DUTY TO DISOBEY SINFUL PRIESTS, PRELATES, POPE

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"Ecumenical flattery", says former chaplain to the Queen and  convert to Catholicism Dr Gavin Ashenden

(I)f “a Pope creates confusion and ambiguity regarding the integrity of the Catholic faith and the sacred Liturgy, then one must not obey him, and one must obey the Church of all ages and the Popes who, during two millennia, were teaching constantly and clearly all the Catholic truths in the same sense.”

The glorious feast of All Saints seems an appropriate one for airing the teaching of the saintly Bishop Athanasius Schneider, Bishop of Kazakhstan, on the limits set by God Almighty to the authority of popes and bishops, and the opportunities afforded for sainthood to lay people by these prelates' dereliction of duty.

“Obedience,” he says, “is not blind or unconditional but has limits. Where there is sin, mortal or otherwise, we have not merely a right, but a duty to disobey.”

Bishop Athanasius Schneider kindly gave LifeSite an analysis (see full text below) in which he discusses the nature, and limits, of obedience to the Pope. Quoting Saint Thomas Aquinas and other sources, he explains that all authority and all obedience have limits.

“Obedience,” he says, “is not blind or unconditional but has limits. Where there is sin, mortal or otherwise, we have not merely a right, but a duty to disobey.” 

The Pope, being the vicar of Christ, is bound to serve Catholic truth and not to alter it. Therefore, “one has surely to obey the Pope, when he proposes infallibly the truth of Christ, [and] when he speaks ex cathedra, which is very rare. We have to obey the Pope when he orders us to obey the laws and commandments of God [and] when he makes administrative and jurisdictional decisions (appointments, indulgences, etc.).”

However, the Kazakh bishop explains, if “a Pope creates confusion and ambiguity regarding the integrity of the Catholic faith and the sacred Liturgy, then one must not obey him, and one must obey the Church of all ages and the Popes who, during two millennia, were teaching constantly and clearly all the Catholic truths in the same sense.”

To "obey the Church of all ages" would seem to indicate, does it not, that we should use the Mass and the Missal of the Church of all ages.

Earlier this month Bishop Schneider described Pope Francis’ restrictions on the traditional Mass as a “gross abuse of the papal office” which “violate the 2,000 year tradition” of the Catholic Church.  He stated that “a restriction or prohibition of the traditional form of the liturgy is baseless,” since the “Holy Spirit does not contradict Himself.

He said that ”the Church was in a “fight” which was being waged “against the time-honored traditional rite of the Holy Mass, which all the saints – for at least a millennium – have loved, and in the case of priests and bishops, celebrated reverently and with great spiritual gain.

“The powers that be hate what is holy, and therefore they persecute the traditional Mass,” he stated. “Yet our answer should not be anger and faint-heartedness but a deep sureness in the truth and inner peace and joy and trust in Divine Providence.

"Just as the Pope cannot abolish the Apostles’ Creed, noted Bishop Schneider, neither can he “prohibit the use of the traditional Mass,” for to do so would be “an abuse of power.

 

Bishop Schneider celebrates the Traditional Latin Mass 

 Now declaring the reformed of Pope Paul VI as the sole unique expression of the lex orandi of the Roman Rite as Pope Francis is doing, this violates the 2,000-year tradition of all the Roman pontiffs who have never shown such a rigid intolerance.

“It is a rigidity,” continued the bishop, employing one of Francis’ words oft-used in his campaign against the ancient liturgy.

"The splendour of truth, sacredness and supernaturality of the traditional rite of Mass worries those clerics in high Church positions in the Vatican and others (like Cardinal John Dew and the modernist NZ Bishops - ed) who have embraced a new revolutionary, theological stance, which is closer to the Protestant view of the Eucharist and of worship, and which is characterised by anthropocentrism and naturalism.

 “The Novus Ordo of Paul VI without doubt,” he stated, “weakens the doctrinal clarity about the sacrificial character of the Mass and weakens considerably the character of sacredness and of the mystery of the worship itself.” 

Paul VI’s new Mass was an act of “true revolution,” said Schneider, noting that he was “the first pope in 2,000 years who dared to make a revolution of the order of Mass, a true revolution.” https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/bp-schneider-popes-persecution-of-the-latin-mass-an-abuse-of-power-which-must-be-resisted/

In times of crisis, where Church leaders are failing to fulfill their duties as shepherds leading the flock to Christ, other members of the Mystical Body of Christ are called to help out and defend the faith.

This is the age of the laity. This is our calling now, and our path to holiness: resistance to wolves in shepherds' clothing such as New Zealand's bishops, and courage to proclaim the splendid truths of our faith in private and in public if necessary.  

States the bishop:

When those in authority in the Church (Pope, Bishops), as it is the case in our time, fail to fulfill faithfully their duty to keep and defend the integrity and the clarity of the Catholic faith and the liturgy, God calls the subordinates, often the little and simple ones in the Church, to compensate for the defects of the superiors, by means of appeals, proposals of correction, and, most powerfully, by means of vicarious sacrifices and prayers.

We need to pray daily for the cleansing of the Church (of the Augean stables, you might say), to include that as an intention in our daily Rosary. 

With much clarity and charity, Bishop Schneider thus gives all Catholics guidelines for the proper response to the erroneous teachings and gestures coming out of Rome these days, such as the appointment of pro-abortionists to the Pontifical Academy for Life and the open promotion of the LGBT agenda on the part of officials.

Cardinal Gerhard Müller, a former prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, recently also made it clear that prelates who promote such erroneous teachings should not be obeyed.

He stated: “You don’t have to obey an obviously heretical bishop just for reasons of formality, otherwise religious obedience would be blind obedience that contradicts not only reason but also faith. The right to resist is, of course, strictly related to the revealed truths.”

This statement could of course also be applied to the Pope who himself is not above the law of God and does not have “unlimited power,” contrary to what a close collaborator of Pope Francis seems to have suggested at the recent meeting of the college of cardinals in Rome. Meanwhile, the German Cardinal (Muller) has called the Synod on Synodality “the hostile takeover of the Church.“

In light of this Church crisis, disobedience could even become a duty, remembering the rule that one must obey God more than man. Bishop Schneider writes:

To the authority of a Pope or a bishop which exceeds the limits of the divine law of the integrity and the clarity of the Catholic faith, one must mount firm resistance, which may become public.

This is the heroism of our time, the gravest path to sanctity today.

To become saints means doing the will of God; doing the will of God means obeying His law always, in particular, when this is difficult or when this places us in conflict with men, who, though as legitimate representatives of His authority on earth (Pope, bishop), are, unfortunately, spreading errors or weakening the integrity and the clarity of the Catholic faith.

https://www.complicitclergy.com/2022/10/25/bishop-schneider-obedience-has-limits-where-there-is-sin-we-have-a-duty-to-disobey

 

All Saints, on your feast day please pray for the Church