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A recent sermon at the SSPX chapel in St. Marys, Kansas (in January of 2013), was introduced and based upon the following quote: The virtue of obedience means, not only subjecting your will, but also your judgment. Since obedience is such a touchy issue these days, we would like to examine obedience in much greater detail. We hope to shine a clearer light on what obedience is and what it is not. We will quote from many traditional sourcesHoly Scripture, the Magisterium of the Church, the Fathers and Doctors of the Church, the Saints, the moral theologians, canon law, and other general sources, such the Catholic Encyclopedia and similar works, not to mention the guiding lights of the SSPXArchbishop Lefebvre, the Superior Generals who followed him and the other bishops of the SSPX. No human person has unlimited authority. All authority comes from God and must be used in a way that agrees with His Divine Laws (John 19:11).
DEFINITIONS OF OBEDIENCE
Obedience is a moral virtue which inclines the will to comply with the will of one who commands (St. Thomas Aquinas). The extent of obedience is only as wide as the authority of the person commanding. THUS, OBEDIENCE TO GOD HAS NO LIMITS, WHEREAS OBEDIENCE TO MEN IS LIMITED (1) by higher laws, which must not be transgressed by the commands issued by superiors to their subjects, and (2) by the limited competency of superiors. Sins contrary to obedience are, by excess, servility or indiscriminate obedience (Fr. Dominic Prmmer, O.P., the moral theologian whose manuals were used for the course of Moral Theology at Ecne in the time of Archbishop Lefebvre).
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It is written (Acts 5:29): "We ought to obey God rather than men." Now sometimes the things commanded by a superior are against God. Therefore superiors are not to be obeyed in ALL things. There are two reasons, for which a subject may not be bound to obey his superior in all things. FIRSTLY, on account of the command of a higher power. For as a gloss says on Rom. 13:2, "They that resist [ Vulg.: 'He that resisteth' ] the power, resist the ordinance of God" (cf. St. Augustine, De Verb. Dom., viii). If a commissioner issues an order, are you to comply, if it is contrary to the bidding of the proconsul? (for a proconsul is of higher rank than the commissioner). Again if the proconsul commands one thing, and the emperor commands another (the emperor being of higher rank than the proconsul), will you hesitate to disregard the proconsul and serve the emperor? [Of course not!] Therefore, if the emperor commands one thing and God [commands] another, you must disregard the emperor and obey God. SECONDLY, a subject is not bound to obey his superior if the latter command him to do something in which he is not subject to him. For Seneca says (De Beneficiis, iii): It is wrong to suppose that slavery falls upon the whole man: for the better part of him is excepted. His body is subjected and assigned to his master, but his soul is his own. Consequently, in matters touching the internal movement of the will, man is not bound to obey his fellow-man, but God alone. (End of quote from St. Thomas Aquinas)
BLIND OBEDIENCE
There are some people who trust lawful authority to direct them without fail. When faced with a directive, they neither seek to know options and consequences, nor think, reason or deliberate over their choices. They simply trust that lawful authority will stay within the bounds of its power. This attitude is not true obedience, nor is it virtuous. Only when lawful authority stays within the bounds of its power do we have to obey . However, such obedience is not blind. This is the kind of false obedience that Archbishop Lefebvre speaks of, when he says: Satans masterstroke is to THOUGHTS ON OBEDIENCE Page 3
have succeeded in sowing disobedience to all Tradition through obedience. (Archbishop Lefebvre & The Vatican; Preface to 1st edition, Fr. Franois Laisney, December 8, 1988).
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We will refer to Bishop Tissier de Mallerais explanation of the authority within supplied jurisdiction in later articles, and look at how that applies in concrete circumstances. For now, it is enough that we have familiarized ourselves with the text. Every Catholic can and must resist anyone in the Church who lays hands on his Faith, the Faith of the eternal Church, upheld by his childhood catechism. The defense of his Faith is the first duty of every Christian, more especially of every priest and bishop. Wherever an order carries with it the danger of corrupting Faith and morals, disobedience becomes a grave duty. (Archbishop Lefebvre, Letter to Friends & Benefactors, no. 9, 1975).
AN OPEN LETTER TO CONFUSED CATHOLICS by Archbishop Lefebvre Chapter 18: True and False Obedience
Indiscipline is everywhere in the Church. Committees of priests send demands to their bishops, bishops disregard pontifical exhortations, even the recommendations and decisions of the Council are not respected and yet one never hears uttered the word disobedience, except as applied to Catholics who wish to remain faithful to Tradition and just simply keep the Faith . Obedience is a serious matter; to remain united to the Churchs Magisterium and particularly to the Supreme Pontiff is one of the conditions of salvation. We are deeply aware of this and nobody is more attached to the present reigning successor of Peter, or has been more attached to his predecessors, than we are . I am speaking here of myself and of the many faithful driven out of the churches, and also of the priests who are obliged to celebrate Mass in barns as in the French Revolution, and to organize alternative catechism classes in town and country. We are attached to the Pope for as long as he echoes the apostolic traditions and the teachings of all his predecessors. It is the very definition of the successor of Peter that he is the keeper of this deposit. Pius IX teaches us in Pastor Aeternus: The Holy Ghost has not in fact been promised to the successors of Peter to permit them to proclaim new doctrine according to His revelations, but to keep strictly and to expound faithfully, with His help, the revelations transmitted by the Apostles, in other words the Deposit of Faith. The authority delegated by Our Lord to the Pope, the Bishops and the priesthood in general is for the service of faith. To make use of law, institutions and authority to annihilate the Catholic Faith and no longer to transmit life, is to practice spiritual abortion or contraception. This is why we are submissive and ready to accept everything that is in conformity with our Catholic Faith, as it has been taught for two thousand years, but we reject everything that is opposed to it. For the fact is that a grave problem confronted the conscience and the faith of all Catholics during the pontificate of Paul VI. How could a Pope, true successor of Peter, assured of the assistance of the Holy Ghost, preside over the most vast and extensive destruction of the Church in her history within so short a space of
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time, something that no heresiarch has ever succeeded in doing? One day this question will have to be answered. In the first half of the Fifth Century, St. Vincent of Lrins, who was a soldier before consecrating himself to God and acknowledged having been tossed for a long time on the sea of the world before finding shelter in the harbor of faith, spoke thus about the development of dogma: Will there be no religious advances in Christs Church? Yes, certainly, there will be some very important ones, of such a sort as to constitute progress in the faith and not change. What matters is thatin the course of agesknowledge, understanding and wisdom grow in abundance and in depth, in each and every individual as in the churches; provided always that there is identity of dogma and continuity of thought. Vincent, who had experienced the shock of heresies, gives a rule of conduct which still holds good after fifteen hundred years: What should the Catholic Christian therefore do if some part of the Church arrives at the point of detaching itself from the universal communion and the universal faith? What else can he do but PREFER THE GENERAL BODY WHICH IS HEALTHY TO THE GANGRENOUS AND CORRUPTED LIMB? And if some new contagion strives to poison, not just a small part of the Church but the whole Church at once, then again his great concern will be to attach himself to Antiquity which obviously cannot any more be seduced by any deceptive novelty . In the Rogation-tide litanies the Church teaches us to say: We beseech thee O Lord, maintain in Thy holy religion the Sovereign Pontiff and all the orders of ecclesiastical hierarch y. This means that such a disaster could very well happen. In the Church there is no law or jurisdiction which can impose on a Christian a diminution of his faith . ALL THE FAITHFUL CAN AND SHOULD RESIST WHATEVER INTERFERES WITH THEIR FAITH, supported by the catechism of their childhood. If they are faced with an order putting their faith in danger of corruption, THERE IS AN OVERRIDING DUTY TO DISOBEY. It is because we judge that our faith is endangered by the post-conciliar reforms and tendencies, that we have THE DUTY TO DISOBEY AND KEEP THE TRADITION. Let us add this, that the greatest service we can render to the Church and to the successor of Peter is TO REJECT THE REFORMED AND LIBERAL CHURCH. Jesus Christ, Son of God made man, is neither liberal nor reformable. On two occasions I have heard emissaries of the Holy See say to me: The social Kingdom of Our Lord is no longer possible in our times and we must ultimately accept the plurality of religions. This is exactly what they have said to me. Well, I am not of that religion. I do not accept that new religion. It is a liberal, modernist religion which has its worship, its priests, its faith, its catechism, its ecumenical Bible translated jointly by Catholics, Jews, Protestants and Anglicans, all things to all men, pleasing everybody by frequently sacrificing the interpretation of the Magisterium. We do not accept this ecumenical Bible. There is the Bible of God; it is His Word which we have not the right to mix with the words of men. When I was a child, the Church had the same faith everywhere, the same sacraments and the same Sacrifice of the Mass. If anyone had told me then that it would be changed, I would not have believed him. Throughout the breadth of Christendom we prayed to God in the same way. THE NEW LIBERAL AND MODERNIST RELIGION HAS SOWN DIVISION.
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Christians are divided within the same family because of this confusion which has established itself ; they no longer go to the same Mass and they no longer read the same books. Priests no longer know what to do; either they OBEY BLINDLY what their superiors impose on them, and lose to some degree the faith of their childhood and youth, renouncing the promises they made when they took the Anti-Modernist Oath at the moment of their ordination; OR ON THE OTHER HAND THEY RESIST, but with the feeling of separating themselves from the Pope, who is our father and the Vicar of Christ. In both cases, what a heartbreak! Many priests have died of sorrow before their time. How many more have been forced to abandon the parishes where for years they had practiced their ministry, victims of open persecution by their hierarchy in spite of the support of the faithful whose pastor was being torn away! I have before me the moving farewell of one of them to the people of the two parishes of which he was priest: In our interview on the... the Bishop addressed an ultimatum to me, to accept or reject the new religion; I could not evade the issue. Therefore, to remain faithful to the obligation of my priesthood, to remain faithful to the Eternal Church... I was forced and coerced against my will to retire... Simple honesty and above all my honor as a priest impose on me an obligation to be loyal, precisely in this matter of divine gravity (the Mass)... This is the proof of faithfulness and love that I must give to God and men and to you in particular, and it is on this that I shall be judged on the last day along with all those to whom was entrusted the same deposit (of faith). In the Diocese of Campos in Brazil, practically all the clergy have been driven out of the churches after the departure of Bishop Castro-Mayer, because they were not willing to abandon the Mass of all time which they celebrated there until recently. Divisions affects the smallest manifestations of piety. In Val-de-Marne, the diocese got the police to eject twenty-five Catholics who used to recite the Rosary in a church which had been deprived of a priest for a long period of years. In the diocese of Metz, the bishops brought in the Communist mayor to cancel the loan of a building to a group of traditionalists. In Canada six of the faithful were sentenced by a Court, which is permitted by the law of that country to deal with this kind of matter, for insisting on receiving Holy Communion on their knees. The Bishop of Antigonish had accused them of deliberately disturbing the order and the dignity of religious service. The judge gave the disturbers a conditional discharge for six months! According to the Bishop, Christians are forbidden to bend the knee before God! Last year, the pilgrimage of young people to Chartres ended with a Mass in the Cathedral gardens because the Mass of St. Pius V was banned from the Cathedral itself. A fortnight later, the doors were thrown open for a spiritual concert in the course of which dances were performed by a former Carmelite nun. TWO RELIGIONS CONFRONT EACH OTHER; we are in a dramatic situation and it is impossible to avoid a choice, but the choice is not between obedience and disobedience . What is suggested to us, what we are expressly invited to do, what we are persecuted for not doing, is to choose an appearance of obedience. But even the Holy Father cannot ask us to abandon our faith. We therefore choose to keep it and we cannot be mistaken in clinging to what the Church has taught for two thousand years. The crisis is profound, cleverly organized and directed, and by this token one can truly believe that the master mind is not a man, but Satan himself . FOR IT IS A MASTER-STROKE OF SATAN TO
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GET CATHOLICS TO DISOBEY THE WHOLE OF TRADITION IN THE NAME OF OBEDIENCE. A typical example is furnished by the aggiornamento of the religious societies. By obedience, monks and nuns are made TO DISOBEY THE LAWS AND CONSTITUTIONS OF THEIR FOUNDERS, which they swore to observe when they made their profession. Obedience in this case should have been a categorical refusal. Even legitimate authority cannot command a reprehensible and evil act. Nobody can oblige anyone to change his monastic vows into simple promises, just as nobody can make us become Protestants or modernists. St. Thomas Aquinas, to whom we must always refer, goes so far in the Summa Theologica as to ask whether the fraternal correction prescribed by Our Lord can be exercised towards our superiors . After having made all the appropriate distinctions he replies: ONE CAN EXERCISE FRATERNAL CORRECTION TOWARDS SUPERIORS WHEN IT IS A MATTER OF FAITH. () WHAT WILL TOMORROWS RELIGION BE IF WE DO NOT RESIST? You will be tempted to say: But what can we do about it? It is a bishop who says this or that. Look, this document comes from the Catechetical Commission or some other official commission. That way there is nothing left for you but to lose your faith. But you do not have the right to react in that way. St. Paul has warned us: Even if an angel from Heaven came to tell you anything other than what I have taught you, DO NOT LISTEN TO HIM. Such is the secret of TRUE OBEDIENCE.
(End of extracts from chapter 18 from Archbishop Lefebvres book, OPEN LETTER TO CONFUSED CATHOLICS)
DEGREES OF OBEDIENCE
2357. The Degrees of ObedienceAscetical authors (meaning authors on the spiritual life) distinguish three degrees of obedience: (a) external obedience, which per-forms with exactness the thing commanded though there is no heart or willingness in its act; ( b ) internal obedience, which joins willingness to external submission though the judgment doubts the wisdom or value or good faith of the command; (c) blind obedience, which submits the judgment itself to the superior's judgment, provided of course the thing ordered is not clearly sinful (Matt. 9:9; Gen. 22:3 sqq.; Matt. 2:13 sqq.). (Moral Theology, McHugh, O.P. & Callan, O.P., Vol. 2, Q. 2, Art. 6). Notice that the above degrees of obedience are quoted by spiritual authors. Usually, in the spiritual life, the commands given by the spiritual director are dealing with perfecting a soul. The commands may be varied, but they all (we presume) are GOOD IN THEMSELVES, and not sinful, or in danger of leading to sin. For example, we have the story of the monastery abbot testing the obedience of one his monks in the presence of all the community, by telling to take his staff an plant it in the garden. The monk winced. He felt it was a stupid thing to do, and perhaps felt he was being ridiculed or humiliated. Nevertheless, he overcame his repugnance at the command and did what he was told, even though it made no sense to him. He returned and informed the abbot that he had fulfilled the command. The Abbot then told him, in the presence of all the community, to go back and water itand to continue watering the staff three times a day! The monk couldnt believe what he was hearing! Nevertheless, he did as he was told. You can imagine the comments and behind the scenes laughter that must have gone on among the other monks. THOUGHTS ON OBEDIENCE Page 8
However, a short while later, it was noticed that the old wooden staff had sprouted a blossom, a flower! God rewarded his blind obedience with a miracle!
must obey God rather than man (Acts, 5:29; Rom. 3:8); neither may one obey a subordinate official who commands something clearly opposed to the law, or to the regulations of his own superior. It does not belong to the subject, however, to sit in judgment on his superior, and hence, unless the unlawfulness of a command is manifest, the subject must presume that it is lawful. (Moral Theology, McHugh, O.P. & Callan, O.P., Vol. 2, Q. 2, Art. 6). (b) It is not necessary to obey a human superior when his command exceeds his competency, or when he orders things over which he has no control. (Moral Theology, McHugh, O.P. & Callan, O.P., Vol. 2, Q. 2, Art. 6). It is clear, too, that no superior may command the execution of what is physically or morally impossible, and generally a subject should not be required to practice heroic virtue (e.g., to expose his life to danger). (Moral Theology, McHugh, O.P. & Callan, O.P., Vol. 2, Q. 2, Art. 6).
principle announced recently at a St. Marys sermon on obedience: The virtue of obedience means, not only subjecting your will, but also your judgment? When he was asked to postpone the 1988 Episcopal Consecrations why did the Archbishop not comply? It would not have been a sin to postpone the Consecrations! He could have said: It is the Holy Father who really wants it! He is the Pope, after all! Should he not have followed the principle announced recently at a St. Marys sermon on obedience: The virtue of obedience means, not only subjecting your will, but also your judgment? When Rome sent a car to Ecne, the night before the Consecrations, and asked the Archbishop to get into that car and come to Rome why did the Archbishop not comply? It would not have been a sin to postpone the Consecrations! Should he not have followed the principle announced recently at a St. Marys sermon on obedience: The virtue of obedience means, not only subjecting your will, but also your judgment? It would not have been a sin to go to Rome! He could have said, It is the Holy Father who really wants it! He is the Pope, after all! Archbishop Lefebvre had submitted one name after another to Rome as his desired candidates for consecration to the episcopacy, but Rome refused one candidate after another, saying: They do not fit the profile we require. Why, then, did the Archbishop consecrate some of those candidates when his superiors in Rome had refused them as not suitable? Should he not have followed the principle announced recently at a St. Marys sermon on obedience: The virtue of obedience means, not only subjecting your will, but also your judgment? He could have said, It is the Holy Father who really wants it! He is the Pope, and after all, he is my superior and he knows best! Hmmmm! Just a few examples and thoughts on obedience from the life of Archbishop Lefebvre a man for whom we are praying that he might be beatified! He knew when to obey and when to disobey. Thanks be to God!
We accept this jurisdiction and this law when they are at the service of the Faith. But who can be the judge of that? The Tradition, the Faith taught for 2000 years. Every Catholic CAN AND MUST RESIST ANYONE IN THE CHURCH WHO LAYS HANDS ON HIS FAITH, the Faith of the eternal Church, upheld by his childhood catechism. The defense of his Faith is the first duty of every Christian, more especially of every priest and bishop. Wherever an order carries with it the danger of corrupting Faith and morals, DISOBEDIENCE BECOMES A GRAVE DUTY. It is because we believe that our whole faith is endangered by the post-conciliar reforms and changes, THAT IT IS OUR DUTY TO DISOBEY, AND TO MAINTAIN TRADITIONS. The greatest service we can render the Catholic Church, the successor of Peter the salvation of souls and of our own, is to say NO! to the reformed Liberal Church (Archbishop Lefebvre, Letter to Friends and Benefactors, No. 9, 1975)
Popes teach different things; it is not possible that the Popes gainsay each other, that they contradict each other. And this is why we are convinced that in being faithful to all the Popes of yesterday, to all the Councils of yesterday, we are faithful to the Pope of today, to the Council of today and to the Council of tomorrow and the Pope of tomorrow. We are in apparent disobedience, in reality, we are not disobedient, but obedient. How are we obedient? In believing in our catechism and because we always keep the same Credo, the same Ten Commandments, the same Mass, the same Sacraments, the same prayerthe Pater Noster of yesterday, today and tomorrow. This is why we are obedient and not disobedient . Consequently, we have a clear conscience whatever may happen to us. If we are apparently disobedient, we are really obedient. This is our situation. And it is right for us to tell this, to explain it, because it is we who continue the Church. Really disobedient are those who corrupt the Sacrifice of the Mass, the Sacraments and our prayers, those who put the Rights of Man in the place of the Ten Commandments, those who transform the Credo. Because that is what the new catechisms do. (Archbishop Lefebvre, Poitiers, September 3, 1977)
Church, that EACH OF THE FAITHFUL HAS THE DUTY OF NOT OBEYING ORDERS CONTRARY TO THE FAITH. The obedience to ecclesiastical superiors finds a limit, in fact, when something harmful or clearly damaging is proposed or ordered in the name of obedience. (Archbishop Lefebvre, Ecne, June 29, 1977)
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Now all the theologians, worthy of this name, teach that if the pope, by his acts, destroys the Church, WE CANNOT OBEY HIM (Vitoria: Obras, pp.486-487; Suarez: De fide, disp.X, sec.VI, no.16; St. Robert Bellarmine: de Rom. Pont., Book 2, Ch.29; Cornelius Lapid: ad Gal. 2,11, etc.) and he must be respectfully, but publicly, rebuked. The principles governing obedience to the popes authority are the same as those governing relations between a delegated authority and its subjects. They do not apply to the Divine Authority, which is always infallible and indefectible and hence incapable of failing. To the extent that God has communicated His infallibility to the pope and to the extent that the pope intends to use this infallibility, which involves four very precise conditions in its exercise, there can be no failure. Outside of these precisely fixed conditions, THE AUTHORITY OF THE POPE IS FALLIBLE and so the criteria which bind us to obedience apply to his acts. Hence it is not inconceivable that there could be a DUTY OF DISOBEDIENCE with regard to the pope. The authority which was granted him was granted him for precise purposes and in the last resort for the glory of the Holy Trinity, for Our Lord Jesus Christ, and for the salvation of souls. Whatever would be carried out by the pope in opposition to this purpose would have NO LEGAL VALUE and NO RIGHT TO BE OBEYED, nay, rather, it would OBLIGE US TO DISOBEY, in order for us to remain obedient to God and faithful to the Church. This holds true for everything that the recent popes have commanded in the name of Religious Liberty or Ecumenism since the Council: all the reforms carried out under this heading are deprived of any legal standing or force of law. In these cases the popes use their authority contrary to the end for which this authority was given them. THEY HAVE A RIGHT TO BE DISOBEYED BY US. (Archbishop Lefebvre, March 29, 1988).
UNREFERENCED QUOTE
Satans masterstroke is to have succeeded in sowing disobedience to all Tradition through obedience. (Archbishop Lefebvre & The Vatican; Preface to 1st edition, unreferenced quote of the Archbishop by Fr. Franois Laisney, SSPX)
CONCLUSION
AUTHORITY
Obedience presupposes a command or a law; and a command or laws presuppose the one issuing them having a legitimate authority. It was already noted that no human person has unlimited authority. The only authority he or she has is strictly within their particular religious or secular domain. All authority comes from God and must be used in a way that agrees with His Divine Laws (John 19:11). Whatever God has ruled must be followed, it cannot be changed. Not even a priest, a bishop, or the Pope himself, can change the laws of God. Rather, the Magisterium of the Church is entrusted with the task of guarding the Deposit of Faith, not changing it (2 Timothy 1:14). Human laws include ecclesiastical laws and secular laws. They have the primary goal of expressing Gods laws in concrete circumstances. Human laws have limits in the exercise of authority. These limits must be consistent with Divine Laws and cannot be exaggerated, or they will not be legitimate. To the extent human laws reflect Divine Law; they protect the Common Good and must be followed. Commands or laws that go against the Divine Law must be ignored and disobeyed, and in many circumstances we have an obligation to resist them actively. THOUGHTS ON OBEDIENCE Page 16
The extent of obedience is only as wide as the authority of the person commanding. THUS, OBEDIENCE TO GOD HAS NO LIMITS, WHEREAS OBEDIENCE TO MEN IS LIMITED (1) by higher laws, which must not be transgressed by the commands issued by superiors to their subjects, and (2) by the limited competency of superiors. Sins contrary to obedience are, by excess, servility or indiscriminate obedience [meaning unquestioning slave-like obedience in all things] (Fr. Dominic Prmmer, O.P., the moral theologian whose manuals were used for the course of Moral Theology at Ecne in the time of Archbishop Lefebvre).
Today, the attitude of many priests seems to indicate that they think have a permanent and absolute authority over the faithfulwhich is why there is no tact, nor prudence, nor wisdom in their manner of commanding. Some even manage to create an impression of being bullies.