Absolute Obedience and Relative Obedience

In a recently article published in The American Conservative, Rod Dreher quoted a daring tweet signed by Michael Brendan Dougherty:

“…if the Roman Church’s position on the papacy really is that the Pope exclusively defines Tradition, such that he could legitimately abrogate all previous Roman Missals in favor of singing John Lennon’s Imagine— then Catholicism is ridiculous.”

Certainly, it would be ridiculous and completely wrong to consider that the Pope “exclusively defines Tradition”– implying that the Pope himself is the source of Tradition. But Rod Dreher, with his remarkable capacity for going straight to the heart of the matter, has extracted the key question “camouflaged” behind Dougherty’s words:

“What are the limits of the Pope's power?”^{^[i]}

The answer contains only one, short word: God. Indeed. God himself is the limit of the pontifical power – as He is, at the same time, the limit of any other position or function of power, ecclesiastical or social-political. Because God himself, who is THE Source of every principle and absolute truth of both moral life and Christian Faith (besides all the content of the Divine and Apostolic Tradition), is the limit of any representative of every hierarchical office/function on earth. Why so? Because God is the sole and absolute Creator of any legitimate hierarchy under the sun.

We owe absolute obedience only and exclusively to God.

That is why we must emphasize an essential axiom: we owe absolute obedience only and exclusively to God. God not only revealed to us the Moral Law (through Moses) and supernatural Faith (through the Holy Bible, free of every error), but also the content of the Divine Tradition, which includes the Liturgy and the Sacraments. Consequently, He and He alone is, in an absolute sense, the Source of every legitimate power or authority. When it comes to the obedience that we owe to a person who, in a legitimate way, represents a certain level of authority – like biological parents, spiritual parents (priests, bishops or popes), or public authority representatives – , this is only a relative obedience. Relative not in a “relativistic” way, but in the sense in which a limited thing is relative to something else: for example, the legitimate authority of anyone holding an ecclesiastical office is relative to God, not to himself. Only God is truly autarchic, being the unique and absolute source of any good, as well as the unique and absolute principle of justice. In a word, He is the “measure” of all things. From all those examples in the sacred books of the Bible I will choose two examples that clearly expose the distinction between an absolute obedience and a relative obedience.

Pontius Pilate’s authority was relative to God. When Pilate, annoyed by Jesus of Nazareth’s silence, tells Him: “Knowest thou not that I have power to crucify thee, and I have power to release thee?” (John 19: 10), Jesus Christ answers him, briefly and clearly, by showing the very source of Pilate’s authority: “Thou shouldst not have any power against me, unless it were given thee from above” (John 19: 11). What is truly remarkable and very pedagogic in this answer is that it is addressed to a pagan political leader. Thus, we can conclude that even in such a case, where there is no supernatural faith, the source of power is still God himself. Pilate as a Roman ruler has a power that is derived from and subordinate to the absolute power of God.

Another good example is the answer given by the Apostles to the members of the Sanhedrin when they ordered them to stop spreading the Christian gospel: “We ought to obey God, rather than men” (Acts 5: 29). Clear enough, isn’t it?

But if every pope owes obedience to God – just like all of us – we owe him obedience only if what he teaches us respects God’s absolute authority. The Pope has no absolute authority; only God does.

Actually, the answer given by the apostles shows us that there is a strict hierarchy in the obedience we owe; and the absolute reference is only and exclusively God, not the Pope. All those who are God’s servants and worshipers – from the Faithful to the bishops and the Pope himself – owe Him absolute obedience. The source, the absolute reference even for hierarchs, is God himself. The answer given by the apostles to the members of the Sanhedrin reveals to us precisely this axiom based on the distinction between God’s absolute authority and the relative authority of any person who is holding a hierarchical position. But if every pope owes obedience to God – just like all of us – we owe him obedience only if what he teaches us respects God’s absolute authority. The Pope has no absolute authority; only God does.

That is why, when we read authoritative documents like Pastor Aeternus we must keep in mind this principle: the authority of the pope is relative to the supreme authority of God himself. But if a pope does not respect this crucial axiom, he can become the opposite of what he is meant to be: a wolf in sheep’s clothing instead of a true shepherd. This is half-heartedly stated even in the Catholic Culture website article quoted by Rod Dreher: “The Pope’s juridical Primacy does not convey any right upon the papacy to violate any man’s conscience or to coerce into sin.”After such a statement, the greatest debate instantly begins if someone dares to ask the forbidden question: “And what if the pope is a heretic? If there is no authority under the sun that is higher than the pope’s, what can be done in such a situation?” For post-medieval Catholics, the matter is so disturbing that some theologians and doctors from the past three centuries even tried to prove that such a thing can never happen.

This is not the case with the renowned Saint and Doctor of the Church, Francis of Sales. He is one of those who believe that a pope can be a heretic and that in such a situation “the Church must either deprive him, or, as some say, declare him deprived, of his Apostolic See” – but the concrete way of action is not clear at all.

Confronting the same difficult problem during the debate caused by the (in)famous apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia, the brilliant Dominican priest and scholar Aidan Nichols suggested in a conference held in 2017 some very interesting ideas. First, he stated that it is highly probable that “the present crisis of the Roman magisterium is providentially intended to call attention to the limits of primacy in this regard.” Second, he emphasized that the immediate danger is the spreading of heresies of a moral nature encouraged by a pontifical text. Then he opened that debate which, in the context created by Pope Francis’ pontificate, could be the most important: canon law must be reformed in order to provide “a procedure for calling to order a pope who teaches error”.

The limit of the Pope’s power is God. And if a shepherd – Pope, Bishop or Priest – favors or teaches a heresy, in such a situation he illicitly crosses the limits of the orthodox faith, limits established by God through His supernatural Revelation.

But until the Church hierarchs have such a debate and establish the procedure requested by Aidan Nichols O.P., we will repeat this fundamental truth: as in the case of any shepherd, the limit of the Pope’s power is God. And if a shepherd – Pope, Bishop or Priest – favors or teaches a heresy, in such a situation he illicitly crosses the limits of the orthodox faith, limits established by God through His supernatural Revelation. The same rule applies to the content of the Divine and Apostolic Tradition regarding the Holy Mass and the Sacraments. No “reform” should make us believe – as the heretical German bishops would like – that we can cross the limits established by God, Who is the only Source of Revelation, Law, and Tradition. In an unequivocal way, the Angelic Doctor, Saint Thomas Aquinas, states that no authority, no superior, can force a Christian (cleric, monk, or layman) to do something against God’s revealed Faith and Law. For no Christian is bound to follow false shepherds – wolves in sheep’s clothing. If someone were to obey, then “in this case obedience would be unlawful” (S.T.II-II, q.104, a.5, ad 3).

If we carefully meditate on the extent of the destruction caused by the two World Wars, or on the universality of the moral destruction caused by the abandonment of traditional and classical Christian values, we can easily understand that the modernity is blatantly dominated by the most unimaginable excesses. Nothing is more characteristic of this age than the vanishing of every form or legitimate authority. In saying this I am not original at all. Hannah Arendt, in an essay published in 1954 (“What is Authority?”), publicly and categorically proclaimed that “authority has vanished from the modern world.”

Overwhelmed by such a terrible context, – the origins of which can be found in the long series of revolutions that begin with the Protestant one – , the bishops gathered at the First Vatican Council supported the dogma of limited infallibility, omitting extensive discussion of the possibility of a heretical pope and the appropriate canonical procedure for such a situation. Paved by the ultramontanist mentality, the road to what Dr. Peter Kwasniewski calls “hyper-papalism” was opened for traffic. The pope easily came to be considered not a vicar of Christ but a substitute for Him, or – as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger said – “an absolute monarch whose thoughts and desires are law,” with full rights to change everything without any limit.

Should we be surprised, then, that Rod Dreher is convinced that “the Pope can legitimately abrogate all previous Roman missals?” Not at all. Because in the current context Dreher seems to be right. Living in a predominantly “orthodox” country, I have repeatedly noticed how believers of the Eastern “orthodox” Church perceive mainstream (i.e. Novus Ordo) Catholicism: as a bunch of non-religious modernists capable of anything. Repeatedly, when I tried to address their criticisms, I was immediately countered by the mention of the most terrible event that ever happened in the history of the Church: the change of the Liturgy by Pope Paul VI. That is why, as Saint Robert Bellarmine did in his polemics with the Reformation, we must – before anything else –correctly answer Rod Dreher’s question: “What are the limits of the Pope’s power?”Nothing would make our hearts rejoice more than if, by God’s mercy, a saintly pope – comparable to Gregory the Great or Pius V – would do so. Will this ever happen?

“What are the limits of the Pope's power?”[i] The answer contains only one, short word: God. Indeed. God himself is the limit of the pontifical power – as He is, at the same time, the limit of any other position or function of power, ecclesiastical or social-political. Because God himself, who is THE Source of every principle and absolute truth of both moral life and Christian Faith (besides all the content of the Divine and Apostolic Tradition), is the limit of any representative of every hierarchical office/function on earth. Why so? Because God is the sole and absolute Creator of any legitimate hierarchy under the sun. We owe absolute obedience only and exclusively to God. That is why we must emphasize an essential axiom: we owe absolute obedience only and exclusively to God. God not only revealed to us the Moral Law (through Moses) and supernatural Faith (through the Holy Bible, free of every error), but also the content of the Divine Tradition, which includes the Liturgy and the Sacraments. ... we owe him [the pope] obedience only if what he teaches us respects God’s absolute authority.

As a former devout weekly mass-going RC (and altar boy, lector, CCD teacher) but Bible evangelical for about 40 of my 71 years, bless God, I can tell you that what you are arguing (“We ought to obey God, rather than men” ] obedience only if what is taught is consistent with God’s word) is essentially that of acting like a evangelical is supposed to, in regards to ascertaining the veracity of current church teaching by examination of historical church teaching, except for us that is the only wholly inspired substantive authoritative record of what the NT church believed (which is Scripture, in particular Acts through Revelation, which best shows how the NT church understood the gospels, and in which distinctive Catholic teachings are not manifest .

For when you hold that obedience to the pope - and by extension, the living magisterium whose power flows from the pope - only if what is taught is consistent with God’s word, you are acting contrary to the teaching of Rome, in which the only means if assuredly knowing what revelation is of God is by faith in Rome.

“the believer cannot believe in the Bible nor find in it the object of his faith until he has previously made an act of faith in the intermediary authorities between the word of God and his reading.” (Catholic Encyclopedia>Tradition and Living Magisterium)

“People cannot discover the contents of revelation by their unaided powers of reason and observation. They have to be told by people who have received in from on high.” ( Cardinal Avery Dulles)

Thus in apologetics toward the unconverted, it is taught that Scripture is to be appealed to as merely reliable historical source, which hopefully helps the potential convert to place faith in Rome, and thereby know what is of God.

it should be premised that when we appeal to the Scriptures for proof of the Church's infallible authority we appeal to them merely as reliable historical sources, and abstract altogether from their inspiration.” (Catholic Encyclopedia>Infallibility)
And RC law law is to be considered supreme under the premise that it cannot lead one astray since God is the author of it, as He is of Scripture.
Catholic doctrine, as authoritatively proposed by the Church, should be held as the supreme law; for, seeing that the same God is the author both of the Sacred Books and of the doctrine committed to the Church…(Providentissimus Deus)Pope Leo XIII)
And therefore as no less than Cardinal Manning asserted:
It was the charge of the Reformers that the Catholic doctrines were not primitive, and their pretension was to revert to antiquity. But the appeal to antiquity is both a treason and a heresy. It is a treason because it rejects the Divine voice of the Church at this hour, and a heresy because it denies that voice to be Divine....
I may say in strict truth that the Church has no antiquity. It rests upon its own supernatural and perpetual consciousness. Its past is present with it, for both are one to a mind which is immutable. Primitive and modern are predicates, not of truth, but of ourselves....
The only Divine evidence to us of what was primitive is the witness and voice of the Church at this hour. — "Most Rev." Dr. Henry Edward Cardinal Manning, Lord Archbishop of Westminster, “The Temporal Mission of the Holy Ghost: Or Reason and Revelation,” (New York: J.P. Kenedy & Sons, originally written 1865, reprinted with no date), pp. 227-228)

And thus you have papal statements such as,

"the one duty of the multitude is to allow themselves to be led, and, like a docile flock, to follow the Pastors," "to suffer themselves to be guided and led in all things that touch upon faith or morals by the Holy Church of God through its Supreme Pastor the Roman Pontiff," "of submitting with docility to their judgment," with "no discussions regarding what he orders or demands, or up to what point obedience must go, and in what things he is to be obeyed... not only in person, but with letters and other public documents ;" and 'not limit the field in which he might and must exercise his authority, " for "obedience must not limit itself to matters which touch the faith: its sphere is much more vast: it extends to all matters which the episcopal power embraces," and not set up "some kind of opposition between one Pontiff and another. Those who, faced with two differing directives, reject the present one to hold to the past, are not giving proof of obedience to the authority which has the right and duty to guide them," "Nor must it be thought that what is expounded in Encyclical Letters does not of itself demand consent." sources

Not rendering this, but taking it upon yourself to determine the veracity of what is taught, leads to division, which Catholicism exists in, including various sects of TradCaths who dsagree with each other. For not only can what consists of authoritatively doctrine proposed by the Church see debate, but so can the meanings of such.

What is so "devout" about going to Mass the absolute minimum of once a week? I'm not surprised you have apostatized if you consider that to be a "devout" Catholic.

I see: you presume mentioning just one part of being a devout RC was the whole, and as usually, engage in ad hominem in lieu of an argument. That being the case, I will add that having baptized by my uncle, a RC priest from Scotland (one of two), I was raised in a very devout RC household, not simply faithfully attending weekly mass, but also every holy day of obligation, and I do not ever remembering missing any while we also often attended other services. We All my brothers and I were altar boys and along with my sisters made out first communion and confirmation, and all went to confession very regularly.

Later in my life, having come back to church after about a 7 year absence, and becoming truly born again with its new and profound basic changes in heart and life, I once more became a faithful mass and confession-going RC, receiving communion when in good conscience (which had been much awakened) and also became a lector and CCD teacher during that time.

Yet while this faithfulness was much due to my sincere repentance, my hungry soul was being much fed by listening to a evangelical radio station, and being a truck driver/delivery person (wholesale milk and ice cream) working many hours, then I had much time to listen. It was such that "expounded unto him [me] the way of God more perfectly." (Acts 18:26) It was via that preaching that I had realized that salvation was by unmerited grace received by effectual faith, and affirmed that faith. Even nature seemed new to me around that time, yet my conscience also was more conscious of my failings and repentant over them than ever before.

Meanwhile, the radio messages were edifying and overall basically uniform and complementary, and I could usually detect what was debatable, and I was also sometimes attending RC charismatic meetings, looking for life in the RC system, as most RC seemed to simply engage in rote perfunctory professions. In so doing 1979 I also went to see JP2 in Boston when he came there as well as a charismatic congress in Providence R.I., and also went to some "master teacher" CCD schooling lessons.

However, I gradually was realizing the contrast btwn what I saw in the faith and life of the NT church and that of Catholicism (and btwn me). But it was mainly due to my seeking to serve God, in worship/ and in evangelism, that led me to pray to God about whether I should do to a different church, and which was promptly answered, and which led me into evangelical fellowship, thanks be to God. Which would result in chapters to cover, if not all positive personally or otherwise.

Thus while based upon your interpretation of what valid church teaching is and means, you reject Francis and "innovations" of V2 etc. apparently are without a living pope, I also reject many teachings in Catholicism - and have no pope at all - based upon my interpretation of what valid church teaching is and means. The difference being, as said, that for me the definitive source of valid church teaching is the only wholly God-inspired, substantive, authoritative record of what the NT church believed - especially Acts through Revelation, which best shows how the NT church understood the gospels in which distinctive Catholic teachings are not manifest .

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