Catholic obedience

"Obedience is carrying out of orders from one's lawful superiors with the intention of carrying out their will. Catholics especially prize obedience because of Christ's own example and because in their lawful superiors they see the representatives of Christ himself.

It is the teaching of the Church that obedience is part of justice, one of the first cardinal virtues which are in turn subordinate to the theological virtues of faith, hope and charity. Faith is greater than obedience. Therefore, if obedience acts to harm the faith, then a Catholic has a duty not to obey his superiors."

God must always be obeyed no matter what He may ask of us. Such was the Patriarch Abraham's obedience. Human superiors need not be obeyed if their orders violate the Faith.  Obedience has no limits.

The pope, as Vicar of the Church, is given by Christ direct authority over the whole Church, but he is not infallible in everything he says and does.                                Lawful superiors are to be respected as the representatives of Christ, but if they depart gravely from the Catholic Faith, we may rebuke them even in public (Galatians 2:11-14). We will gladly obey the appointed servant of God, legitimate bishops or priests, but not when we know they are leading men away from God.

We will always respect the Church Authorities as such (John 18:23, Acts 23:5), but we will not follow Church leaders who violate the tradition of the Faith. Church punishments are terrifying instruments of God's law when valid, but they are without foundation they are not valid.

"We ought to obey god rather than men." (Acts 5:29)

Catholic obedience must always be to the Faith. So it was in Saint Peter's days and it must still be today. All disciplinary authority, all obedience to Church authority presupposes the pure teaching of the Holy Church. Obedience to the Church authority is grounded in complete faith in the teaching of the Holy Church. As soon as the ecclesiastical authority yields to pluralism in questions of faith, it has lost the right to claim obedience to his disciplinary ordinances.

(Note: This is an excerpt from professor Dr.Dietrich von Hildebrand's "The Devastated Vineyard" shared by Jean Michaut.)