"You Are Implying That The Pope Could Lead A Schism? Cardinal Burke, 'Yes'"

"We were repeatedly told that the Family Synod was not about permitting active adulterers to receive Communion, Cardinal Burke told Ross Douthat, 'But in the end, that is what it was about.'

He further observed that the final document of the Amazon Synod doesn’t repudiate those statements in the Instrumentum Laboris 'which constitute an apostasy from the Catholic faith.'

Burke hypothesises that Francis approves this document, and people would say: 'If you don’t accept that, you’ll be in schism.'

He replies, 'I would not be in schism because the document contains elements that defect from the Apostolic Tradition. So, my point would be the document is schismatic. I’m not.'

Douthat stresses that such thoughts imply the pope were leading a schism. Burke: 'Yes.'

He admits that 'I don’t know how to address such a situation' as Church Law offers no mechanism to deal with it. Nevertheless, for Burke there is no situation that would justify the equivalent of what Archbishop Lefebvre did,

'People come to me and say, look, cardinal, it’s time, we have to go into schism. And I say no, it’s not possible. Our Lord can’t want that, and I’m not going to be part of any schism.'

Burke also sees no possibility to claim that Francis 'is not the pope.'"