[sinkspur]

Let me ask you this:

Donoghue's been Archbishop of Atlanta for eleven years.

During that eleven years, he's allowed men, women, and children to have their feet washed.

Can you see why there might be a bit of consternation when he decides, all of a sudden, to invoke his prerogative of mandating only men, when he's chosen not to exercise it for the previous ten?

[gbcdoj]

He's simply reminding his priests to avoid sinning by breaking the law of the Church. Disobedience to the commands of a superior (e.g. the Congregation for Divine Worship) is, after all, a mortal sin according to the Angelic Doctor (ST II-II, 105 a. 1).

The only causes for consternation here should be that he did not condemn it before, that his brother bishops allow the abuse, and that priests think they can disobey with impunity the lawful directives of the Apostolic See and the instructions of their bishop.

The centurion understood how things ought to work in the Church: "For I also am a man subject to authority, having under me soldiers: and I say to one, Go, and he goeth: and to another, Come, and he cometh; and to my servant, Do this, and he doth it". If a superior commands anything which is morally licit and within the superior's sphere of authority, it should be done (ST II-II, 104 a. 5).

As Mr. O'Farrell said, the Church is not a democracy.