[gemoftheocean]

But even here the final arbiter is neither the Pope himself nor canon law--but the conscience of Archbishop Lefebvre. If he disobeyed to preserve the faith--then he is not culpable. Not all the papal letters in the world can make him guilty if he was not guilty. It is not a matter of who has the higher rank. It is a matter of what is the objective truth, a matter of who is telling the truth about the Archbishop's own motives. But the former knew with certitude; the latter could only guess.

Interesting. So if Lefebvre's "conscience" had told him that artificial birth control was okay, then he'd have a right to teach that to his sheep too.

Without realizing it, you give a free pass to people like that reprobate priest in the Pittsburgh area who wants to set up his own version of a parish.

The sword cuts both ways.

[ultima ratio]

No, the issue is clearer than what you suggest. It had always been a teaching of the Church that a superior may be disobeyed if he commands something harmful to the Church and to souls. The greatest doctors of the Church have agreed on this so that one might form one's conscience on this basis alone. But it has NEVER been a teaching of the Church that artificial birth control was permitted. We are talking here about the destruction of the traditional Mass and its devastating spiritual consequences for millions of Catholics, not a matter of mere sexual convenience.

Clearly Archbishop Lefebvre was standing on firm moral ground and the Pope was not. The evidence was overwhelming that the Church was in crisis and that the cause of that crisis was the New Order and the New Theology and the papal policies hostile to Catholic Tradition. Religious orders of long standing were collapsing, vocations were drying-up at an alarming rate, catechesis was in a shambles, Catholics were walking away from the new Mass in droves and scandals were multiplying exponentially. There was plenty of evidence the "new Advent" was a disaster, notwithstanding the Pope's optimism, and it weighed heavily in favor of the Archbishop's judgment.