Showing posts with label obedience. Show all posts
Showing posts with label obedience. Show all posts

Tuesday, August 13, 2013

Lex Dubia Non Obligat -- Against an Unjust Law and Legal Positivism Which Has Penetrated the Church

(Rome) The historian Roberto de Mattei is concerned with the sources of law and the legal hierarchy of Church law and the obligation that every Church Law must have its basis in the divine law. On the other hand, says de Mattei, is legal positivism which ignores this central principle, penetrating into the Church. The most recent example is the decree by the Congregation of Religious, which places the order of the Franciscans of the Immaculate under provisional administration and abolishes the celebration of the Old Mass on the 11th of August. Resistance against the positivist thinking undermining the Church's understanding of the law is permissible, says de Mattei. The principle that an unjust law obligates no obedience, could even go so far as to draw excommunication upon himself, rather than to engage in a false obedience. This had already been taught by Saint Thomas Aquinas and all great canonists.

Lex Dubia non Obligat

By Roberto de Mattei

The case of the Franciscans of the Immaculate Conception church brings a canonical, moral and spiritual issues back on the agenda, which often arrested in the post-Conciliar years and occasionally "exploded": the problem of obedience to an unjust law. A law can be unjust not only when it violates the law of God and nature, but even if it hurts a canon law of a higher rank in the legal hierarchy. This is the case with the decree of 11 July 2013, by the Congregation for Consecrated Life , putting the Franciscans of the Immaculate Conception under provisional administration.

The violation of the law is not in the provisional administration, but in the part of the decree, that claims to force the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate to waive the celebration of the Holy Mass according to the traditional Roman Rite. In addition to the Bull Quo Primum of St. Pius V (1570) there is the Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum of Pope Benedict XVI. (2007), and thus a universal Church law that gives every priest the right to:

Accordingly, it is allowed, according the sacrifice of the Mass of Blessed John XXIII. promulgated in 1962 and never abolished typical edition of the Roman Missal, to celebrate the Extraordinary Form of the Liturgy of the Church.


Article 2 of the Motu Proprio clarifies that it neither requires permission from the the Holy See nor from his superior when the Mass is celebrated sine populo.

Article 3 adds that it is not just the individual priest, but Communities of Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life - whether pontifical or diocesan right, is allowed in the Convention or, in its own oratory community's Mass to keep the celebration of the Holy Mass according to the edition of the Roman Missal that was promulgated in 1962.

If an individual community or an entire Institute or a whole society wants to commit such celebrations often, usually or always, it is the responsibility of superiors, to decide according to the norm of law, and according to the laws and particular statutes. In this case there is no need to invoke the divine and natural law, it is sufficient that the Church as the legal source. An eminent jurist like Pedro Lombardia (1930-1986) recalled that Canon 135, paragraph 2 of the new Code of Canon Law which establishes the principle of legitimate legislation in the sense that the legislative power is to be exercised in the manner prescribed in the right way, especially the canons 7-22, the title of the codex form, which is devoted to the ecclesiastical laws.

The Codex recalls that the universal or general laws of the Church are those which were promulgated by publication in the official gazette Acta Apostolicae Sedis (Can. 8), in Can. 12, § 1 states: General Laws require all those for whom they are adopted; Can. 18 states that laws which impose a penalty or restrict the free exercise of rights, or contain an exception to the Act, are subject to strict interpretation, Can. 20 adds: A subsequent law raises a former wholly or partly on when it says this explicitly or opposed to it directly or is the whole matter of the earlier law assigns comprehensive , and finally sets Can. 21 states: In doubt, the revocation of a previous law is not presumed, but later laws are to be set in relation to earlier and to bring with them as far as possible in line.

Canon 135 finally determined the basic principle of the hierarchy: A lower legislator cannot validly issue a law contrary to higher law. Not even a Pope can abolish the act of another pope, except in the prescribed form. The unassailable rule in moral and legal states is that a law of a higher source that affects an area larger and of more universal significance, has title to a superior rule of law, has priority (Regis Jolive, 1959).

According to Canon 14 for the canonical standard to be mandatory, may not be the object of legal doubt ( dubium juris ). If there is a lack of legal certainty, the axiom applies: lex dubia non obligat. If there is a doubt, the honor of God and the salvation of souls will have precedence over any actual consequences that may follow from an act at the personal level. The new Code of Canon Law Canon recalls the past that the Church always has in mind the salus suprema lex animarum (Can. 1752). Saint Thomas Aquinas already taught this when he was in his Quaestiones quodlibetales , explaining that the purpose of canon law aims for the peace of the Church and the salvation of souls (12, q. 16, a 2) and all the great canonists have followed him in this.

The Cardinal Julian Herranz, president of the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts in a speech delivered on the 6th of April 2000 spoke on the salus animarum as a principle of canon law, he recalled that this is the highest principle of ecclesiastical legislation. But that requires basic considerations ahead that are missing in the debate, because often the moral and metaphysical foundation of law is forgotten.

Today there is a purely legalistic and formalistic conception which tends to see the law as a mere instrument in the hands of those who have power (Don Arturo Cattaneo, 2011). According to the legal positivism, which has infiltrated into the Church, what is considered correct, is issued by the authority. In reality, this is jus divinum is the basis for legal expressions and demands the primacy of jus in front of Lex. The principles of legal positivism distort the foundations and replaced legal validity of the jus through the application of the Lex. The law can is only seen the will of the rulers and not the reflection of the divine law, according to which God is creator and foundation of every law. He is the living and eternal law, absolute principle any law (jus divinum, ed. Juan Ignacio Arrieta, 2010).

For this reason, in a conflict between human and divine law, God and not the people is to be obeyed (Acts 5:29). The obedience is owed ​​to superiors because they represent the authority of God, and they represent, because they keep the divine law and apply it. St. Thomas Aquinas affirms that it is better to fall into the current excommunication and exile to foreign lands where the earthly arm of the Church does not reach, than to obey an unjust command: ille debits potius excommunicatione, sustinere (...) vel in alias regiones remotas fugere (Summa Theologiae, Suppl, q. 45, a 4, 3 Upper).

Obedience is not only a formal procedure that causes us to submit to human authority. It is primarily a virtue that leads us on the path of perfection. Not who vested interests, obeying from fear or submissive human attachment is not really obedient, but who chooses the true obedience which is a compound of the human will with the divine will. For the love of God, we must be prepared to obey this highest act of His law and His will, to detach ourselves from the bonds of false obedience, poses the risk to let us lose faith. Unfortunately, today a false sense of obedience is common that sometimes borders on sycophancy and in which the fear of human authority is provided through the divine truth.

The resistance to unlawful commands is sometimes a duty to God and to our neighbor, the need for exemplary acts of metaphysical and moral stolidity. The Franciscans of the Immaculate had obtained from Benedict XVI. the extraordinary goods of traditional, falsely "Tridentine" so-called Mass, accepted and celebrated again today by thousands of priests lawfully throughout the world. There is no better way to express their gratitude to Benedict XVI. and at the same time to express their protest against the injustice done to them, than to continue to celebrate in the serenity of a clear conscience, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass in the traditional Roman Rite. No law can force their conscience. Maybe only few will do this, but compliance to prevent greater evil, will not help to avert the storm that goes beyond their Order and the Church.

Text: Corrispondenza Romana

translation: Giuseppe Nardi

Image: Corrispondenza Romana

Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.com AMGD Link to katholisches...

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Nuncio Complains that German Church Does Not Listen to the Pope

Bonn (kath.,net/KNA)  The ambassador of the Pope in Germany is concerned about the future of the Catholic Church in the Bundesrepublik.  "The Pope suffers from an persistently closed attitude toward him in Germany," said the Apostolic Nuncio, Archbishop Jean-Claude Perisset, in an interview published in the "Zeit" on Wednesday.  It is a "great loss", that the Church in Germany hears the Pope so little.

The Nuncio expressed himself critically about the dialog process in the Catholic Church. "Conflict in the Church is the wrong way.  But dialog is not a conflict, but the opposite".  Whoever only values his own position,  doesn't engage in dialog.  It would be a courageous step of the Bishops, to seek a discussion with the people of the Church.  "Only those who want to turn the Church on its head, are those who do not want dialog."

With a view to the debate surrounding the Kirchensteuer [Church tax], the Nuncio said, the Church in the Bundesrepublik is "sometimes is too concerned with managing resources and forgets the announcing of the good news.".  As to the question for the reason for empty churches and few priestly vocations Perisset recalled that this is not a malfunction of the institution of the Church;  the reasons lay in the mentality of people and in erroneous beliefs.  "We need a new culture of community, of believing together.  For that reason we need also great celebrations like World Youth Day or Papal Masses in the Olympiastadion.  They show: you are not alone."

At the same time, Perisset insisted that the Church must adjust itself in its announcing the faith in today's environment.  "We say things that people don't understand any more.  We must return to the basic elements of the Faith and freshly explain these with simple words in colorful language."  The restoration of the faith has to "come again from the family, so that we might remake the Church.  If the grandparents don't take their grandchildren along, if the adults do not discuss the faith, if the faith is not developed in the family, then there is no future."

Thursday, January 19, 2012

Augsburg Bishop Silences Loyal Priest

Edit:  It looks like a conservative priest is being silenced, again, by his Diocese while the radicals are allowed to run wild.  Could this priest be a German, FatherZ?


The desire of the left media bosses has come to pass: Pastor Georg Alois Oblingger must cease his work at the opposition 'Junge Freiheit" [Young Freedom] according to a notification from the Diocese.


(kreuz.net)  Bishop Konrad Zdarsa of Augsburg is forbidding Pastor Georg Alois Oblingger of Ichenhausen to write for the opposition Berlin weekly 'Junge Freiheit'.

This was according to the news 'Augsburger Allgemeine'.

The population 8.400 city of Ichenhausen lays in the Swabian district of Günzburg.

An Active Clergyman


Fr. Oblingger teaches as several schools in the district -- among others at the St. Thomas Gymnasium in Wettenhausen and the middle school of Ichenhausen.

Additionally he has written regularly for years at 'Junge Freiheit'.

Msgr Zdarsa has just forbidden this.

He can write for dirty Spiegel?


The clergyman has been admonished not to publish any more for 'Junge Freiheit', explained the speaker for the Dicoese, Markus Kremser.

The Bishop has already informed the priest with his decree on the 16th of December.


The muzzle also applies to "other publications".

Fr Oblingger has been active as a regular columnist for 'Junge Freiheit' since  2002.

Comparable measures against Old Liberals are unknown.

Fr. Oblingger should write in other newspapers -- says Kremeser.

There are more talks he has to give in the future -- the censer said, trying to justify himself.

The reasons for these measures were not made known.

It is unclear if the Diocese was offended by a certain text by the clergyman or in the general work of 'Jungen Freiheit'.

Against the countless anti-church media and clergy in his Diocese, Msgr Zdarsa had nothing to say.

Fr. Oblingger will bow


Pastor Oblingger denied obligatory suggestions by 'Augsburer Allgemein', that the 'Junge Freiheit' itself moves to the borders of right extremism:

"The Junge Freiheit is clearly in the realm of Democracy."

The crime of the newspaper: they don't sing in the choir of the antifascist-neonazi media bosses.

Fr. Oblingger is going to obey the decree from the Diocese, "understandably".

"Obedience begins at the point where I disagree."

That is where the Church stops also in this case.

Link to original...

Sunday, January 1, 2012

Today is the Feast of the Circumcision

Edit: it's also sometimes the feast of St. John Chrysostom, in the Byzantine Rite.

Here's a Sermon on the importance of obedience.

How refreshing it is to hear a priest who talks about the Gospel of St. John, and not the "Johannine Gospel" like we're at an undergraduate bible class at a Liberal University like Creighton.

 It's also interesting to note that the way he's talking seems to indicate that there are a good number of young people at Divine Liturgy.
True authority comes from service.

Monday, June 27, 2011

Father Corapi's Ordinary Fails to Have Corpus Christi Procession Two Years Running

Editor:  The Old Liberal Bishop Mulvey, Father Corapi's ordinary, has neglected to have a Corpus Christi procession for the second year running.  His predecessor used to have wonderful processions and brought Our Lord close to the heart of his beloved people.  This is a Bishop who doesn't like kneeling either.  Perhaps this is so because he has no understanding of obedience. 



From, kneelingcatholic blog...