Obedience: Voris vs Tradical

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JMJ

Introduction

Michael Voris gave a thirty minute speech at the Strength and Honor conference (link to vid)  in August 2023 (Youtube Transcript below).  

When shown this video, my first thought was that he repeats himself over and over again.  

My second thought was that he made an clear error saying that Pontius Pilate sin was the greatest. Mistake, Our Lord Himself stated that the sin of those who turned Him over to Pilate was greater. 

My third thought was they he was espousing Jesuit blind obedience by staying that an order within the jurisdiction of a superior must be obeyed. Going from memory he seemed to imply that an order within the jurisdiction of the superior could not be sinful. Ergo any legitimate command must be obeyed.

One thing that Voris got completely right is that the moral character of an individual in the office does not impact the legitimacy of their commands in the execution of that office. I've discussed this elsewhere referring to the Catechism of Trent.

 The Apostle also teaches that they are entitled to obedience: Obey your prelates, and be subject to them; for they watch as being to render an account of your souls. Nay, more. Christ the Lord commands obedience even to wicked pastors: Upon the chair of Moses have sitten the scribes and Pharisees: all things, therefore, whatsoever they shall say to you, observe and do; but according to their works do ye not, for they say and do not.

True Obedience - A Recap

Now, before I unpack the rest of Voris' perspective, I want to do a quick recap on True Obedience.

Obedience can be optional, obligatory or forbidden. 

A superior can issue orders that are either within or outside his sphere of authority.  Voris seems to use the word jurisdiction to describe this concept.  The idea being is that there authority of a superior is constrained. 

In the case of the Pope, he has direct authority on all Catholics, but this is not absolute. His authority is constrained to Faith, Morals and the discipline (ie. laws) of the Catholic Church.  In other words, he can apply universal laws etc.

If any command is sinful in its nature or rendered sinful by a specific circumstance (see example below) then the order must be disregarded. 

If the order is within the sphere of authority and not sinful, then obedience is required.

If the order is outside the sphere of authority and not sinful, obedience is optional and considered more virtuous because of the absence of obligation.

Theoretical Example: Pope Francis 

The confusion seems to be, can a superior make an order that is within their sphere of authority and be sinful. The answer is yes in circumstances where the order contradicts a higher order.

• If Pope Francis were to order you or even the entire Church to not use air conditioning, that order is outside of his sphere of authority but not generally sinful. Therefore it is optional.  
•  If Pope Francis orders the entire Church to fast and abstain from meat on Wednesdays and Fridays, removing the alternatives and exceptions - it is generally not sinful, and is within his sphere of authority. Therefore it is not optional.
• If Pope Francis orders the entire Church to genuflect before a pagan idol, this is sinful. Therefore it is forbidden to obey.
• If Pope Francis forbids a priest from hearing confessions. The priest comes across a dying man.  
• In this case, the order to not hear confessions is opposed to Canon 1752: In cases of transfer the prescripts of can. 1747 are to be applied, canonical equity is to be observed, and the salvation of souls, which must always be the supreme law in the Church, is to be kept before one’s eyes. 
• Therefore either the priest 
• obeys Pope Francis and lets the man die without confession, disobeying the "supreme law in the Church."
• disobeys Pope Francis and gives the man confession, obeying the "supreme law in the Church".

Let's be clear, if the Priest denies a dying man confession, he commits a sin of dereliction of his duty as the "salvation of souls, ...[is] ... the supreme law in the Church."

This is the exception.  

Obedience to a higher authority trumps obedience to a lower authority, making was otherwise would be a practice of the virtue of obedience into a practice of blind obedience which is a sin.

As the saying goes the exception proves the rule.

Practical Example

Now a real world example.  

Pope Francis has contradicted the perennial teaching of the Church and that of Pope St. John Paul II by opening the door to allowing married Catholics who, without annulments, have obtained a legal divorce and legally married (civil marriage) to receive Holy Communion.

It is now possible for a man and woman who are living unrepentant adultery to receive Holy Communion.

These communions are sacrilegious and the priest who knowingly cooperates in this action is committing a sacrilege. 

This order is obviously not to be obeyed because of its sinful nature.

Applying the Principle to the Situation of the SSPX

So we know that even a Pope can issue orders that are within this authority to issue, but made sinful by a situation to which a higher order applies.

Voris made a bit deal about Saint Padre Pio obeying an order to be silent and have no contact with visitors for years (or something to that effect).  I agree with Voris on this, was it an abuse of power, probably, but we don't know all the facts.  Did Saint Padre Pio have an obligation to obey, assuming that it is within the rule of St. Pio's order, the answer is yes. If not it was an example of perfect obedience. 

Now let's apply this to the decisions and actions of Archbishop Lefebvre

Is there objectively a crisis in the Catholic Church? Is the salvation of souls at stake?  

• Was it at stake in the seventies as the "spirit of the council" wrought havoc throughout the Church with heresy being taught in the seminaries and from the pulpit? 
• Was it at stake when the New Mass was promulgated with ambiguity
• Is it at stake with the removal of the Filioque from the Creed by the Ukranian Bishops in Canada?
• Is it at stake with all of Pope Francis' changes in discipline and bending of Doctrine?

I think that the answer is yes, there is a crisis in the Catholic Church and that the salvation of souls is at stake. 

 Based on what he wrote and said, the Archbishop was morally convinced that this was the case. I believe that the attacks and persecution that centred on the adherence to the Traditional Mass were at the centre of it.  

He was also morally convinced that the crisis would extend beyond his life and for the salvation of souls had to disobey a direct order from the Pope in order to obey the supreme law of the Church.

I think that the objective conclusion can be made that Archbishop Lefebvre preserved the Traditional Latin Mass for  Church, as well as provided a bulwark for the Pre-Conciliar Teaching of the Church and did not compromise on key issues regarding the council.  The SSPX continues in this ... tradition. See a comparison of the 1988 Protocol vs 2012 Doctrinal Preamble (link).

Key note: The SSPX provides the sacraments to those Catholics who seek them.They are not 'schismatic'.

___

Looking at how the conflict proceeded over the past 35 years,  I think that we can boil the answer down to, do the Second Vatican Council and Novus Ordo represent a departure from the pre-conciliar Doctrine and Teaching of the Catholic Church?

The answer, thanks to Pope Francis, contradicting Pope Benedict who tried to square the circle, is yes.  You cannot believe and worship as Catholics did before the Council because:

 ...I [Pope Francis] am nonetheless saddened that the instrumental use of Missale Romanum of 1962 is often characterized by a rejection not only of the liturgical reform, but of the Vatican Council II ... To doubt the Council is to doubt the intentions of those very Fathers who exercised their collegial power in a solemn manner cum Petro et sub Petro in an ecumenical council, [14] and, in the final analysis, to doubt the Holy Spirit himself who guides the Church.Letter to Bishop Re Traditones Custodes

The way I read this that either you accept all the ambiguous council documents and the liturgical 'reform' the happened afterwards ... or you are doubting the Holy Ghost guided the council.

This is a case of "Who are you going to believe The Pope or your own eyes?"

Conclusion

To me it was obvious in 1988 and it is even more so now, the Catholic Church is in a crisis.  The salvation of souls IS at risk.  Taking refuge in the SSPX is a legitimate option where available.

I don't think "I was just following orders." is going to be a valid excuse at our personal judgement when it comes to actions we didn't take that endangered the salvation of souls. i.e. Sins of Omission.

P^3

NB: To help, I have added a 'Collection - Obedience' label to help you access the articles on that topic.

Transcript

1. so here we are sitting in a lovely Parish here in the Archdiocese of Detroit polish ethnic Parish Swedish Heart of Mary and this building along with every other Catholic parish in the uh world every religious community in the world every single Catholic everything in the world is here because of one thing and that's because of obedience
2. that's it the theme of our conference this weekend has been staying on board the ship and when things are at a crisis point which they certainly are in the church 
3. Way Beyond a crisis point there is a tendency to think that somehow you or your cause or your solution is exempt from the normal rules but somehow they don't apply that in an emergency situation you get to sort of make things up on your own for yourself you become sort of the determining Factor on this is right this is wrong
4. that's not true it's not true I want to talk about obedience because obedience is the result of a proper understanding of authority and jurisdiction and these concepts are all just muddled together today because Catholics who have good intentions largely and see the church as the dumpster fire at the moment we'll simply say well we don't have to obey an authority because you know there's another Authority and they kind of make things upand sort of do whatever they want they reach their own conclusions
5. every Schism and every heresy in the church began with that founding principle the church is wrong and my solution is right and they go on to do it by the way there's no Schism that the Schism first breaks away from the church and then seismatics break away from each other 
6. that's the nature of the system is to continue to disintegrate have a lack of integrity so when somebody has legitimate Authority and they have the use of that Authority in a legitimate situation that Authority must be obeyed it doesn't matter if the person who has the authority is abusing The Authority as long as their jurisdiction extends to what they are calling for obedience in
   
7. that's why pilate looks at Jesus and our blessed Lord says he doesn't deny that he has power he doesn't deny that he has the legitimate Authority even though he knows in advance he's going to abuse it in the worst case of abuse of authority that has ever happened in the history of the world pilot used his legitimate Authority abusively and executed the God man
8. Jesus looks at him and says you would have no power over me had it not been given you from above that has got to be the model even when we are facing Injustice 
9. Injustice does not mean that the authority is illegitimate that means the power of that Authority is being abused if the son of God that's why we're here that's why this building exists because he submitted to the illegitimate use abuse of legitimate Authority power and jurisdiction
10. well good here we are in the church today there are many voices that want to say that's wrong since that man is evil we don't have to therefore listen to him we don't have to follow this stuff it's not true it's not true so you have to understand in the case of a bad Bishop whether that Bishop is an Archbishop a cardinal Bishop a pope the bishop he's a bishop it's the highest office in the church as they say there's just all Bishops are equal some Bishops are more equal than others
11. but there's only the only three offices in the ordained Ministry in the church are Bishop priest Deacon that's it everybody else is a Layman if a bishop has legitimate jurisdiction in a particular area or circumstance or whatever it is and he orders something to be done it must be done if he has Authority there
12. a bishop does not have authority to order you to commit a sin so you're not you're not disobeying his Authority he doesn't have any Authority there if a bishop orders something to be the case and he has the requisite Authority it doesn't matter what his motive is he has to be obeyed 
13. so let's say you're a canceled priest and you're canceled because the Bishop is a complete jerk he's got a vendetta out for you he doesn't like you father Smith let's say he doesn't like you because he doesn't believe the faith he has no Supernatural faith he doesn't like that you do he doesn't like that you're preaching the truth he has every illegitimate reason for not liking you father but you took a promise of obedience to him and his successors and if he orders you to go preach to the workers in the garbage dump and kicks you out of the Chancery you must obey period he has legitimate authority over you 
14. if he orders you to go open up a house of prostitution well that's a sin so his authority does not extend there so not disobeying him because there's no obedience due to a place that doesn't have an order that has no legitimacy behind it but if he does have the legitimate requisite Authority and you are obedient to him by your promise I'm talking about clergy then you got to obey him it doesn't matter if you like it or not 
15. how many people here are current or ex-military about a quarter of it you'll understand when I say when the general said I want you to go take that Hill you don't get to say well I don't think that's a good idea you just don't that's not how War works that's not how hierarchical structures work that's not how military things work
16. that's not how the church works that's not how our Lord set it up so if a priest feels unjustly treated let's assume that's true let's assume he's been unjustly maligned treated kicked to the curb canceled whatever by his Bishop let's say as Bishop publishes horrible things about him in the Diocesan newspaper that aren't true or he reveals matters of truth about him that he has no business revealing and then he orders the priests to go do X if it is within his jurisdiction the priest must do X or the priest is sinning the priest is sinning by refusing to obey let that sink in for a moment the priest is committing sin by refusing to obey legitimate Authority even if it is an illegitimate exercise of that Authority 
17. if it falls within the jurisdiction it must be obeyed when Padre Pio was ordered into essentially a tiny little room and never to speak to people I can't remember if it was 11 years or 17 years or it was a huge number of years it was absolutely unjust they didn't like him they wanted to hide his Stigmata they were jealous of him they had every nefarious motive that you could think of and he obeyed
18. so obedience gets this bad rap today while the church is on fire there's this treatment of bad Wicked evil Bishops archbishops Cardinals the Pope that because they are bad Wicked evil say horrible things don't have any sort of clear demonstration that they have Supernatural faith that therefore anything they say order or do does not have to be obeyed oh because that guy's awful so I don't have to listen to him it does not work like that the Son of God submitted to that very thing little back story on Pontius Pilate
19. Pontius Pilate had twice fallen into a very desperate situation with Tiberius he had not handled one Jewish Uprising a few years earlier correctly and it was kind of put on short notice by Tiberius and then another situation happened where he had been way too brutal for the case and Tiberius is like why is everything always going on over there why can't you seem to get your act together Pontius his friends called him Pontius why can't you get your act together one more and you're done now pilot was kind of a dimwit he had married Claudius Claudia his wife was the daughter of one of the chief legionnaires in tiberius's Palace in Rome he wasn't a particularly bright guy hopefully that helped him in his judgment but it was bright enough to understand that he could not afford one more slip up so out of self-interest he caved to the Jews Jewish leadership that's why he went out and kind of stuck him in the eye and washed his hands which of course he was guilty of but in the symbol saying I'm telling you I'm just doing this really to protect my own personal political pedigree here and my hopes for future advancement you're wrong and washing his hands he proved he was a coward he executed the God man knowing he was innocent you talk about a nefarious motive for an illegitimate use of legitimate Authority you ain't gonna find a bigger one than that it's not possible because of the crime the sin that's committed because of it so the idea that the person giving the order is loses his office or his authority because he's a monster of a man is not true the fact that he may give an order that is horrible rotten unjust and he has horrible motivations for doing it is not true that you get to disobey it
20. those are all subjective calls some of them are really easy ah guys a horrible Cardinal it's awful we know his whole history he's awful his actions are awful his motivations are awful and therefore his orders don't need to be followed doesn't work like that just doesn't that's not the way our blessed Lord set up the church our Lord who went during his public Ministry was in time was also always outside of time he was both
21. he knew that Judas was going to betray him and yet he extended to Judas his own Divine Authorityand Judas used it to raise people from the dead and he did so somebody's motivation their actions their anything of that does not negate the person's legitimate Authority and what makes the authority legitimate is the jurisdiction of the person exercising it if the Archbishop of Detroit here said oh you're all sitting in a church but I'm in the parish building I'm the guyultimately in charge of that and I order you all to go buy a Toyota Celica walk out of here and go buy a Toyota Celica you don't have to go buy a Toyota so you have to do anything his authority doesn't extend that's not within his jurisdiction 
22. but if he finds out Church Milton is sitting here having a conference and he sends somebody from the Chancery and here's a written note that says you do not have my permission to be there get up and leave we got to get up and leave it doesn't matter that he's been involved in all these other things and treated priests unjustly and sidelined that doesn't limit or bring an end to his authority if his authority extends legitimately his jurisdiction then it must be obeyed you've run into this all the time 
23. those of you who've gone to abortion Chambers and stood out in front of the sidewalks of them and prayed and this and that and everything else I mean one of the things that happens if it's your first time at a particular abortion chamber what do you do Where's the Line it's that crack in the sidewalk right there if you step on that blade of grass you're trespassing if you step on if you stay on this side of the crack you're fine so on the very first discussions very first exchanges you have with whoever the pro-life leaders are out there they're killing people inside that building but well they obviously don't have the moral authority to do that they have the legal authority to do it at least in some states now and you step over that line you're going to be arrested now that's fine if you want to be arrested and make a thing and say the moral law is higher than your stupid legal law and I don't care all right fine you know then suffer the legal consequences of breaking the legal law but you know where the line is how far does the authority extend where is the jurisdiction these things 
24. these legal Concepts jurisdiction Authority obedience  abuse of power right exercise of power they are set up on purpose to prevent a disintegration of things what is disintegration it's the Integrity of being torn apart disintegrating they're there to prevent that from happening even if you have to tolerate for a period Injustice if our Lord did not subscribe to that we wouldn't be here and that's the son of God I mean who do you think he was talking about when he said you know your power came from above you you'd have no power over me if it weren't given you from above who do you think he was talking about well yeah I was talking about Tiberius but where did Tiberius get his power from where to get his authority from I mean Tiberius enslave the third of the known world the improper or abusive use and  application of authority does not render the authority no longer authoritative
25. so the great argument pushed back against this is but it's unjust yeah it is unjust nobody even blinks an eye at that if the pope does something against people who like the Latin Mass and he has if that isn't uh legitimate meaning within his jurisdiction exercise of his authority you don't get to say you're wrong because I don't like it is it unjust yeah it's unjust so his conscious pilate standing there saying okay I'm going to deliver you up to their wishes again there is it's a weak specious argument to say oh it's unjust because of the Incarnate Eternal logos submits to the unjust use of legitimate Authority you don't have much of an argument if you're going to say I'm not going to submit to an unjust use of legitimate Authority 
26. Padre Pio I mean we have zillions of examples in the church Archbishop Fulton Sheen who himself was maligned by homosexual cardinal Cardinal Spellman by the time Bishop Sheen had gained world renown he was also the whatever the I don't know the title was director or executive director or whatever the society for the propagation of the faith he was known all over the world the number one rated TV show for three years in the United States tens of millions of people knew who he was hundreds of millions of dollars flowed into the society for the propagation of the faith thousands of envelopes and donations every single day it was a fortune and the homosexual Cardinal of New York Frances Spelman [Tradicat Note: Voris is committing the sin of detraction] saw that money coming in and said oh cool he's the auxiliary Bishop here in New York I get some of that because I'm his boss and he's like yo Fulton get over here I want 25 percent the machine was like it's not your money this is going to the society for the propagation of faith not the Archdiocese of New York the reason it just happens to be in the Archdiocese of New York the office but it has nothing to do with ithe said you're an auxiliary Bishop here under me you promised obedience I want that money machine said no and the case went up to Rome and Rome settled in favor of Archbishop machine and Spelman being the catty little thing that he was say that was an attempt to use his authority in an illegitimate way because it wasn't within his jurisdiction it was however within his jurisdiction even though his motive was absolutely horrid that he got Archbishop Sheen made the bishop of Rochester New York from I believe it was I can't remember the year 72 to 75 or 71 to 74 somewhere in that neighborhood and Bishop Sheen went up there and completely bombed as Bishopcommon I guess probably knew that that would happen or at least suspected it would Shane was brilliant all his gifts were in oratory in reading and spirituality but he was not an administrator and everything fell apart didn't know what was going on couldn't keep track of anything uh and was gone after three years he knew why Spellman got him out of there he wouldn't be able to be in charge of the society for the propagation of the faith anymore couldn't do that and be the bishop of a diocese the ordinary so we got rid of them  bad motives bad man bad actions and Sheen submitted I'll use him as a modern example
27. this sort of thing happens in the church all the time the vast majority of Bishops either do not believe the faith if they ever did lost the faith somewhere along the way are not motivated by the faith in their actions and they use that authority of their office to abuse spiritually doctrinally financially spiritually physically you name it  the levels and degrees of corruption are too much to consider and not a single ounce of that negates their Authority ever so are you allowed to challenge them sure are you allowed to expose their rot sure [Tradicat: I'm becoming less and less convinced of this.] but when a bishop as a successor of the Apostles exercises his authority in a legitimate way meaning it's within his jurisdiction then whoever he is calling to task or order or assignment or whatever it is must submit and in case some of the irony of this is lost on you this is the vortex saying  this you must submit
    
28. that's the way the church was established by our Lord do we really think that when our lord said here Peter here's the keys that he didn't think over the next two thousand years there wasn't going to be some sort of you know horror show of Bishops and horrible clergy and everything else abusing that Authority left and right those men are Damned For Eternity for that it never remains unjust it seems like that quite often but it never remains that way our Lord allows what he allows for whatever and his ultimate reasons as good is going to come out of it somehow whether we can see that or not most of the time we can't now that's part of Faith isn't it that's part of trusting that's part of loyalty as I talked about yesterday
29. at some point you simply have to submit and say I'm doing what you told me to do and then whatever happens happens you will not have to stand in front of our Lord at your private judgment and say you disobeyed him in that area anyway every sin is disobeying but I'm talking about this Arena you obeyed the legitimate Authority and that's because that was your duty and you did your duty 
30. what happens to the legitimate Authority office holder when he dies well you don't have to answer for that thank God we all got our sins but to corrupt the office of Grace established by Christ for the administration of his church his own body here on Earth no Saints have ever said the floor of hell is paved with the skulls of layman paved with the scholar Bishops skulls and Bishops
    
31. so I know there's always this great Temptation and we hear all of these various clergy running around who have been treated unjustly but getting wine loads of people have been treated unjustly a saint with the wounds of our blessed Lord in his hands and his feet was treated unjustly for decades and he submitted the Son of God submitted to an unjust use of legitimate Authority
32. Schism is never an answer to heresy ever you can fall off both sides of the ship stay aboard the ship even when the ride is rough even when it's confusing it seems like you have no idea where the ship is going our Lord didn't leave the ship when he was asleep in the front of it apparently taken some heavy tranquilizers but he didn't leave the ship and Saint Peter's bark doesn't have  little lifeboats attached to the side of it and you don't get to Fashion little life books 
33. you got a lot of water to bail you bet  you got some fires to put out down below without a doubt it's taken on water but this ship can't sink  what it needs is 100 loyalty and complete and total trust that in the end it's our Lord's ship even with corrupt captains and crew running it our board is ultimately the chief captain in the name of the father and of the son of the Holy Spirit