The following comes from a May 11 LifeSiteNews article by Pete Baklinski:

Cardinal Raymond Burke stated on the weekend that faithful Catholics must “resist” a perspective within the Church that seeks to undermine the truths of the Catholic faith regarding the indissolubility of marriage and the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist. The general theme of the talk was “Martyrdom for the Faith in Our Times” and it was presented within a Rome Life Forum emphasis on concerns about Pope Francis’ recent document Amoris Laetitia.

“Of particular concern to me is a growing mundane perspective, a man-centered and world-centered perspective, especially in the Church,” he said, adding that the perspective expresses itself in a “secular understanding of the divine realities.”

He was speaking to pro-life and pro-family leaders gathered at the Roman Life Forum conference in Rome on May 7.

“For example, today in the Church, there are those who refer to the objective reality of the grace of marriage as merely an ideal to which we more or less seek to conform ourselves,” he said.

Last month Pope Francis released his post-synodal exhortation on the family, titled Amoris Laetitia. In his first response to the document, Cardinal Burke had taken issue with the frequent use of the word “ideal” in reference to Christian teaching on marriage.

In Amoris Laetitia Pope Francis wrote, “At times we have also proposed a far too abstract and almost artificial theological ideal of marriage, far removed from the concrete situations and practical possibilities of real families,” adding that this “excessive idealization” of marriage “has not helped to make marriage more desirable and attractive, but quite the opposite.”

At another place Pope Francis suggests that “many people feel that the Church’s message on marriage and the family does not clearly reflect the preaching and attitudes of Jesus.”

In his critique Cardinal Burke had observed,

“Such a description of marriage can be misleading. It could lead the reader to think of marriage as an eternal idea to which, in the changing historical circumstances, man and woman more or less conform. But Christian marriage is not an idea; it is a sacrament that confers grace upon a man and woman to live in faithful, permanent and procreative love of each other. Every Christian couple who validly marry receive, from the moment of their consent, the grace to live the love that they pledge to each other.”

The cardinal also stated that Amoris Laetitia is not magisterial, but rather a “personal reflection” of the pope.

While not mentioning Amoris Laetitia explicitly, Cardinal Burke warned conference participants of an interpretation of Catholicism, in particular on marriage and access to the sacraments, that leads to “confusion” since it is not based in the truth of the faith.

“The mundane vision, which, because it is not true, leads to confusion and division within the Body of Christ, ends up by denying the fundamental principle of right reason, called the principle of non-contradiction, namely the law that a thing cannot be and not be in the same respect at the same time.”