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Do we owe obedience to the Pope, or not?

Wednesday, September 14, 2005

Exaltation of the Holy Cross

            Gentle Reader: Sorry for not being more up to date with materials on the web site. A large chunk of my time and energy was dedicated to World Youth Day 2005 in Cologne with Trailblazers. And now, after it is over, there’s plenty of post-WYD work to do, all of it rather hidden and thankless, but worthwhile nonetheless. So, here we are, back to work with today’s question…

The Question of Obedience

            A parishioner recently came to me and said that a member of a religious institute declared that, because of his vows, he owes obedience only to his immediate superior – or perhaps all the superiors of his order, or perhaps the superiors of his order in the specific chain of command above the religious himself, nuances I didn’t capture – but not, repeat, most certainly not to the Pope.

            Having myself been a religious for many years, and having treasured obedience as a superb way to follow Christ, I found this commentary as surprising as distressing.

            Furthermore, I can’t tell you how many times I have found priests in various dioceses that not only excuse but adamantly defend their disobediences to Rome claiming that there was one ecclesial superior here or there who did x or y, (by which I mean a concrete failure to observe the Church’s laws in one point or another), and therefore they do the same. I find it as humorous as illogical such argumentation: for the one that did x or y, there were thousands of ecclesial superiors all around the world that were actually doing what Rome requested; following the example of one – assuming things were as they report, which is a generous assumption – instead of another is simply the caprice of an immature person. Think about it, it’s obvious to the most simply minded… assuming one’s honest.

            It gets better: how many priests have been anywhere on the scale of anger, from verbal discouragement to slanderous gossip behind my back to livid apoplectic conniptions, when they would stumble across me actually doing something like observing liturgical law. What strange men.

The Answer on Obedience to the Pope

            The short answer is: yes, we’re all bound to obey the Pope.

            Referring simply to four sources, among many others we could choose from, to prove this point should suffice to prove this point, at least for the scope of this short article. These four sources are sacred scripture, canon law, the Catechism of the Catholic Church, and the documents of the Vatican council. I’ll be short and to the point for each of the four proofs.

Why We Should Obey the Pope

            1. Scripture. Jesus Christ said to Peter, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven. And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”[1] Peter is given authority (the reference of the keys, the symbol of plenary authority which goes back even to Is 22:22 and Rev 1:8), only he looses and binds, and therefore he is to be obeyed. More scriptural references could be presented and expounded upon, but there are great books on that, and this shall suffice.

            2. Canon Law. Catholics have a duty and obligation to obey their pastors (CIC 212 §1). The Pope is the supreme pastor of the Church (CIC 331). Therefore all, including religious, by virtue of their baptism and participation in the Church, are bound to obedience to him. Religious superiors have authority in the degree and manner established by God through the ministry of the Church (CIC 618), therefore they have no authority on their own; one can say their authority is given to them by Church Law, which is definitively promulgated by the Pope to the whole Church, and it is this law that assures their authority, to say nothing of the proper Constitutions or Rule the religious follow, which also is valid to the degree it is ratified by the Pope. Indeed, there is much in Canon Law regarding superiors which they must obey; they are not quasi-sources of their own authority.

            3. Catechism of the Catholic Church. Check out nn. 882-883 and those other paragraphs. The Pope has authority and as such is the rock of unity. Not even the college bishops have authority “unless united with the Roman Pontiff, Peter’s successor, as its head” (CIC 883). There is no obedience in the Church at any level which can call itself such unless it is in harmony with obedience to the Pope.

            4. The Second Vatican Council. We read in the Constitution on the Church (Lumen Gentium), “The college or body of bishops has for all that no authority unless united with the Roman Pontiff, Peter’s successor, as its head, whose primatial authority, let it be added, over all, whether pastors or faithful, remains in its integrity. For the Roman Pontiff, by reason of his office as Vicar of Christ, namely, and as pastor of the entire Church, has full, supreme, and universal ordinary power in the Church, which he can always to exercise unhindered.”[2]  (This passage is quoted in CIC 331 and CCC 882.) And in this vein the paragraph goes on. What has been said shows that the Pope is, de facto, the Superior of the entire Church. So when the Decree on the Renewal of Religious Life states “Religious, therefore, should be humbly obedient to their superiors, in a spirit of faith and love,” etc., therefore they should be humbly obedient to the Pope; such is the only possible logical conclusion.

            There are some orders that underline specifically that their obedience is to the Pope. An example is the Jesuits. In 1534, St. Ignatius of Loyola, with six companions, professed in Paris their vows of poverty, chastity and obedience to the Pope, and to this day the Jesuits take a fourth vow of special obedience to the Pope in the matter of missions. I know that some Constitutions of some institutes of religious or consecrated life speak directly to the question of their vow starting with the Pope; not that others don’t, but by stressing it, a feature of the specific spirituality of the religious is highlighted.

            These are only some leads into an obviously huge theme. But I think the fact that obedience starts with the Pope, especially for those under vows, can be easily studied. New Advent has an article on Religious Obedience which is superbly clear on the point.

            There is no unity without obedience to Peter. If anyone ever tells you how fully they are living their faith, while the profess disobedience or separation from the Holy See by their words or by their deeds, feel free to not believe them. In fact, find a kind way to invite them, to persuade them, to come back to unity to Peter, back to “Home Sweet Rome.”

            Of course, there is the fact that it is acknowledged that we are to obey superiors except when one is ordered to do something morally wrong. In the case of obedience to the Pope, I don't think this is even an issue, since it would be highly unlikely that the Pope would command something immoral. Pope John Paul II even said, in Evangelium Vitae[3], that if an authority were to mandate anything immoral, it would simply lack authority since it were evil. Basically this upholds the principle that law is an ordering for the common good.[4]