(LifeSiteNews) —In a video message recorded August 6 at the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in La Crosse, Wisconsin, for readers of Fr. Z’s blog, Cardinal Raymond Burke issued a stirring call to Catholics discouraged by ongoing restrictions on the traditional Latin Mass.

He urged the faithful to “fight for it” even “at the cost of suffering,” so that this “tremendous good in the church” remains “as available as possible to all the faithful who desire it.”

Cardinal Burke began his short address by emphasizing the foundational role of the family, stating, “I want to, in a very special way at this time, to encourage a strong family life.”

And all of us, whether we’re married or not, are related to the family and can be agents to promote a strong family life. It’s the first place in which a child is introduced to the truths of the faith, to the life of prayer, and to a good and holy life. So only with strong families will the church be strong, and in that way be the sign of salvation in the world.

This focus on family life resonates with the cardinal’s recent preaching. On the Feast of St. James the Greater in late July, also at the Our Lady of Guadalupe shrine, the former prefect of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura declared that defending marriage and the family may demand martyrdom.

“Let us be ready for martyrdom, if not the red martyrdom of blood, certainly the white martyrdom of faithful witness to Our Lord in the face of indifference, ridicule, and persecution,” he stated.

Drawing on the example of St. James and the late Servant of God Father John Hardon, he recalled that the faithful “must prepare themselves to suffer greatly, even to undergo martyrdom, in order to be faithful to the teaching of Christ in His Church.”

Cardinal Burke’s emphasizing the necessity for Catholics to fight and suffer to retain the traditional Latin Mass follows from his conviction that the usus antiquior remains absolutely essential to Catholic identity.

In a July interview tied to the Chartres pilgrimage, the cardinal from Wisconsin described the traditional liturgy as “an invaluable treasure of the Church that must be preserved and cherished, for it is intimately linked to the very identity of the Roman Catholic Church.”

READ: Cardinal Burke says Latin Mass is ‘intimately linked to the very identity’ of Catholic Church

He noted the traditional rite’s missionary power, observing, “It is evident that this liturgy is missionary … for it attracts through its sense of the sacred and of the transcendent. This is particularly evident with the younger generation.” Cardinal Burke insisted it is “absolutely unacceptable” to claim that Catholics using the 1962 books are somehow less fully Catholic.

In a June interview after Pope Leo XIV’s second extraordinary consistory of cardinals, Burke again addressed the “persecution of the Traditional Latin Mass,” calling the vetus ordo “an eternal good in the Church, a form of the Roman Rite that was celebrated for more than 15 centuries.”

“It’s simply so beautiful and the faithful are nourished spiritually by this form of the Latin Rite. This should be allowed freely,” he affirmed.

The cardinal has repeatedly framed current restrictions stemming from Traditionis Custodes as unjust suffering inflicted on devout Catholics. Yet, in his statement above, he remains confident that “Our Lord will never permit that it be lost.”

Cardinal Burke also linked those concerns to broader challenges facing the Church. In the same consistory interview, he insisted that “this whole synodality business” must “stop” and undergo “a very serious study,” warning that it risks conforming the Church to “a worldly way of thinking” rather than remaining “one, holy, catholic and apostolic.” He stressed that fidelity to doctrine and the sacred liturgy is non-negotiable for the salvation of souls.

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