The Apostasy Cardinal Burke Won’t Name and the Pope He Won’t Correct

Unmasking the Vatican's Silence: How Unanswered Dubia and Unmet Demands Signal a Crisis of Apostasy

The Vatican has been caught, again, in a blatant deception, this time over the very document that declared war on the traditional Latin Mass. We now know that the bishops consulted in 2020 overwhelmingly opposed restrictions on Summorum Pontificum. The “episcopal wishes” Pope Francis claimed to be honoring in Traditionis Custodes were either misrepresented or ignored outright. The real decision, it seems, came from a few unelected bureaucrats in the Congregation for Divine Worship, not from the shepherds of the Church.

This revelation, rightly dubbed “Vatican Watergate,” should have rocked the foundations. Instead, we get silence, or worse, calls for “patience.” The institutional machine doesn’t blink. And neither, apparently, does Cardinal Raymond Burke.

The Apostasy That Dare Not Speak Its Name

Burke recently preached on the Fatima message, warning of the “practical apostasy” infecting the Church: souls turning from Christ, clergy living in contradiction to the Gospel, and spiritual confusion reigning. It’s a bold phrase. But what exactly is this apostasy? Who is driving it? Burke never says.

And that’s the problem.

If Leo XIV is the true pope, as Burke insists, then isn’t it his job to end the apostasy? To stop the confusion, reassert doctrine, and reverse the damage? Burke seems to sense the storm but refuses to name the captain steering the ship into it. He denounces the storm clouds but salutes the helm.

No Correction, No Clarity

When Francis refused to answer the five Dubia, questions directly asking whether his teachings contradicted Scripture and Tradition, Burke issued no formal correction. No call for renunciation. No public appeal for repentance. Only silence, followed by exile.

Now, under Leo, we are told that this is a new day. A man of “interiority” and “community,” an Augustinian friend of the peripheries. But nothing essential has changed. Traditionis Custodes remains in force. Bishops loyal to the Mass of the Ages are still being replaced. The “errors of Russia,” materialism, collectivism, and doctrinal relativism, continue to spread from Rome, not in opposition to it.

Where is Burke’s call for the Holy Father to fulfill Our Lady’s requests, not with vague gestures or ambiguous prayers, but with a clear and public consecration? Where is his demand that Leo condemn the lies of Fiducia Supplicans, the banishment of tradition, and the ongoing global synodal revolution?

If the apostasy is real, and it is, why is its architect allowed to remain on the Chair of Peter?

The Myth of Francis the Outlier

Part of the psychological trick lies in the illusion that Francis was an aberration, an isolated liberal interlude. Now that Leo is here, continuity will return. But continuity with what?

Leo’s election was hailed as a moment of global ecclesial unity. Why? Because, we are told, he “checked all the boxes”: mission field, peripheries, collegial diplomacy. Above all, he worked closely with Francis. This is not reform, but regime consolidation. A smoother operator advancing the same program with more tact and fewer headlines.

And yet we’re told to wait. To trust. To see who Leo really is. As if the calendar erased what came before.

The Crisis Is Not Just Policy, It’s Truth

Burke speaks movingly of those who live contrary to the Faith, who spread confusion and embrace lies. But it is precisely official Vatican documents, from Amoris Laetitia to Traditionis Custodes to Fiducia Supplicans, that have codified those lies.

They have formalized confusion.

The Latin Mass wasn’t simply restricted. It was accused of fostering “division,” and those attached to it were accused of being “ideologically distorted.” The Mass canonized by Trent and loved by the saints is now, according to the Vatican’s highest liturgical officials, a threat to unity.

This is not mere policy, but theological inversion. The truth has been rebranded as dangerous. And the pope remains silent, or complicit.

The “Supreme Law” of Sentiment

In a recent Angelus address, Leo XIV declared that the supreme law is to “serve life by caring for others,” even before society’s rules. Sounds noble. But where is the “supreme law” of divine worship? Of doctrinal clarity? Of saving souls?

Charity without truth is not love. It’s flattery. And the Church is being drowned in it.

Leo invokes eternity but replaces it with activism. He speaks of salvation but makes it horizontal. The Gospel is reduced to accompaniment. And yet the men charged with guarding the faith remain mute, afraid of “schism,” or of losing their pensions.

Conclusion: Burke’s Broken Compass

Cardinal Burke has spent years warning about the crisis in the Church. But warnings are no longer enough. If the apostasy is real, then the silence about its source is complicity. The faithful deserve clarity. Not euphemism. Not sentimentality. Not empty appeals to “Fatima.”

Our Lady did not come to request general prayers. She asked for repentance, for consecration, for a return to Catholic truth. And she warned what would happen if that call went unheeded.

We’re living in the aftermath.

If Leo is pope, Burke should demand that he condemn the lies, repeal Traditionis Custodes, and restore the Mass. If he won’t, then he should finally issue that formal correction he threatened and never followed through on. If not, he should stop pretending that the crisis can be solved from within the walls that built it.

The apostasy has a name. And so does the silence that enables it.