Over the years, I have thought a lot about obedience, as I am sure you have, and something about how the topic is considered has always seemed “off” to me. Eventually, I realized that the major issue with how Catholics tend to talk about obedience is that they talk about it in abstract terms rather than concrete terms. Obedience as such is a morally neutral or indifferent abstract concept. For obedience to mean something and be either virtuous or vicious, it must have a concrete human act as its object. The abstract concept of obedience does not exist in reality. One cannot be “obedient” in the sense of living in a general state of obedience. For one to be obedient, one has to obey a particular order or command to concretize the concept of obedience and actuate it as an action in the concrete. And the object of obedience makes the act of obeying either good or bad. One can obey a command, but the obedience itself is not a virtuous or vicious thing; rather, what command is being obeyed and to what end is what makes it virtuous or vicious. Furthermore, circumstances can change whether an actuation of the abstract concept of obedience is good or bad, even when the actions themselves are the same, to the point where there is a qualitative change in what is happening — meaning that the good or bad action becomes a different kind of thing. We can break this down into three parts to help us understand: Mere Tradition with Kennedy Hall is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. 1. You obey real actions, not hypothetical ones. When someone tells you to obey, they’re not asking you to obey some vague category of action floating in your head — they’re asking you to do (or not do) one specific thing, right now, in this exact situation. “Don’t kill” isn’t really the command; “don’t kill this person, in these circumstances” is. So when we ask whether obedience was owed, we can’t just ask “was the bare action bad?” We have to ask “was this actual act, with everything surrounding it, bad?” 2. Whether something is right or wrong depends on more than just the action itself. Take walking. Walking, by itself, isn’t good or bad — it’s neutral. But walking to rob someone’s house is bad, and walking to clear your head is fine. Same action, different outcome, because the circumstances — especially why you’re doing it — change everything. Same with giving money to the poor — good in itself, but if you’re only doing it to be seen and praised, it curdles into something selfish. One bad ingredient can spoil the whole thing, even if the core action was fine on its own. 3. Sometimes the “circumstance” isn’t just a detail — it becomes the whole point. Usually we think of circumstances as minor add-ons: where, when, small details around the main action. But sometimes a circumstance is so significant that it actually changes what the action is, not just how good or bad it is. Stealing is bad. But stealing from a church isn’t just “extra bad theft” — it’s a different kind of offence (sacrilege), because the location isn’t incidental; it’s central to what makes the act wrong. In cases like that, the “detail” stops being a detail and becomes part of the core action itself. Saint Thomas Aquinas explains this third concept in detail: “The process of reason is not limited to a single term; from any point, it can always go further. This is why what, in an act, is considered as a circumstance added to the object which determines the species of the act can then be considered by reason, when it orders, as a principal condition of the object which determines that species.” “Thus, appropriating another’s property derives its nature from the fact that this property belongs to another: this is what constitutes the nature of theft. If we then consider place or time, these are merely circumstances. But since reason can also order according to place, time, and other similar conditions, it can happen that the condition of place, in relation to the object, is considered contrary to the order of reason. For example, reason dictates that one must not commit an offence in a sacred place.” “Therefore, stealing someone else’s property from a sacred place adds a particular opposition to the order of reason. Thus, the place, which was previously only a circumstance, is now considered a principal condition of the object, insofar as it is contrary to reason.” “In this way, whenever a circumstance relates to a particular order of reason, favourably or unfavourably, it is necessary that this circumstance confer upon the moral act its kind, making it specifically good or specifically bad.” (Summa Theologica, I-II, q. 18, a. 10.) A circumstance can affect an act’s morality in two very different ways. Sometimes the circumstance is what defines the act — it’s the reason a neutral or good act becomes evil in the first place. When that happens, the circumstance stops being a side detail and becomes part of the act’s essential moral character. Other times, the act’s moral character is already fixed by its object alone — good or bad — and the circumstance just makes it more or less so. Here the circumstance is incidental; it adjusts the degree, not the kind. The difference: does the circumstance determine what kind of act this is, or just how much good or evil is already there? Only the first kind can turn a neutral act into something evil or good in itself. Mere Tradition with Kennedy Hall is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. The SSPX and Obedience Applied to the SSPX situation: staying quiet and not consecrating bishops is, by itself, a neutral act — neither good nor bad. I imagine some readers will take offence to this statement, because we associate sacramental acts with something good. Yes, of course the acts in general are good, but the context changes things. For example, a valid priest could confect the Holy Eucharist in a satanic ceremony, and it would be evil to do so — the object of the act (a satanic ceremony and the desecration of the Eucharist) is vile, even though the Eucharist is, of course, good. Similarly, the consecration of a bishop as an action is morally neutral, and why it is being done makes all the difference, even though the conferral of the sacramental character, in its own proper existence, is always good. These distinctions make it possible for morally evil sacramental actions to exist, while the nature of the sacramental character remains not evil in itself. But in the case of the Society, to decide to postpone the consecrations indefinitely would not be a morally neutral act, given the circumstances. For the sake of this essay, we will assume that the reader is aware of the proper arguments for the State of Necessity, and of the intentions of the Society which pertain to their circumstances. Keeping these realities in mind, we understand that there is a state of public and grave necessity for many souls, and it is the opinion of the leadership of the Society that the two remaining living bishops consecrated by Archbishop Lefebvre are insufficient to keep up with the rapidly growing demand for Traditional sacraments worldwide, which include Confirmation and priestly ordination. So the Society was faced with a decision: obey a command from the Pope to forgo the consecrations, or disobey the command in order to move forward with the consecrations, for the sake of the continued existence of the Society and for the faithful who depend on it for the sacraments. Again, I am assuming the reader is at least familiar with the arguments regarding this topic. Now, even if you disagree with the Society’s reasoning, please try to understand the question of obedience under these circumstances. Again, obedience as an abstract concept is morally neutral and does not produce virtue in and of itself; therefore, what is being obeyed — the object — must be considered. As hard as it is for modern Catholics to understand, the Pope does not have magical powers to make good evil and evil good. A command from the Pope can have as its object a good or an evil outcome, depending on what is commanded, and the fact that the Pope commands it does not magically make it good. I imagine any reasonable person could picture a scenario in which a pope ordered Catholics living in adultery to receive Communion anyway. This is easily imagined because of the legacy of Pope Francis. Of course, he did not order Catholics to do so, but he clearly believed it was good for Catholics living in such a state to do so; therefore, it is conceivable that, if the situation arose, a command of that sort could be given. Obviously, one would have to disobey that command if they knew the teachings of the Church. The present circumstances are not so obvious or clear to many, which is understandable; nonetheless, the logic still stands. I hope that even the most ardent defenders of the recent popes would agree that disobeying the command of a pope is morally required under certain circumstances. You may draw your own line in a different place, but hopefully we can agree that not all disobedience of a papal command would be sinful. In any event, the concrete decision before the Society was not an abstract case study from a university philosophy class. It was decided that to obey in that circumstance would produce an evil, which would include a general acceptance of all the post-conciliar reforms, magisterial texts, etc. — including, of course, the more ludicrous documents of recent years, of which I am sure you are all aware. The reader must remember that the conditions for mere dialogue to begin — dialogue that could eventually result in a hypothetical permission to consecrate — were set by Cardinal Fernánde
