have a disagreement with Thomas Aquinas, I think I have to assume he's right. That's not necessarily going to be the case, but I think betting odds are he's going to be right. And this is true for all of the great doctors of the church, church fathers who precede us. There's St. Augustine, St. Gregory the Great, St. Leo the Great, Irenaeus, all the great fathers of the church, and they all fundamentally are in agreement with each other, but studying these truths from different angles, from different approaches, and even using different metaphors, different forms of literature to present the truth. Yeah. Even when some of my Protestant friends would kind of razz each other about religion, and they would go after me and say the Eucharist is a kind of developed tradition, or praying to Mary, to use the example we just cited. That's a new thing you Catholics invented. And I think, you know, the early Christians kept pretty good notes. So you can go back to Justin Martyr and, you know, the very early Christian writers talking about the Eucharist. You can go back to the, I think it's the Rylands Papyrus with the first prayer to the Blessed Mother, in the second century. Oh, yes, yes. So to him, precede him under your protection. Now, this is exactly the case. And we have in the catacombs in Rome from the very first centuries, images of the Mother of God, of the Blessed Mother holding the child Jesus. Clearly, the people professing their faith in her divine maternity, and in that way, professing most of all their faith in both the divine and human nature, in the one person of our Lord. Next question. I hope we've answered that from my colleague and friend Jacob. Next question, this is from, this also sort of relates to Judaism, but it's more from a Protestant angle. This is from Ruslan K.D., who is a prominent Protestant apologist. He says, "If Protestants are separated brethren in imperfect communion with the Church, why does Catholicism actively seek their full communion with Rome, while the Vatican says it does not support any specific institutional mission aimed at converting Jews? What is the theological distinction?" Well, the Church proclaims the truth to everyone, to Jews, to Protestants. We believe that in the Church, one finds the announcement of the fullness of the revelation of God in Christ, His Son, and in the Church, He calls His mystical body. And so we don't, we announce that to everyone. We don't force anybody, everyone to become a Christian, become Catholic. But we certainly, if we didn't think that salvation came to us through the Church, why are we members of the Church? Why don't we, it just becomes indifferent that, well, you could be Jewish, or you could be Protestant, and what, why am I a Catholic? Because I believe that the fullness of the means for my eternal salvation are found in the Catholic Church. And I announce that, not with any kind of condescension or anything else, but simply, this is what we believe, and this is why we believe it, and people will understand, will either accept it, or they won't, but it's-- - They are invited to, though. - Yes, yes. - They are, yeah. And so we pray for the unity of the church because we don't believe that our Lord intended that there be all these denominations of Christians. And we know historically how all of this came about, and we pray for the reconciliation of those divisions. Well, okay, there's one last group that we haven't touched on then. We've got the Protestants, we've got the Jews. The one last group that is especially represented on Twitter, the Eastern Orthodox. Oh, yes. There are a lot of ortho bros on Twitter. And one of them asks, he might, I think he's Orthodox, he's at least interested in the question, from Verger Grandeson. The filioque, why is it important? Well. This might be the only even semi-popular podcast that is going into the filioque today, but I'm actually quite interested in it. Yes, well, I, to be honest with you, I don't understand the objection to it. In other words. If one understands that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are of the same substance, but three distinct persons, that the action of the Father is with the Son in the Holy Spirit. And so I, to be honest with you, and I haven't studied this in great depth, but I. I think if this is understood correctly, I don't see where the Orthodox would have a difficulty. Now, they, it is true historically, it was added a little later, but not much later. So, for the people who don't follow these sort of Latin controversies, the filioque means with the Son. With, yes. And this was a controversy between the West and the East in antiquity, because the original creed says, the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father. Yes. And then we were dealing with the heresy of Arianism, which denied the divinity of Christ. So, there was a clarification that was added, said the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. The Son, yes. And the Eastern Orthodox don't like that. So, if you go into an Eastern church, they don't, they don't put the, and the Son part. Right, and, but I don't think it's because they don't believe that the Holy Spirit came forth from the Father and the Son, from the, that, because of the. The Trinity is one, and it would be even, our Lord said, the Father and I are one, and he, and he said, I've come to do the will of my Father, and the agony in the garden, he says, not my will, but thy be done. And so, I think, because in Nicaea, the filioque wasn't there, Constantinople was added, the church, over time, finds always. Fuller expressions of her truths, but the truth didn't change. It's just, to me, it's just a fuller expression of it. So, I, I, I trust that at some point, this will, there'll be a piece about this. I, hopefully, this side of the eschaton, because I, you know, in the show, I, I talk about politics, ostensibly, and there's always culture and religion brought in, but it's a political show, which I think helps me understand this filioque controversy, and the split between the East and the West, because it, the split strikes me much more as a political split than a theological split. You would know more about it than I do. Well, there's a lot of truth to that. I wouldn't be prepared right at this moment to go into it, but there is a, there is a, a definite political aspect, the involvement of the, of the Emperor of the East, and so forth, in, in matters of the church, and I think. I think that has to be looked at very, I, I know that that has to be looked at very seriously. All right, so the next question is from Father Victor Feltes, who says, "What signs in our time give his eminence the greatest concern, and which give him the greatest hope?" The signs that give me the, the greatest concern is this rebellion against the law of God. We see it in so many ways, for instance, in the attack on the, inviolability of human life, the attack, the attack on the integrity of marriage, the attack on the freedom to worship God as He, as He teaches us to worship Him. Those are my great concerns, also for our own, our own country, and, and this 250th anniversary. The plague of abortion, we have procured abortion, over a million children are killed in the womb in this country every year. That's, that's horrible. People mutilating themselves because they think they have the right to determine their sexual identity, which is a gift that's given to us at birth. We should be happy with the gift as God gave it to us, not that, but, and all that, all of this is, is on, on the part of man, taking, it's, it's fundamentally a prideful act, that taking the place of God, that I should be able to decide when human life begins. When I, my life should end, what, what sexual identity, male or female, and those things concern me the most. And I think they're the font of a lot of other related concerns about the violence, for instance, in society today. I think when you want a society, well, we just saw in these days in Massachusetts, they signed into law, law which permits the killing of a baby right up to the moment of birth. And the, the governor who signed it is ostensibly Catholic. Yes, this is, and the image I saw were of these young women cheering on, I, I don't know if they were young mothers or whatever, but there's something about that that's so disordered, and so that concerns me the most. What gives me the greatest hope is I, I see among many young people, a desire to really lead a good and, and holy life. We find that the religious communities that are most, the most demanding are receiving great numbers of vocations. Many young people returning to church, and they, they want the more, the more ancient usage of the Roman rite. Yes. The beauty of the classical Roman liturgy, all of these are very positive signs, and I see many more families now with more children, and that's also a good sign. I remember when I was a young priest, there was this idea that, also supposedly inspired by a care for the, the planet, that people shouldn't have more than one or two children, and I remember when I was a young priest, this mother came up to me in tears, it was in the Catholic school, and she had announced to one of the teachers that they were going to have their third baby, and the teacher said to her, "Don't you think you should have more regard for, for. " For the rocks? Yes. For the trees? Yes, for the environment, and not be overpopulating. Well, these are the kind of things, but I think that's past, and I see many positive signs, and I, I hope we need to raise up in our country leaders, real statesmen who have principles, who, who respect the natural law, and who see that any positive law has to be rooted in, in the order that God has placed in, in creation, so you don't have these Supreme Court decisions that tell people that they can, they can decide what, what their. A new definition of marriage, for instance? Exactly, right. Right now, go to puretalk.com/knolls. There are certain things in life that deserve a lot of thought: faith, family, the state of the church, the future of the country. Your wireless bill should not be. One of those things, okay? I have had my Pure Talk phone in service for six years now. It's unbelievable. Pure Talk makes cell phones incredibly simple. Right now, for the first time ever, any Pure Talk plan is just 15 bucks a month for your first three months. Any plan. That includes their unlimited high-speed data plans, even their top-tier plan. Whether you're calling your family, watching this interview, listening to a homily, or spending entirely too much time arguing with strangers on the internet, you can get the service you need without paying an absurd amount for it. No service contract, no cancellation fee. You should not need a law degree to sign up for a cell phone. Pure Talk is veteran-led, 100% U.S.-based customer service. Right now, you can save up to 150 bucks during your first three months. This offer is extremely short-lived. Make the switch while it is available. puretalk.com/knolls to make the switch to Pure Talk. That is puretalk.com/knowles to start saving now. There's a lot in there. On the point of the young people returning, it seems. I travel around a lot. Maybe not as much as you, but I travel around a lot. And I go to a lot of different parishes. Sometimes, Novus Ordo, you know, the New Mass, and I prefer the traditional Latin Mass, as do many of my age cohort. And I've noticed the parishes are filling up, and younger people are going. But if you want the real young people, and especially the real young people who have lots of kids, who are really into it and really on fire, it does seem to me that skews toward the traditional Latin mass. - Yes. - The Novus Ordo parishes tend to be older, fewer kids, more open seats, just an observation. No, it is true. One time, whether highly placed figure in the church made the comment that once all these older people die out, there won't be any requests for the traditional Latin Mass. And I found that rather amusing. I said, obviously, he never went to one of those Masses because they're filled with young families, young people in general, but also young married people, and they have many children. There are a lot of crying babies and so forth. I'm responsible for a few of those crying babies every week. Well, I used to say to priests when they would express impatience, I said, don't be impatient. That's the future of the church. Let them cry. People will hear what they need to hear from you. But anyway, I have a very good friend who's the Archbishop of Utrecht, Cardinal Wilhelm Eich, and he's told me, that in the last years in Holland, where it seemed like the church was dead, really, I mean, the participation was so low, that now the young people are coming back in great numbers. But he told me, he said, they want the traditional liturgy. They want something that speaks, not that the more recent usage is valid. There's no question about that and so forth. But the more ancient usage, it communicates more fully and more richly the divine action. This is our Lord Jesus Christ who's come down to renew on the altar, to make sacramentally present his sacrifice on Calvary. And the young people are simply, they're attracted. And then they want that. And he said, then they want to know what the church teaches about things. They don't want everybody saying, oh, everything is fine, you're just fine. Be nice. Yes, as one young person said to me, came to see me to ask me some questions. He said, I've come to see you. And don't tell me that I'm all all right, I'm a sinner. And we all are. But I think this is a really a positive sign. But know that, as far as I can see, there will be an ever greater number of Catholics who are worshiping the way that we worshiped for over 50 years. And that's good. for over 15 centuries, and there's nothing contradictory about that. There's this idea that somehow the form of the Roman Rite up until the reforms after the Council is all bad. No. Well, you know, I will get back to the Twitter questions, but one just for myself on this point, which I care about a lot. Thank you. Thank you. Like the earlier question, when people say, why do you have to pray to Mary? Why do you have to pray to the saints? You can just pray to God directly. I say, well, I can. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, I can do that. But why wouldn't I avail myself of all the help I can get? And I think that for the people who say, well, the new form of the Mass is valid, so why don't you just go to that? I say, yeah, it's valid, and I can, and I do go to that sometimes. But if you have a lot of young people who are desiring this use of the Mass that we had for 1,500 years, that they feel is speaking to them and nourishing them in a special way, and they're really drawn to that, why wouldn't, why would you restrict that? You know, Pope Francis restricted the traditional Latin Mass after Pope Benedict had liberated or acknowledged that it never should have been suppressed in the first place. So where would you say that stands right now as we're in a new pontificate looking ahead? I'm not asking you to predict the future, but how do things look right now? I think that the most important thing is for those who love the traditional Latin Mass to make known to their bishops and to the Holy Father, most of all, their desire to worship according to this form, and that they're not calling into question the validity of the Second Vatican Council, but that they're simply saying that this form of the Mass, which was never suppressed and never could be, the fact of the matter is it's been celebrated continuously even in our time, and more people desire this. Exactly as you say, if they're nourished spiritually in this way, and they become more committed to the faith, why should we deny that? I don't know. I don't know how to answer that to them. I remember visiting an archdiocese and always whenever to celebrate a pontifical Mass according to the more ancient usage, and I always write a letter to the bishop saying I'm coming and that I'd be happy to meet him if he has time to greet him. And I remember this, I went to this one diocese, and it was a beautiful Mass, very well attended, a wonderful, an old church that had been kept up well. And I have to say that bishop came himself and attended the whole Mass and greeted all the people. But when I met with him, he said to me, you know, he said, I have no attraction to it. But he said, those that do are some of our most devout Catholics. They show the most respect toward me as bishop and are very generous with what I ask them to do. And he said, they're clearly spiritually nourished. He said, why would I deny that? Right, right. It just doesn't make sense. It does seem to, you don't have to predict the future, but I will. And I'm a pundit, so if I get it wrong, I have no responsibility whatsoever. It does seem to me that the future of the liturgy will very likely be closer to the past than it will be to the recent moment. That shouldn't surprise us because that is the whole nature of our faith. St. Paul said when he wrote to the Corinthians, because already at that time there were abuse in the Eucharist, and he wrote to them in a very strong way. First of all, he gave the account of the institution of the Eucharist. And when he did that, he said, I'm handing on to you that which I first received. He wasn't handing on to them something that he made up or that was his, but what he received. And so we received along the centuries, this beautiful form of the Roman rite. As Pope Benedict XVI said, what is beautiful and good. What is good at one time doesn't suddenly become bad, and so that it would be recovered and even maybe more and more, the liturgical expression of the church wouldn't surprise me at all. Okay, now, see, this is evidence as to why I want to ask my questions instead of taking them from Twitter. This comes from Stevie Mac. He says, "Could God make a burrito so expensive that he could not buy it?" Now, this comes after, there was a big debate on social media over the affordability and the cost of burritos. And I think there actually is a serious theological question hidden in there. Could God make a burrito so expensive he couldn't buy it? Or as it's sometimes put, can God make a stone so heavy that he couldn't lift it? Well, let us put it this way, if I may, and maybe I don't understand the question correctly, but God made us with intellect and free will. God is the creator of reason, of right reason, and he also revealed himself to us in his fullness through the Holy Scriptures and first through the people of God, the Jewish, the Hebrew nation, then the fulfillment of their faith and the Catholic faith. But he doesn't contradict himself. So God, they say, "Can God make a square circle?" Well, it's a ridiculous question. In his revelation, St. Thomas is brilliant on this, and also other great theologians. But we, in the revelation that God gives, even in the miracles that he works, they all are perfectly in harmony with the beauty of creation and express its perfection. They don't contradict it. And so this, you know, when God heals the sick, restores someone to health, whatever it may be, God is not perfect. He is the God of reason and the God of divine revelation, and it's the same God. Well, this, you know, Pope Benedict got in a lot of trouble at the Regensburg Address because he pointed out the differences between the Muslim conception of God and the Christian conception. And in it, he was quoting this Muslim writer, Ibn Hazm, who said that in the Islamic conception and this kind of voluntarist conception, God is totally transcendent. So if he wanted to demand that his followers worship idols, he could do that. Whereas the Christian understanding of God, as synonymous with the Logos, is different. It's not pure will. It's reason also. Yes, absolutely. And that is a distinct difference between Islam and Christianity. But even, for instance, if we take the story, it's a powerful account of the sacrifice of Isaac. God promised Abraham and Sarah that they would have a child even though they were dead. And so, you know, it's a powerful account of the sacrifice of Isaac. And so, you know, it's a powerful account of the sacrifice of Abraham. But it wasn't God's will. And in fact, and so poor Abraham, heartbroken, leads his little boy up to the mountain to sacrifice him according to the Lord's command. And at the moment when he was going to sacrifice him, an angel comes and stops him and says, no. And so God can test us in various ways, but he doesn't contradict himself. And Isaac, of course, he had his son Jacob and then the 12 sons of Jacob and the whole, from which descends then our Lord himself. And even not merely, I was just reading that this morning or last night, that not merely is God testing Abraham's faith, but he's also prefiguring what he himself will allow him to do. Our Lord carried the wood of the cross, the cross to Calvary. And God gave his, what he would not ask us to do himself, that he offered his own son for our salvation to save us. Next question from Oreo, with an I, not like the cookie, O-R-I-O, says, would it be beneficial for the world if the Vatican gave up its wealth? We hear this question. We hear this question a lot throughout history. No, it would be detrimental to the world because the Vatican's wealth is all history and beauty, all having to do with the history of the church, with the beauty of her worship. And these are the great treasures of our tradition. And to give those up would be a sign of a lack of respect for the tradition itself and would deprive the future generations of being able to, for instance, what they see in the Vatican museums or in St. Peter's. And no, there's plenty of wealth to meet the needs of the world. And it's in our pockets. And we need to come forth and help all of us as we can with the needs of those who are poor, with the other needs in the church. But the answer is not to, you know, selling chalices and precious vestments and so forth that come from along the centuries. Those are, for us, rich treasures. In a way, when I was an atheist, I was very attracted to those arguments. But then I realized not only would it be a bad thing to do, but it wouldn't help the poor. You would actually be robbing the poor in the sense that when we used to build big, great cathedrals and we were, you know, we had lots of beauty all over our churches. That is a gift to the poor. You know, I'm a successful cigar salesman. I sell enough cigars that I can go travel to places and see nice art if I want to do it. But it was the case for a lot of the history of Christendom that peasants could go and see the most beautiful marvels that I now have to pay a lot of money to get on an airplane to go fly to the places that still remain. These were, you know, these were opportunities These were open to everybody. And I even think of it, not to belabor the liturgical point, but I think, I was in Italy. I go to a mass at a papal basilica, Santa Maria Maggiore. And I'm there with my family, but I'm the only Italian of the crew. The rest of my family, they don't speak Italian. So they're saying the mass in Italian. And so I can understand it reasonably well. They can't understand it. But the changing of the liturgy to the vernacular is supposed to make it more accessible to everyone. And I thought, all of these people here are tourists, and none of them are Italians. Italians don't go to church anymore. So they're all tourists. Probably none of them speaks Italian. Very few of them. And ironically, had the liturgy not been put into the vernacular, the liturgy would have been more accessible to everybody who was in this room. It would have, in fact, seemed like their home parish, even if it were on the other side of the world. I remember when I was a boy, sometimes neighbors or people we knew would take a trip to a place like Japan or something. And it was always their comment that, they went to church, and the mass was exactly the same as in my hometown of Richland Center or wherever it was. And that's the beauty of the Latin liturgy. And that's quite correct. Now, in fact, in St. Peter's, it used to be that any priest could celebrate a mass there. It's from 7 o'clock in the morning. There are, of course, many altars. And the priest would come in with a little group of faithful and celebrate the Holy Mass. Now, they stopped that. But they say the priest should concelebrate Mass in Italian. But that doesn't make any sense because Italian is not a universal language. I love Italy and I speak Italian and I'm very fond of the Italian people. But Latin is our common language. Yes. I mean, the Italians, for better or worse, they were never that good at colonizing anyway. So, really, not that many people speak it. No. And they don't have kids anymore in Italy either. So, it's. Yes, not ideal. But I want to make a comment, too, about the poor. Several years ago, I was invited to Barcelona by an apostolate for the street people. These were young, devout Spanish Catholics who have a love for the traditional liturgy, but they were caring for the people who live on the street. And so, they invited me to offer a pontifical mass at the Church of Our Lady of Montserrat, the Shrine of Our Lady of Montserrat, just. Just above Barcelona. And they bused all of the street people there for the mass. The people said, well, there you are with all these fancy vestments and so forth and this very elaborate liturgy and these poor people. They were thrilled to death. Of course. And they saw it as a great sign of respect that we would give them the finest that the Church has to offer in terms of a beautiful mass. And I was very touched. In fact, many of them, they wanted to touch me and they expressed their happiness to have been there. And then we had a nice meal there. But it was all. It was very appropriate. Yes. Yeah. Because it's a sign of respect to dress up for mass on Sunday. It's a sign of respect. I think if I would put on some nice clothing to go meet a congressman, surely I should put on nicer clothing to go see God. And the sign of respect goes the other way, too. If you're. If you're going to the far reaches, the, you know, flung places to the marginalized people, to present the fullness of the liturgy is very respectful of the people as well. Sure. No, exactly. And I remember as a boy, too, I grew up on a dairy farm in rural Wisconsin. Thanks be to God, my parents sent me to a Catholic school. The sisters there were teaching us to sing Palestrina and, of course, Gregorian chant. And we were just simple farm children. You could have said, well, you know, as farm children, just entertain them with guitar music or something. But, in fact, we were being given a great gift. And to this day, I have such an appreciation for that beautiful music that, of course, God willing, it's more and more sung in the churches, churches, too. But, yeah. I agree. And I have. And I was raised not with the beautiful Gregorian chant. No, I was raised more with the guitar music. Yes. And every day that goes by, I hear less and less of it in church, and I'm happy to. I'm happy to see it. Apropos of that point, Tyler Lazarus writes, if Cardinal Burke could bring any Christian from the first century into a Catholic mass today, what would that early Christian recognize? You know, sometimes hear that a lot of what we consider distinctly Catholic is a creation of the Middle Ages. And if you took a first or second century Christian into a mass, they just wouldn't recognize any of it. Oh, I think they. What they would recognize would be that. the substance of worship as they worshiped, but with all of the deeper appreciation for it and the beauty and so forth that was. which they knew that in their form of worship, but has found along the centuries this ever greater development in terms of the rites themselves, the beauty of the. investments and vessels and so forth. But fundamentally, they would recognize the same. Well, actually, the mass begins with the same prayers that the high priest used before entering the temple were the prayers at the foot of the altar, Psalm 42, and the other prayers that quote the scriptures and so forth. But then they would see the proclamation of the Word of God, and then its realization in the offering at the mass. And I think they would be deeply moved to see how that great mystery that they knew had founded an ever fuller expression along the centuries. Two questions. I know you have to go, but two questions before you go. One is, and I get. I hear this a lot myself. The church is attacked for supporting open borders. Why does the. The Vatican has a wall. Why does the church have a wall? - Yeah. church support open borders. Is that a fair charge? And do we have to support open borders if we're Catholics? No, the church is teaching with regard to immigration. It's never been contained, the principle of open borders. We're told that we're to receive those who are true refugees and other immigrants to the degree that we're able to properly accommodate them in society. And of course, open borders, we saw what happened recently in Spain where there was this influx of people in the Spanish government. They had to send them back, but they weren't refugees. They were people who were coming to- Fighting age men. Exactly right. Economic migrants. Right, exactly. So, no, that's, I know that some Iraqs have said this, that to be a Catholic, you have to say that anybody has the right to come in. That's not true. Even Pope Leo has acknowledged. The countries have a right to regulate who comes in. Exactly. And what about the safety of the people, both the people who already live in the country, but of anybody who comes into the country? If you just have open borders, we've seen what happens. You can have criminals coming in who are coming to perpetrate horrible crimes that result in people's death and other evils. And so that has to, you can't have that. Imagine if Pope St. Pius V had supported open borders at the Battle of Lepanto. The West would look very different right now. Yes, that's the other thing, too. People say every war is evil. That's not true. The Battle of Lepanto was a great good. It saved the church from being destroyed and overcome by Islam. Were those men who landed on Omaha Beach to liberate Europe from the Nazi invasion, were they engaged in an evil act? I don't think so. Not at all. And people hear this, they're deeply hurt because they have relatives and so forth who gave their lives to defend freedom. So we have to think more deeply about that. We have to think more about these questions. War is something we always want to avoid. But as far as I understand, as long as man is affected by the original sin, as long as there will be wars and conflicts, we have to try to be as much as we can be agents of peace. But in the same way, too, with the borders, yes, we welcome, and I quite agree with it, people say, well, neighbors who have been in the country for 30 years but aren't properly documented, to come in and seize them and deport them, we need to address each situation with reason and charity. Yes. But to say, yes, to say that the battles of Lepanto, Vienna, Poitiers, that those were not just wars, I think they were probably pretty just, you know? Good enough for St. Pius V, good enough for me. Yes. And the times have changed with the kind of weapons and things we have, but the people still have a right to defend themselves against unjust aggressors. Yes. And I know we have mere minutes left, but this has been too highbrow for Twitter. This has been much too polite and highbrow. So I'll give the usual denizens of Twitter one question before we go. This is from Sam the Boat Guy. "Has God revealed to the Cardinal any upcoming sports championships or winning lottery numbers that we should meditate upon?" No, God doesn't get into that. God only tells us what we need to do. And that's what we need to save our souls. And I don't think that we'll save our souls with winning lottery numbers. No, no. And I try to avoid sports betting, which is very good for me this year as a Yankee fan because I would have lost a lot of money. Your eminence, obviously people can follow you all over. And I hope that they all sign up at sempervirgo.org. Oh, yes. We'd love to have you so you can receive those messages. And I did, when I asked for the questions, I did receive notes. Notes and comments. They didn't even have questions. They said, "Just tell Cardinal Burke we love him." Well, thank you very much. I can say, getting back to the top of it, no flattery whatsoever, not even just being starstruck, but it is a great honor to be with one of the great men of the church of our age or of any age. Well, thank you, Michael, very much. God bless you and your work. Thank you. See you next time.