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

**Michael Knowles** (0:00)
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.

**Raymond Leo Cardinal Burke** (0:07)
They say, can God make a square circle?
It's a ridiculous question. A circle is a circle and a square is a square. God doesn't contradict himself.

**Michael Knowles** (0:15)
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.

**Raymond Leo Cardinal Burke** (0:51)
Thank you for the invitation. I'm pleased to be with you.

**Michael Knowles** (0:55)
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 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 to 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.

**Raymond Leo Cardinal Burke** (1:51)
Yes.

**Michael Knowles** (1:52)
And you obviously are rather interested in that subject, with the shrine, etc.

**Raymond Leo Cardinal Burke** (1:57)
Yes, we're making our plans for a five-year preparation for the quintentennial, 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 them. So we'll begin on December 12th of this year, with a year devoted to her maculat 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.

**Michael Knowles** (2:39)
So I know people can go to sempervirgo.org.

**Raymond Leo Cardinal Burke** (2:42)
Yes, go there and you can register. And every day, we've taken on, thanks be to God, 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 meditation for people to help them to prepare for this historic event.

**Michael Knowles** (3:04)
I can barely muster a handful of tweets every day on my random usings, and you will have a teaching on the Marian dog.

**Raymond Leo Cardinal Burke** (3:10)
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 our 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.

**Michael Knowles** (3:41)
Well, okay, this brings us to our first question from Twitter, which is from Thiago Vinjas, 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?

**Raymond Leo Cardinal Burke** (3:59)
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 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?