Michael Davies

Obedience

IN THE PRECEDING ARTICLE we examined the stand made by Archbishop Lefebvre, describing it as "persevering in Tradition." But in order to uphold Tradition today Catholics are sometimes faced with a situation which has not troubled the Church for centuries: they must disobey their lawful superiors. The Archbishop described this as "resistance not in a spirit of rebellion, but in a spirit of fidelity to the Church." Sadly, but predictably, many conservative Catholics have been neutralized in the battle against the forces which are destroying the Church because they have elevated obedience into the status of the supreme virtue. One might have hoped that after the Nuremberg trials such an attitude would no longer be found among reasonably well-educated and intelligent people, but if there is one thing that history teaches us, it is that, in general, one generation does not learn from the mistakes of another.

Salus populi suprema est lex, said Marcus Tullius Cicero who died forty-three years before the start of the Christian era, "The good of the people is the chief law." This principle still provides a useful yardstick by which we can judge the extent to which the command of a lawful superior demands our obedience. It is echoed very clearly in the teaching of St. Thomas Aquinas, who defines law as: "An ordinance of reason for the common good, made by him who has the care of the community, and promulgated."

Thus for a law to be just it must be: a) reasonable, b) for the common good, c) come from a lawful superior, and d) be properly promulgated.

These principles apply equally to Church and State. In fact, one could rightly expect to see a far greater concern for their implementation in ecclesiastical legislation. Injustice in the State is deplorable, but in the Church it is scandalous.

Having defined the law we must define justice. St. Thomas says that this consists of rendering each man his right. A man is said to be just because he respects the rights of others, and is in the habit of rendering each man his due. And what is it that the ordinary faithful can expect from their superiors as their due, as a right in fact? The answer is that they must give us every possible aid towards the good of our souls. It is something of a truism to state that politicians are public servants; very few of them behave as if they are. They tend to behave as our "rulers," often "lording it over us." Sadly, many of the clergy have been affected by the same attitude, bishops in particular. They think that the sheep exist for the benefit of the shepherd, rather than vice-versa. Their attitude is: "Yours not to reason why, yours but to jump when I say jump, yours but to zig when I say zig, and yours but to zag when I say zag." They forget that the clergy exist to serve the laity, and that the Pope himself is "the servant of the servants of God."

We can rightly expect from our shepherds that they will always preach and teach sound doctrine, and ensure that only sound doctrine is taught in Catholic schools. We can expect that they will always uphold and defend the moral teaching of the Church. We can also expect that they will make it possible for us to pay the public worship we owe our Creator in a prayerful, reverent, and recollected manner, and that we can receive all the sacraments in the same way. We can expect that they will have a love of Tradition as the motivating factor in their lives, and that this will be reflected in their love and defense of the traditions received from our fathers. We can expect that any laws they call upon us to obey are soundly based upon the principles laid down by St. Thomas Aquinas, and also to bear in mind that, as St. Thomas taught, that there should never be any change in human law unless some great and evident good will follow. He points out that even where some benefit might follow, the mere fact of changing the law can be prejudicial to the common good, because custom plays such an important part in our lives, and what is done contrary to general custom, even in slight matters, is looked upon as grave. The more laws are changed, he notes, the less will be the respect with which law is regarded:

These principles, of course, apply only to human law, as divine law is immutable, and by the very fact that it has God as its Author it cannot be unjust or contrary to the common good. The disciplinary laws of the Church come within the category of human law, and must be evaluated to the extent to which they contribute towards the common good. We have already quoted Cicero to the effect that the good of the people is the supreme law. We are now in a position to decide which particular good should be served by the laws promulgated by our spiritual shepherds. The answer is obvious: it is the salvation of our souls. This has given rise to an axiom which is basic to all Catholic theology: Salus animarum suprema lex—the salvation of souls is the supreme law. If laws are changed or enacted specifically for the good of our souls, and it is our experience that they are having the opposite effect, we are entitled firstly to make known our feelings to our superiors and, should the matter be grave enough, to disobey the law, but this is something which no Catholic can do lightly.

St. Thomas repudiates the idea that our obedience to any human law must be unqualified. There are cases when we have a right to disobey, and there can even be cases when we have the duty to disobey, the latter occurring if we are ordered to act in a way contrary to the divine law. St. Thomas quotes Acts 5:29 in this respect: "We ought to obey God, rather than men."

We have a right to disobey if the person giving the command is a) acting outside his lawful sphere of authority; b) acting contrary to the will of a legitimate higher authority, and c) acting unjustly.

As an example of (a), one could perhaps envisage a chauvinistic Australian bishop ordering British immigrants to cease playing the highly civilized game of Rugy Union and to take up instead, to fit in with the local community, the very peculiar sport of Australian Rules Football. The immigrant would be quite entitled to decline politely, and inform the bishop that he was acting outside his sphere of authority.

An example of (b) could occur if a bishop ordered a priest to distribute Communion under both kinds at a Sunday Mass, or allow girls to serve upon the altar. These are liturgical abuses which have been forbidden by the Pope, and a parish priest would be obliged to disobey his immediate superior, the bishop, and obey the Pope.

As regards (c), we have already discussed the meaning of justice. We noted that to be just a law must be reasonable and for the common good, which, where Church laws are concerned, means that it must make a positive contribution to the salvation of souls. St. Thomas and the consensus of Catholic canonists consider that an unjust law has no binding force. It is, in fact, no law at all as the force of a law depends on its justice. Similarly, a tyrannical law is not a true law at all, but a perversion of the law. A law is unjust if it is too burdensome on those subjected to it, or if it is not conducive to the common good. All authority is ultimately derived from God, and unjust legislation is an act of violence rather than a law, because the power a man holds from God does not extend to imposing unjust hurt upon his subjects. The legislator should not simply refrain from demanding something his subjects would find impossible to carry out; his laws should not be too difficult or distressing for those subjected to them.

These principles are universal. They apply equally to criminal law, civil law, canon law and liturgical law. They apply to all bishops including the Pope. It is true that, under God, the Pope has supreme power in the Church, and the First Vatican Council, in its Dogmatic Constitution, Pastor Aeternus, taught that we must obey him not simply in matters of faith and morals, but also in matters of discipline. Some of the bishops at this Council were anxious at granting the Pope what appeared to be unrestricted power even in matters of discipline, but it was explained to them that supreme power did not mean arbitrary power. The Pope was not entitled to govern the Church according to his whim, which is what arbitrary power would involve, he must always be guided by the duty of building up the Mystical Body of Christ, and this must involve respect for the basic and universal principles of justice enunciated here. Where a pope, by his legislation or his example, is harming the Mystical Body, his subjects have the right not simply to refuse to obey him, but even to rebuke him in public, and if the pope is subject to rebuke, then any other bishop most certainly is too. St. Thomas wrote:

My object in this article is by no means to incite readers to disobey the Pope. I am simply trying to establish the fact that obedience is not the supreme law, and that it must be subordinated to the good of souls. Cardinal Newman warned us that in the event of a conflict between conscience and the command of a lawful authority, particularly the Pope, our first presumption must be that we are wrong and that he is right. "Unless a man is able to say to himself," explained the Cardinal, "as in the presence of God, that he must not and dare not act upon the papal injunction, he is bound to obey it, and would commit a great sin by disobeying it." But if, after making every attempt to ensure that his conscience is properly informed, he cannot conform himself to the judgment of the Pope, then, says the Cardinal: "It is his duty to follow his own private conscience, and patiently to bear it if the Pope punishes him."

Let us now examine a case from history of a bishop who felt bound in conscience to disobey what was, to all intents and purposes, a perfectly legal command from the Pope. I am sure that every reader will agree that he was right to disobey.

An Obedient Son of the Church

The superior in this case happened to be the Pope, and the command he gave was a perfectly legal one. The Catholic answered the papal command by saying: "I disobey. I contradict. I rebel." I am sure that many readers will consider such a response to a lawful command of the Roman Pontiff quite scandalous, particularly when they learn that the man who made it was a bishop. I am equally sure that when they finish this article, the same readers will agree without hesitation, that the bishop was right to do so.

The bishop in question was Robert Grosseteste, a thirteenth-century Bishop of Lincoln. Sadly, most English-speaking Catholics will not even have heard his name mentioned, despite the fact that he is almost certainly the greatest Catholic England has ever produced, not excepting St. John Fisher, St. Thomas More and Cardinal Newman. Bishop Grosseteste was a scholar who still enjoys a worldwide reputation, a man of universal genius, venerated far beyond the confines of the Catholic Church. Professor Powicke has described him as possibly the greatest son of Oxford University—a truly staggering tribute when the list of those sons is considered.

There is no space here to describe the extent of his learning, his sanctity, his pastoral solicitude, his concern for justice, and, above all, his veneration for the papal office. The latter point is of paramount importance. As a result of his refusal to accept a perfectly legal papal command, which will be described below, Bishop Grosseteste is now held in greater esteem in the Church of England than in the Catholic Church and attempts have been made to portray him as some sort of proto-Anglican—which is complete nonsense. The truth is that in his day he had no rival as a dedicated upholder of the papal office. He was, as one Protestant historian puts it, "a fervent and thorough-going papalist." Had he not disobeyed the pope, the bishop would almost certainly have been canonized. There were many reports of miracles at his tomb in Lincoln and repeated attempts to secure his canonization, attempts which were met with little sympathy by the Holy See.

Robert Grosseteste's dispute with the Pope arose over the question of papal provision to benefices. This took the form of a request from the Pope that his own nominee should be appointed to a canonry, a prebend, or a benefice. Pope Innocent IV had utilized this system as an important source of revenue for his interminable wars with the Emperor Frederick II. His nominees rarely resided in their benefices, could not speak the language of the country if they did, and spent most of their revenues in Italy.

Bishop Grosseteste argued that the only valid reason for appointing anyone to a pastoral office is the salvation of souls. There could be no doubt at all that the Pope had a legal right to appoint his nominees to benefices but, insisted Bishop Grosseteste, he was invested with this power only to build up the Body of Christ through the effective cure of souls, and how could this aim be achieved by the appointment of alien pastors who never saw their flocks, and were interested only in the gold they could extract from them? He was also a man of vision who could look beyond the contemporary situation and foresee the corrupting effect this system would have upon the life of the Church, an insight which proved only too accurate.

The particular case which provoked Bishop Grosseteste's refusal to obey was the appointment of the Pope's nephew to a canonry in the Bishop's own cathedral of Lincoln. The mandate ordering his appointment was something of a legal masterpiece in which the careful use of non obstante clauses ruled out every legal ground for refusal or delay. The Pope even threatened to excommunicate anyone who opposed the appointment. Here, then, was the Bishop's dilemma. He was faced with a perfectly legal command from the Sovereign Pontiff which must be obeyed and yet, though legal, the command was obviously immoral. The Pope was using his office as Vicar of Christ in a manner which would damage rather than build up the Mystical Body. Bishop Grosseteste saw clearly that there is a distinction between what the Pope has a legal right to do and what he has a moral right to do. His response was a straightforward refusal to obey an order which constituted an abuse of authority.

In a reply to the papal command he wrote, "No faithful subject of the Holy See, no man who is not cut away by schism from the Body of Christ and the same Holy See, can submit to mandates, precepts or any other demonstrations of this kind, no, not even if the authors were the most high body of angels. He must repudiate them and rebel against them with all his strength. Because of the obedience by which I am bound, and of my love and union with the Holy See in the Body of Christ, as an obedient son, I disobey, I contradict, I rebel. You cannot take action against me, for my every word and act is not rebellion but the filial honor due by God's command to father and mother."

The Pope did, in fact, intend to take action at first. His intention was to order the King of England to imprison Grosseteste but his cardinals persuaded him not to do so. "You must do nothing. It is true. We cannot condemn him. He is a Catholic and a holy man, a better man than we are. He has not got his equal among the prelates."

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The parallels with the case of Archbishop Lefebvre are obvious. Both consider a Pope to be pursuing policies which are harmful to the Church; both have made an isolated stand against the policies they consider wrong; both have been noted as champions of papal authority—during the course of Vatican II there was no Council Father more active in upholding the papal prerogatives than Mgr. Lefebvre. This is a fact which has been cited frequently against Mgr. Lefebvre in view of his current "disobedience"—but the same argument could have been brought against Bishop Grosseteste. Had there been more bishops like Robert Grosseteste during the three centuries prior to the Reformation, men prepared to stand up to the Pope and tell him where his own policies or those of his advisers were wrong, then the Reformation might not have taken place.

Cases where a Catholic can be right to disobey the Pope must, of course, be extremely rare. Under normal circumstances we are bound to submit to the Vicar of Christ not simply in the infallible exercise of his teaching office, but even in disciplinary matters. But the case of Robert Grosseteste shows that there can be occasions when a Catholic must say "no" to the Vicar of Christ precisely because he is a loyal son of the Holy See.

As I mentioned earlier, it was explained to the Fathers of the First Vatican Council that there was no question of the Dogmatic Constitution Pastor Aeternus investing the Pope with arbitrary power, and that all his actions must be guided by his obligations to build up the Mystical Body. Bishop D'Avanzo of Calvi, a spokesman for the Deputation of the Faith, explained during the debate on papal infallibility: "Therefore Peter has as much power as the Lord has given him, not for the destruction, but for the building up of the Body of Christ that is the Church."

Bishop Grosseteste made an almost identical statement to Pope Innocent IV: "As I have said, the Apostolic See in its holiness cannot destroy, it can only build. This is what the plenitude of power means; it can do all things to edification. But these so-called provisions do not build up, they destroy."

I would like to conclude this part of the series by repeating the assurance that my object is not to incite Catholics to disobey the Pope. All that I am attempting to do here is to demonstrate that there can be occasions when commands given by a pope or a bishop can be justly resisted. This is a point which needs to be stressed at present, as the argument most frequently used by bishops against traditional Catholics is: "They are not obeying the Pope, therefore they are wrong." This approach is particularly nauseating when, as so often happens, it comes from bishops who ignored the wish of Pope Paul VI on Communion in the hand, or who allow the clear teaching of Humanae Vitae to be questioned by priests who retain important diocesan posts, who allow girls to serve on the altar, or who allow catechetical teaching to be given to children in their schools which is not based upon the clearly expressed wish of Pope John Paul II in Catechesae Tradentae. In many dioceses in the English-speaking world today, Pope John Paul II might not exist for all the attention that is paid to him; but he becomes an object of affection and loyalty when bishops find it convenient to invoke him against traditionalists.

I would accept the claim that: "They are not obeying the Pope, therefore they are probably wrong." But I will not accept the claim: "They are not obeying the Pope, therefore they are wrong." I will not accept this statement as it has no basis whatsoever in Catholic theology. There have been occasions when, because of their love and union with the Holy See, obedient sons of the Church have needed to disobey the Pope, as Bishop Grosseteste expressed it. There have been more frequent occasions when they have needed to disobey their bishop for the same reason. In January we shall examine the case of a bishop who refused to compromise tradition and was excommunicated by the Pope. The bishop was eventually canonized and the pope in question was the first Roman Pontiff who was not raised to the honors of the altar.