Tuesday, October 31, 2006
Submission to God
RE: Comment by reader on OPEN LETTER: Will Pending Indult Split The Church
First, I would like to thank you for leaving a comment. I think the issue here is that our understanding of Obedience may differ. I do not say that yours is wrong and that mine is right. I'll just give my opinion and let the rest of the readers make their decision.
We need to submit ourselves to God before doing likewise to any civil leadership, although we still need to acknowledge that just and righteous instruction does come from God and deserves our allegiance as long as that leadership is moral in its requests. Obedience to authority is what makes a nation civilized. If there were no laws in set in place by a legitimate authority, any country would be in chaos.
Listening to God and the consequences of not following His instructions are shown quite clearly throughout scripture. Adam and Eve lost their right to live in Eden because they failed the test in following God's instructions.
In the Gospel, Jesus tells us, "Render to Ceaser what is his and to God what belongs to God."
So what is true obedience?
According to the great theologian, St. Thomas Aquinas, true obedience is a balance between twin errors of defect and excess, which are disobedience and false obedience. Today this second error is common among Catholics who, when they follow orders to depart from Tradition, think they are being obedient. As Catholics our obedience is always found within tradition.
It has always been the teaching of the Church that obedience is part of justice, one of the four cardinal virtues. We must remember that the Cardinal virtues are subordinate to the theological virtues of faith, hope and charity. Faith is therefore greater than obedience!
So if obedience acts to harm the faith, then a good Catholic has a duty not to obey his superior. I hope up to here I answered you question on 'disobedience' to the local ordinary.
St. Paul. In the introduction of his letter to the Galations, he states clearly that "but though we , or an angel from heaven, preach a gospel to you besides that which we have preached to you, let him be anathema" (1:8). Also, great theologian Saint Thomas Aquinas has this to say, "now sometimes the things commanded by a superior are against God, therefore superiors are not to be obeyed in all things." (Summa Theoligica II-IIQ. 104). But many Catholics, forgetting that Catholic obedience is relative to the Faith and Tradition, think obedience is an absolute, with only one opposite, disobedience.
Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre said that, "Satan's masterstroke is to have succeeded in sowing disobedience to all Traditon through obedience (ie. false obedience)." Well, some readers might say that this quote should not be regarded at all since it comes from the SSPX's founder. Reject it by all means.
But remember, Pope Leo XIII in Diuturnum Illud states, "And there is no reason why those who obey God rather than men should be accused of refusing obedience; for if the will of rulers is opposed to the will and the laws of God, these rulers exceed the bounds of their own power and pervert justice, nor can their authority then be valid, which, when there is no justice, is null."
And how about Sacred Scripture? The Book of the Acts of the Apostles tells us that "we ought to obey God... rather than men" (5:29) and St. Paul in Galations rebuked the Galations saying, "O senseless Galatians, who hath bewitched you, that you should not obey the truth...... who hath hindered you, that you should not obey the truth?" (3:1, 5:7).
Like I mentioned in my Open Letter, it is not those who are keeping tradition that are causing disunity but rather those who oppose it. It is the modernists who are causing anarchy and confusion by disobeying sacred traditions. CATHOLIC OBEDIENCE MUST ALWAYS BE TO THE FAITH.
Don't forget that our first Pope, St. Peter was publiclly rebuked by St. Paul when there was close danger to the Faith. And so as it was in St. Peter's day, so must it be today where "all disciplinary authority, all obedience to a bishop presupposes the pure teaching of the Holy Church. Obedience to the bishop is grounded in complete faith in the teaching of the Holy Church. As soon as the ecclesiastical authority yields to pluralism in questions of faith, it has lost the right to claim obedience to its disciplinary ordinances." (Professor Dietrich von Hildebrand, The Devasted Vineyard, 1973, pp 3-5).
First, I would like to thank you for leaving a comment. I think the issue here is that our understanding of Obedience may differ. I do not say that yours is wrong and that mine is right. I'll just give my opinion and let the rest of the readers make their decision.
We need to submit ourselves to God before doing likewise to any civil leadership, although we still need to acknowledge that just and righteous instruction does come from God and deserves our allegiance as long as that leadership is moral in its requests. Obedience to authority is what makes a nation civilized. If there were no laws in set in place by a legitimate authority, any country would be in chaos.
Listening to God and the consequences of not following His instructions are shown quite clearly throughout scripture. Adam and Eve lost their right to live in Eden because they failed the test in following God's instructions.
In the Gospel, Jesus tells us, "Render to Ceaser what is his and to God what belongs to God."
So what is true obedience?
According to the great theologian, St. Thomas Aquinas, true obedience is a balance between twin errors of defect and excess, which are disobedience and false obedience. Today this second error is common among Catholics who, when they follow orders to depart from Tradition, think they are being obedient. As Catholics our obedience is always found within tradition.
It has always been the teaching of the Church that obedience is part of justice, one of the four cardinal virtues. We must remember that the Cardinal virtues are subordinate to the theological virtues of faith, hope and charity. Faith is therefore greater than obedience!
So if obedience acts to harm the faith, then a good Catholic has a duty not to obey his superior. I hope up to here I answered you question on 'disobedience' to the local ordinary.
St. Paul. In the introduction of his letter to the Galations, he states clearly that "but though we , or an angel from heaven, preach a gospel to you besides that which we have preached to you, let him be anathema" (1:8). Also, great theologian Saint Thomas Aquinas has this to say, "now sometimes the things commanded by a superior are against God, therefore superiors are not to be obeyed in all things." (Summa Theoligica II-IIQ. 104). But many Catholics, forgetting that Catholic obedience is relative to the Faith and Tradition, think obedience is an absolute, with only one opposite, disobedience.
Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre said that, "Satan's masterstroke is to have succeeded in sowing disobedience to all Traditon through obedience (ie. false obedience)." Well, some readers might say that this quote should not be regarded at all since it comes from the SSPX's founder. Reject it by all means.
But remember, Pope Leo XIII in Diuturnum Illud states, "And there is no reason why those who obey God rather than men should be accused of refusing obedience; for if the will of rulers is opposed to the will and the laws of God, these rulers exceed the bounds of their own power and pervert justice, nor can their authority then be valid, which, when there is no justice, is null."
And how about Sacred Scripture? The Book of the Acts of the Apostles tells us that "we ought to obey God... rather than men" (5:29) and St. Paul in Galations rebuked the Galations saying, "O senseless Galatians, who hath bewitched you, that you should not obey the truth...... who hath hindered you, that you should not obey the truth?" (3:1, 5:7).
Like I mentioned in my Open Letter, it is not those who are keeping tradition that are causing disunity but rather those who oppose it. It is the modernists who are causing anarchy and confusion by disobeying sacred traditions. CATHOLIC OBEDIENCE MUST ALWAYS BE TO THE FAITH.
Don't forget that our first Pope, St. Peter was publiclly rebuked by St. Paul when there was close danger to the Faith. And so as it was in St. Peter's day, so must it be today where "all disciplinary authority, all obedience to a bishop presupposes the pure teaching of the Holy Church. Obedience to the bishop is grounded in complete faith in the teaching of the Holy Church. As soon as the ecclesiastical authority yields to pluralism in questions of faith, it has lost the right to claim obedience to its disciplinary ordinances." (Professor Dietrich von Hildebrand, The Devasted Vineyard, 1973, pp 3-5).
I also want to say breifly, that because of this, I have nothing against the Society of St. Pius X and their mission even though I am not a member or that I agree with everything that they do. My personal experiences with their clergy's orthodoxy, charity and love for Jesus Christ throught the sacred liturgy only serves to strenghten this belief.
Labels: Reply, Thoughts, Traditionalism
Comments:
<< Home
For any indult emerging from the Holy See, the permission granted is beyond that of the jurisdiction of the Local Ordinary. I would personally see it as permission deriving from the Holy See rather than the absence of the need to seek permission from the Local Ordinary.
The key to what I have said lies rather in that the Mass being celebrated as a form of opposition to the Bishop is alien to Sacred Tradition. Here we follow the example of the obedient Son of God who followed the Will of his Father in Heaven, even to death on the Cross.
Yes, we are in the very first place followers of Christ, but it is he who instituted the Church. The Church is the pillar and foundation of Truth, and she is hierarchical with her leaders being given the valid authority to bind and to loose.
If one also looks more closely at Sacred Tradition, that reforming the Church is to take place from the outside, is to follow the example of the heretic Luther. Even under the severest of persecutions during the Arian heresy, the Church Father Athanasius did not leave the Church.
Obedience to the Catholic Faith? I'd rather use the term 'Listening to the Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church'.
Post a Comment
The key to what I have said lies rather in that the Mass being celebrated as a form of opposition to the Bishop is alien to Sacred Tradition. Here we follow the example of the obedient Son of God who followed the Will of his Father in Heaven, even to death on the Cross.
Yes, we are in the very first place followers of Christ, but it is he who instituted the Church. The Church is the pillar and foundation of Truth, and she is hierarchical with her leaders being given the valid authority to bind and to loose.
If one also looks more closely at Sacred Tradition, that reforming the Church is to take place from the outside, is to follow the example of the heretic Luther. Even under the severest of persecutions during the Arian heresy, the Church Father Athanasius did not leave the Church.
Obedience to the Catholic Faith? I'd rather use the term 'Listening to the Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church'.
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home
Subscribe to Posts [Atom]
