It is possible that Burke's motivation is that he likes to tell people they can't receive communion. But there is also a good reason to insist the Pope be clear about what he means.


The analogous secular principle is government by law and not by man. It's a historical fact that the most stable and equable way to tell people what they may freely do and what they will be sanctioned for doing is to have clear, public, uniformly-enforced laws. 

Telling people that their priest or bishop can choose to be a nice guy if he finds them sympathetic and doesn't think their situation will scandalize the ambient culture is neither just nor equable. It means some people get a pass and others get denied and nobody ever knows why which person is permitted to do what is forbidden to others. 

It's also a gigantic temptation for the priest or bishop to become a tyrannical little monster; and if there's one thing the Catholic Church doesn't need right now, it's more tyrannical little monsters.