[Hermann the Cherusker]

You guys are really Pharisees if you believe this means if the rector ordered a Jebbie scholastic to poison the housekeeper, he must do so. Give me a break. A little common sense is always assumed.

The Pope commanding Archbishop Lefebvre to desist from sinnning by consecrating episcopi vagantes against his will is rather different than the situation you give, isn't it?

In the one case, the superior is commanding you to sin. In the other, he is commanding you to not sin.

St. Ignatius would have been quite dissapointed with the notion that one is obedient by putting ones own will above that of the Pope when he commands you not to do something he says is sinful.

Remember, the Pope asked Archbishop Lefebvre NOT to do something. No positive command was issued, only that he desist from doing something the Pope said is objectively wrong.

Will you admit the difference? Or do you claim that a command not to ordain Bishops is a command to sin?

[sinkspur]

But, Hermann, Lefebvre simply had to ordain them, and he simply had to ordain them 30 days after his "talks" with Ratzinger fell apart.

And, he simply had to ordain a nut job like Richard Williamson, who thinks women are too stupid to go to college, and the Unabomber had some nifty Luddite ideas.

[ultima ratio]

Wrong. The Pope commanded the Archbishop not to consecrate in order to destroy the traditional Mass. This was bad. The Archbishop refused to be complicit in such destruction and its consequent harm to souls. This was good. It had nothing to do with denying his papacy, by the way. That was a gratuitous slam by an irate pope.