Can obedience oblige us to disobey? Statement by Arcbishop Lefebvre - March 1988
Originally published in the July 1988 issue of The Angelus magazine
March 29, 1988
The
rector of the seminary of the Society of
St. Pius X in Switzerland, Fr. Lorans, having asked me to help
in drawing up this issue of the Letter from Econe, it seemed to
me, in these circumstances, that it would not be without
benefit to put before you again what I wrote on January
20, 1978, concerning certain objections which could be
made as to our attitude with regard to the problems
created by the present situation of the Church.
One
of these questions was: ''How do you see obedience to the
pope?" Here is the reply I gave ten years ago:
The
principles governing obedience are known and are so in
conformity with sane reason and common sense that one is
driven to wonder how intelligent persons can make a
statement like, "They prefer to be mistaken with the pope, than
to be with the truth against the pope."
That
is not what the natural law teaches, nor the Magisterium
of the Church. Obedience presupposes an authority which
gives an order or issues a law. Human authorities, even
those instituted by God, have no authority other than to attain
the end apportioned them by God and not to turn away from it. When
an authority uses power in opposition to the law for
which this power was given it, such an authority has no
right to be obeyed and one must disobey it.
This
need to disobey is accepted with regard to a family
father who would encourage his daughter to prostitute
herself, with regard to the civil authority which would oblige
doctors to perform abortions and kill innocent souls, yet people
accept in every case the authority of the Pope, who is
supposedly infallible in his government and in all words.
Such an attitude betrays a sad ignorance of history and of
the true nature of papal infallibility.
A long time ago St. Paul said to St. Peter that he was "Not walking according to the truth of the Gospel"
(Gal. 2:14). St. Paul encouraged the faithful not to obey
him, St. Paul, if he happened to preach any other gospel
than the Gospel that he had already taught them (Gal.
1:8).
St.
Thomas, when he speaks of fraternal correction, alludes
to St. Paul's resistance to St. Peter and he makes the
following comment:
To resist openly and in public goes beyond the measure of fraternal correction. St. Paul would not have done it towards St. Peter if he had not in some way been his equal... We must realize, however, that if there was question of a danger for the faith, the superiors would have to be rebuked by their inferiors, even in public.
This
is clear from the manner and reason for St. Paul's acting
as he did with regard to St. Peter, whose subject he was,
in such a way, says the gloss of St. Augustine:
that the very head of the Church showed to superiors that if they ever chanced to leave the straight and narrow path, they should accept to be corrected by their inferiors (St. Thomas [in the Summa Theologica] IIa, IIae, q.33, art. 4, ad 2).
The
case evoked by St. Thomas is not merely imaginary because
it took place with regard to John XXII during his life.
This pope thought he could state as a personal opinion
that the souls of the elect do not enjoy the Beatific Vision until
after the Last Judgment. He wrote this opinion down in 1331 and
in 1332 he preached a similar opinion with regard to the
pains of the damned. He had the intention of putting
forward this opinion in a solemn decree.
But
the very lively action on the part of the Dominicans,
above all in Paris, and of the Franciscans, made him
renounce this opinion in favor of the traditional opinion defined
by his successor, Benedict XII, in 1336.
And here is what Pope Leo XIII said in his Encyclical Libertas Praestantissimum, June 20,1888:
If, then, by any one in authority, something be sanctioned out of conformity with the principles of right reason, and consequently hurtful to the commonwealth, such an enactment can have no binding force of law.
And a little further on, he says:
But where the power to command is wanting, or where a law is enacted contrary to reason, or to the eternal law, or to some ordinance of God, obedience is unlawful, lest while obeying man, we become disobedient to God.
Now
our disobedience is motivated by the need to keep the
Catholic Faith. The orders being given us clearly express
that they are being given us in order to oblige us to
submit without reserve to the Second Vatican Council, to the
post-conciliar reforms, and to the prescriptions of the
Holy See, that is to say, to the orientations and acts
which are undermining our Faith and destroying the Church.
It is impossible for us to do this. To collaborate in the
destruction of the Church is to betray the Church and to
betray Our Lord Jesus Christ.
Now
all the theologians worthy of this name teach that if the
pope, by his acts, destroys the Church, we cannot obey
him (Vitoria: Obras, pp.486-487; Suarez: De fide, disp.X, sec.VI, no.16; St. Robert Bellarmine: de Rom. Pont., Book 2, Ch.29; Cornelius a Lapide: ad Gal. 2,11, etc.) and he must be respectfully, but publicly, rebuked.
The
principles governing obedience to the pope's authority
are the same as those governing relations between a
delegated authority and its subjects. They do not apply to the
Divine Authority which is always infallible and indefectible and
hence incapable of failing. To the extent that God has
communicated His infallibility to the pope and to the extent
that the pope intends to use this infallibility, which
involves four very precise conditions in its exercise,
there can be no failure.
Outside
of these precisely fixed conditions, the authority of the
pope is fallible and so the criteria which bind us to
obedience apply to his acts. Hence it is not inconceivable
that there could be a duty of disobedience with regard to
the pope.
The
authority which was granted him was granted him for
precise purposes and in the last resort for the glory of
the Holy Trinity, for Our Lord Jesus Christ, and for the salvation
of souls.
Whatever
would be carried out by the pope in opposition to this
purpose would have no legal value and no right to be
obeyed, nay, rather, it would oblige us to disobey in order
for us to remain obedient to God and faithful to the Church.
This
holds true for everything that the recent popes have
commanded in the name of Religious Liberty or ecumenism
since the Council: all the reforms carried out under this heading
are deprived of any legal standing or force of law. In these
cases the popes use their authority contrary to the end
for which this authority was given them. They have a right
to be disobeyed by us.
The
Society and its history show publicly this need to remain
faithful to God and to the Church. The years 1974, 1975
and 1976 leave us with the memory of this incredible clash
between Econe and the Vatican, between the Pope and myself.
The result was the condemnation, the suspension a divinis,
wholly null and void because the pope was tyrannically
abusing his authority in order to defend laws contrary to
the good of the Church and to the good of souls.
These events are an historical application of the principles concerning the duty to disobey.
That
clash was the occasion for a departure of a certain
number of priests who were friends or members of the
Society, who were scared by the condemnation, and did not
understand the duty to disobey under certain circumstances. Since
then, twelve years have passed. Officially, the condemnation
still stands, relations with the pope are still tense,
especially as the consequences of this ecumenism are
drawing us into an apostasy which forced us to react
vigorously. However, the announcement of consecration of
bishops in June stirred Rome into action: it at last made
up its mind to fulfill our request for an Apostolic
Visitation by sending on November 11, 1987, Cardinal Gagnon and
Msgr. Perl. As far as we were able to judge by the speeches and
reflections of our Visitors, their judgment was very
favorable indeed, and the Cardinal did not hesitate to
attend the Pontifical Mass on December 8th, at Econe,
celebrated by the prelate suspended a divinis.
What
can we conclude from all this except that our
disobedience is bearing good fruit, recognized by the envoys
of the authority which we disobey? And here we are now confronted
with new decisions to be taken. We are more than ever
encouraged to give the Society the means it needs to
continue its essential work, the formation of true priests
of the holy, and Catholic, and Roman Church. That is to
say, to give me successors in the episcopate.
Rome
understands this need, but will the pope accept these
bishops from the ranks of Tradition? For ourselves it
cannot be otherwise. Any other solution would be the sign that
they want to align us with the conciliar revolution, and there our
duty to disobey immediately revives. The negotiations are
now under way and we shall soon know the true intentions
of Rome. They will decide the future. We must continue to
pray and to watch. May the Holy Ghost guide us through the
intercession of Our Lady of Fatima!
+ Marcel Lefebvre
Tony LaRosa "Remembering Archbishop Lefebvre"
