Vatican Cardinal Burke: One-World Government Is ‘Totalitarian’

Differentiating from Pope Francis, who recently endorsed a globalist worldview while calling for governments to cede some (not all) of their authority to supranational bodies, Cardinal Raymond Burke recently extolled the virtues of patriotism while denouncing one-world government as inherently totalitarian.

According to LifeSiteNews, Cardinal Burke gave an address at the Rome Life Forum on Friday in which he claimed that natural law permits patriotism “in accord with the order written upon the human heart” and “does not make just and legitimate a single global government.”

“Before the challenges of our time, there are those who propose and work for a single global government, that is, for the elimination of individual national governments, so that all of humanity would be under the control of a single political authority,” said Burke. “For those who are convinced that the only way to achieve the common good is the concentration of all government in a single authority, loyalty to one’s homeland or patriotism has become an evil.”

Cardinal Burke likened this call for global government as a Tower of Babel that stems from a pride to build heaven on earth in which all people are syncretized under one system.

“The divine authority, in accord with the order written upon the human heart, does not make just and legitimate a single global government,” reiterated Burke. “In fact, the divine law illumines our minds and hearts to see that such a government would be, by definition, totalitarian, assuming the divine authority over the governance of the world.”

“On the contrary, God meets us and orders our lives for the good in the family and in the homeland,” he said.

Though not in direct contrast with Pope Francis (who has not endorsed one-world government) the cardinal’s comments do differ with the pope in some key respects. For instance, Pope Francis recently said that the “common good has become global” and even criticized the nation-state for being unable to meet this human need.

“In the current situation of globalization not only of the economy but also of technological and cultural exchanges, the nation-state is no longer able to procure the common good of its population alone,” Pope Francis told the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences earlier this month. “While, according to the principle of subsidiarity, individual nations must be given the power to operate as far as they can, on the other hand, groups of neighboring nations — as is already the case — can strengthen their cooperation by attributing the exercise of certain functions and services to intergovernmental institutions that manage their common interests.”

Issues like climate change and human trafficking were just two examples that Pope Francis cited that call for a “supranational common good.” Pope Francis also touched on the issue of nationalism, which he says has sparked a rise in distrust toward migrants and a neglect of the “common good.”

Pope Francis and Cardinal Burke do at least appear to be in agreement that patriotism is a social good, although they differ on how a specific nation’s patriotism should harmonize with world events.

See all of Cardinal Burke’s remarks here.