[ultima ratio]

Don't make me laugh. Abortion has never been any part of Catholicism. Archbishop Lefebvre argued on behalf of Catholic Tradition and the Mass of the Ages, not for himself. The two cases are not alike. The Pope has every right to oppose abortion; he has no right whatsoever to oppose Tradition. In fact, he took a solemn oath not to.

Your position is that the Pope is always right, no matter what he opposes, even when he opposes the Catholic faith itself. That is just not true, it's never been true and Catholics have been warned in the past by doctors of the Church that we do not owe obedience to even the pope if he commands what is clearly harmful to the Church. JnPII issued such a command and it was the duty of Lefebvre to disobey.

[NYer]

Your position is that the Pope is always right

The Church has a specific hierarchical organization for the tasks related to doctrine, that organization being called the Magisterium. The Magisterium is headed by the Pope. Lumen Gentium section III explains the tasks of the Pope and Magisterium, summarized excerpts of which are shown below:

1. The Church receives the Faith as delivered by Jesus Christ and handed down through the ages from the Apostles and their successors. The Church does not "create" or "establish" or "invent" the Faith or its principles.
2. The Church teaches the Faith it has received to the current generation.
3. The Church defends the Faith it has received against error (i.e. heresy).

#8: "... [The Catholic Church] is the sole Church of Christ which in the Creed we profess to be one, holy, catholic and apostolic, which our Savior, after his resurrection, entrusted to Peter's pastoral care (Jn. 21:17), commissioning him and the other apostles to extend and rule it (cf. Matt. 28:18, etc.), and which he raised up for all ages as "the pillar and mainstay of the truth" (1 Tim. 3:15). This Church, constituted and organized as a society in the present world, subsists in the Catholic Church, which is governed by the successor of Peter and by the bishops in communion with him. ..."

Can. 209 §1 "Christ's faithful are bound to preserve their communion with the Church at all times, even in their external actions."

Can. 209 §2 "They are to carry out with great diligence their responsibilities towards both the universal Church and the particular Church to which by law they belong."

Can. 212 §1 "Christ's faithful, conscious of their own responsibility, are bound to show Christian obedience to what the sacred Pastors, who represent Christ, declare as teachers of the faith and prescribe as rulers of the Church."

Can. 590 §2 "The individual members are bound to obey the Supreme Pontiff as their highest Superior, by reason also of their sacred bond of obedience."

Can. 601 "The evangelical counsel of obedience, undertaken in the spirit of faith and love in the following of Christ, who was obedient even unto death, obliges submission of one's will to lawful Superiors, who act in the place of God when they give commands that are in accordance with each institute's own constitutions."

Jesus Christ personally gives us the perfect example by being totally obedient to His (and our) Eternal Father. Lumen Gentium tells us:

#3. "The Son, accordingly, came, sent by the Father who, before the foundation of the world, chose us and predestined us in him for adoptive sonship. For it is in him that it pleased the Father to restore all things (cf. Eph. 1:4-5 and 10). To carry out the will of the Father Christ inaugurated the kingdom of heaven on earth and revealed to us his mystery; by his obedience he brought about our redemption."

#36: "Christ, made obedient unto death and because of this exalted by the Father (cf. Ph. 2:8-9), has entered into the glory of his kingdom. All things are subjected to him until he subjects himself and all created things to the Father, so that God may be all in all (cf. 1 Cor. 15:27-28)."

If Jesus Christ and Mary were obedient, why should we be different? Some might claim that Jesus was a revolutionary because He "changed the laws." The reality were that the moral laws were made more strict ^[4], and Jesus revealed deeper the doctrine of God. The Bible says it quite clearly in Matthew 5:17-18 "Think not that I have come to abolish the law and the prophets; I have come not to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the law until all is accomplished."

The difficult and scandalous issue of clergy and religious who do not propagate the Church's authentic teachings also needs to be addressed. Very simply, the laity are not required to obey the disobedience of their local Church hierarchy. All must give assent to a "God who reveals" (Vatican II Dei Verbum #5) over that of man, even when the man is part of the Church hierarchy. Acts 5:29 emphasizes this: "But Peter and the apostles answered, "We must obey God rather than men." We also know from the Church's teaching that the Pope alone is preserved from teaching error via the charism of infallibility (Vatican II Lumen Gentium), so we can always trust the Pope. Bishops, priests and nuns are not exempt from teaching doctrinal errors. Vatican II clearly states that we are to obey the Church hierarchy when they are in communion with the Pope, not otherwise. Long prior to Vatican II Pope Pius IX wrote in On Faith And Religion (Qui Pluribus), "Whoever resists authority resists the ordering made by God Himself, consequently achieving his own condemnation; disobeying authority is always sinful except when an order is given which is opposed to the laws of God and the Church." Based on the number of dissenting Bishops, priests and nuns, a prudent and responsible laity will obtain and study the teachings of the Church to defend their souls against the various heresies and heretical influences rampant in today's world.