 | “The Pope is the Pope, is the Pope!The Church teaches total submission: ‘This religious submission of mind and will must be shown in a special way to the authentic magisterium of the Roman Pontiff, even when he is not speaking ex cathedra; that is, it must be shown in such a way that his supreme magisterium is acknowledged with reverence, the judgments made by him are sincerely adhered to, according to his manifest mind and will.” |
“This is only half the story!True loyalty & obedience does not imply a denial of our own personality, our own mind and our own will ! The Second Vatican Council teaches: ‘Those under authority bring to the execution of commands and to the discharge of duties the resources of their minds and wills, and their gifts of nature and grace.’ Only thus, the Council says, obedience does not diminish the dignity of the human person. Rather it leads to maturity within an enlarged freedom which belongs to the children of God.
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 | “Have you forgotten the teaching of St. Ignatius of Loyola?Blind obedience, he said, should make you like a dead piece of wood that someone can use as a walking stick. Obedience requires you to accept something is white, even if you yourself see it is black!” |
“Yes, Ignatius said that. But it should not be taken literally. Didn’t he want the Jesuits, whose society he founded, to be intelligent, honest, critical and creative?A balanced definition of obedience should do justice to our autonomy as thinking and free individuals.
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