Law cannot be proof-texted. These canons do not stand alone but need administering.
Unless I am mistaken, Cardinal Burke is not a diocesan bishop. The names that keep popping up here on these posts fit a pattern, at least to my eyes. I am convinced this topic is more political than canonical.
This one can be readily understood even by laymen.
Which only means that he cannot apply the law, not that he cannot comment on it. He is also a canon lawyer and was, under BXVI, the Prefect of the Apostolic Signatura, which, apart from the pope himself, is the highest judicial authority in the church.
There is no doubt that this topic has political implications inasmuch as the sanction would apply overwhelmingly to one political party. Oh well. Is this really an argument that bishops should subordinate their moral obligations to their political concerns? Either bishops have the moral obligation to deny communion in accord with canon 915 or they don’t; the political implications are irrelevant.
How is it political?
Check the point in context, that is, how this is (the comments by Cardinal Burke, this thread, and those posting here) political.
Yes he did. Because of his public nature, and his notoriety as a Catholic who fully supports abortion, such admonition seems quite appropriate. The issue, and the danger here, is one of scandal. It is not Biden alone who is at risk, but so are other Catholics who share his views on abortion.
Therefore it is more important to make this point, not less. Why should we act as if political concerns outweigh moral ones?
Unless there’s more to back it up it is just a coincidence.
True enough, though the weighing in the present day that the church has done and from which it has concluded CP is “inadmissible” is ultimately a prudential judgement (noting that CP is not intrinsically evil), thus a person may in good faith disagree. There is no such freedom to argue that abortion is not evil.
Yet a person may not in good faith claim that the death penalty should be applied for retributive reasons.gracepoole:
True enough, though the weighing in the present day that the church has done and from which it has concluded CP is “inadmissible” is ultimately a prudential judgement (noting that CP is not intrinsically evil), thus a person may in good faith disagree. There is no such freedom to argue that abortion is not evil.
I think the language around this gets messy. There is much written (in Catholic literature) on the purposes (primary and secondary) of punishment and I would not be confident it accords fully with your statement (though nor is that literature Gospel). However to go there would take the thread far of course!