No army can function, no battle can succeed without authority. Every soldier reports to an officer, every officer reports to a higher officer, and so on, up an established hierarchical ladder. Clear commands are necessary from the ones on top, and prompt obedience is necessary from those underneath, or the campaign is doomed to failure.
As Catholics, we know very well that this structure does not just apply in natural order. Authority is the right to command for sake of common good, yes; but we know that all true authority is from God. The chain of command starts with Him. What did Our Lord say to Pilate: “You would have no power over Me if it were not given you from above” (cf. Jn. 19:11). It is because God chooses to use our superiors — whether secular or ecclesiastical, or, in my case, Religious — that obedience becomes for us Catholics a holy thing. An act of faith even. It is the act by which we see a command of God coming through a human agent, and we obey for God’s sake. Because we trust Him. We acknowledge His right as Creator to rule over us by whatever means He pleases. Whether this is your husband telling you, “Honey, we’re moving;” or your boss telling you, “Hey, step up your game;” or the police officer who pulled you over telling you, “Slow down.” (Not that Catholics ever speed.) Holy obedience — the kind all the saints and spiritual writers talk about — is actually more of a right than a duty. It is our right to obey a command for sake of common good. And no one can take away our right to obey God.
No one. Is it not a joy, Catholics, to know that?
Because, the sad truth is that people in authority can and do issue commands that ought not be issued. And, yes, that makes life a bit messy for us little folk on the bottom of the totem pole. Whether that command is, “Here’s some incense — now go burn it in front of that nice idol over there;” or, “Round up these people into this chamber, and use this switch to turn the gas on;” or, “Get into this airplane, fly over this teeming civilian city, and drop this atomic bomb on it.” Or — how about something a bit closer to home — “Take your two-year-old to your local drug store so that we can inject her with no-one-really-knows-what so she won’t get Covid.”
It would be really nice, would it not, if we could trust the experts in the scientific field, the pharmaceutical field, the political field? It would be so much easier and simpler if we could just trust and obey the legitimate authorities God has allowed be in charge of us? But — that is not our world right now, is it? In far too many cases in our world what looks like a properly ordered obedience and a laudably docile compliance with those in authority would be not just stupid but wrong.
And not just in the world, but, alas, in Church.
Now, Catholics who know Church history should not be particularly scandalized that I would say that. We know that Church has been through periods when her own leaders were not trustworthy. Think of the vast number of Catholic bishops who went Arian in the 4th century. How about Henry VIII’s England in 16th century? It is frightening how few English bishops resisted that “Catholic” king’s supremely un-Catholic oath of supremacy. We know that communism likes to set up parallel churches in the countries it infiltrates: taking real priests and bishops, reorienting their loyalty to the government instead of to God, and keeping them in their positions of authority, thereby making them convenient extensions of that government, ideal tools for the brainwashing of the flock in the name of — you guessed it — obedience. This is why the True Church always goes underground in such places.
Now here we are in 21st century, living in midst of that “diabolical disorientation” Sr. Lucia spoke of, suffering under the cross of men with real authority in the Church who really do not seem to understand the purpose of that authority. Which is what?
To protect the Truth.
(Read or listen to anything Dr. Peter Kwasnewski has said on this subject. The man is spot on.)
Bottom line: it is because discerning God’s will in today’s world and today’s Church — when so many of our shepherds have gone wolf on us — is so difficult that we need Mary more than ever. She Herself has authority, does She not? She is our Queen. She is our General. She is our Mother. Who better than Our Lady to clarify our thinking on these critical questions? Because we need clarity. Badly.
We also need strength.
It is one thing to know theoretically that if a command coming from a lower authority contradicts a command coming from a higher authority, we obey the higher authority. But are we willing to be labeled as rebels for acting on that principle when push comes to shove?
When the thirteen-year-old Grecian princess Philomena was told by her parents, “You will marry Emperor Diocletian. You must.” Her answer was a very respectful, “I’m sorry, Mom and Dad — I can’t.” When the priest, St. John Nepomucene, was ordered by King Wenceslaus (the bad King Wenceslaus, not the good one) to reveal what his wife the queen had told him in confession, the saint’s answer was a very respectful, “I’m sorry, your Majesty, I can’t.” When the bishops of the world were told by Pope Francis in 2021 to put certain limitations on the existence or growth of the Latin Mass in their dioceses, many of them answered with a respectful, albeit sometimes very subtle, “I’m sorry, Your Holiness, I can’t.”
Were they being rebellious?
Or were they being heroically loyal to a higher authority?
Consider. The individuals in the examples I just gave were respectful because no Catholic is a rebel at heart. They were apologetic because it truly hurt them to cause grief to their legitimate superiors. But they were also definite — because there is a hierarchy to Catholic obedience, and God’s commands trump all.
Who better than Our Lady to help us discern — because we must discern! We are people not sheeple — to discern the difference between an imprudent command, an unjust command, and an evil command? St. Thomas says that we should obey an imprudent command. It might be painful, counter-intuitive, whatever, but God’s grace will work with it. We can even obey an unjust command, although we are not obliged to. But we can never obey an evil command — even if death is consequence.
Who better than Our Lady to unlock for us this immense secret of Catholic battle joy — only God’s authority is absolute. Everyone else’s is limited.
Thank God for that.
