True Obedience In The Church

Pope Benedict XVI affirmed the ongoing growth and perpetual validity of the Traditional Latin Mass, insisting that “what earlier generations held as sacred remains sacred and great for us too, and it cannot be all of a sudden entirely forbidden or even considered harmful.” However, with the 2021 release of Traditionis Custodes, his successor has declared precisely the opposite, sending shockwaves through the Church by calling for the restriction and eventual suppression of her most beautiful and venerable form of worship — and the one experiencing the most dramatic and impassioned growth. What is a conscientious Catholic to do? In this pivotal book, Dr. Peter Kwasniewski offers an essential treatise on the question of obedience in the Church—whence it derives and how it is to be properly and prudently understood and lived. He explores St. Thomas Aquinas’s guidelines on the subject, what type of obedience is necessary for salvation, and which types are lawful and unlawful. Can there be situations where the usual structures of obedience become impediments to, rather than facilitators of, the Church’s mission and the good of souls? Have there been instances in Church history where faithful priests have exercised their ministry in violation of ordinary canonical norms? How should the clergy respond if the traditional Latin Mass is forbidden to them or if it were to be declared “abrogated”? What is the proper role of conscience and how are liberal and conservative views of it defective? Other questions on obedience that Dr. Kwasniewski deftly engages include: Is it ever licit for individuals to follow Enlightenment ideology and be their own authority? What should you do when your superior instructs you to do something in contravention of God’s law? Why is opposing the traditional liturgy equivalent to opposing the work of the Holy Spirit and harming the Church’s common good? Are Catholics required to live in blind obedience, even in situations of anarchy or breakdown, corruption or apostasy? Can Catholics who strive to preserve traditional beliefs and practices ever be credibly denounced as disobedient revolutionaries? Why are unjust laws acts of violence?

Pope Benedict XVI affirmed the ongoing growth and perpetual validity of the Traditional Latin Mass, insisting that "what earlier generations held as sacred remains sacred and great for us too, and it cannot be all of a sudden entirely forbidden or even considered harmful." However, with the 2021 release of Traditionis Custodes, his successor has declared precisely the opposite, sending shockwaves through the Church by calling for the restriction and eventual suppression of her most beautiful and venerable form of worship -- and the one experiencing the most dramatic and impassioned growth. What is a conscientious Catholic to do? In this pivotal book, Dr. Peter Kwasniewski offers an essential treatise on the question of obedience in the Church--whence it derives and how it is to be properly and prudently understood and lived. He explores St. Thomas Aquinas's guidelines on the subject, what type of obedience is necessary for salvation, and which types are lawful and unlawful. Can there be situations where the usual structures of obedience become impediments to, rather than facilitators of, the Church's mission and the good of souls? Have there been instances in Church history where faithful priests have exercised their ministry in violation of ordinary canonical norms? How should the clergy respond if the traditional Latin Mass is forbidden to them or if it were to be declared "abrogated"? What is the proper role of conscience and how are liberal and conservative views of it defective? Other questions on obedience that Dr. Kwasniewski deftly engages include: Is it ever licit for individuals to follow Enlightenment ideology and be their own authority? What should you do when your superior instructs you to do something in contravention of God's law? Why is opposing the traditional liturgy equivalent to opposing the work of the Holy Spirit and harming the Church's common good? Are Catholics required to live in blind obedience, even in situations of anarchy or breakdown, corruption or apostasy? Can Catholics who strive to preserve traditional beliefs and practices ever be credibly denounced as disobedient revolutionaries? Why are unjust laws acts of violence?

English and Latin. Reprint of the 1930 ed. Bibliographical footnotes. Gardiner's address to the legates.--The Pope's brief to Francis I.--Gardiner's tract on Fisher's execution.--The oration of true obedience.--Gardiner's answer to Bucer.

Dr. JM Carroll's "The Trail of Blood" is a great historical premise concerning the beginnings of the church from "Christ it's founder, till the current day". Written in the early 20th century, Dr. Carroll details the history and plight of TRUE bible believers throughout time. Still as relevant today as it was almost 100 years ago, this timeless classic is a must-have part of any Christian's personal reading collection.

The Father in heaven asks, and requires, and actually expects, that every child of His yield Him whole-hearted and entire obedience, day by day, and all the day. To enable His child to do this, He has made a most abundant and altogether sufficient provision in the promise of the New Covenant, and in the gift of His Son and Spirit. This provision can alone, but can most certainly, be enjoyed, and these promises fulfilled, in the soul that gives itself up to a life in the abiding communion with thee.

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At the sixtieth anniversary of Sacrosanctum Concilium, the situation on the ground for Catholics is more chaotic than ever. A liturgical reform, meant to usher in a new age of full churches and ecumenical rapprochement, delivered neither; instead, churches are emptying and closing at an unprecedented rate. Meanwhile, an ancient old rite, grown to maturity in the Middle Ages, encrusted with Baroque pearls, and officially pronounced dead in the 1960s, has made an astonishing return around the world. Tolerated by Paul VI, permitted worldwide by John Paul II, declared free for everyone by Benedict XVI, and most recently put under ban once more by Francis, the Tridentine Mass remains a powerful and polarizing reality in the Church of Rome—an ark of holiness and beauty to the priests and faithful who love it, a belligerent “backwardism” to those who seek its abolition. In this state of spiritual civil war, questions of authority and obedience are never far from anyone’s mind. Bound by Truth grapples with the momentous issues of authority, obedience, tradition, and the common good. Part I, “Papacy, Patrimony, and Piety,” addresses the teaching of Vatican I on the pope’s universal jurisdiction; the limits of his authority in light of other authoritative principles such as liturgical tradition and local custom; the properly Catholic way to interpret and follow the Magisterium; and the virtue of intelligent, God-fearing, and communally perfective obedience versus its vicious distortions—willful rebelliousness on the one hand, and a blind, thoughtless, self-destructive submissiveness on the other. Part II, “Faithful Resistance,” looks at historical examples of prelates who legitimately pushed back against papal overreach; discusses how clergy should navigate unjust episcopal decrees on private Masses, concelebration, the use of the Rituale Romanum, etc.; shares advice and strategies for laity who seek to promote and defend tradition in their dioceses; and draws inspiration from persecuted religious sisters, whether their tormentors were Soviet Communists or apparatchiks of the postconciliar ecclesiastical bureaucracy. “Peter Kwasniewski is a sane and learned voice crying out from within a Catholic Church which—in its earthly, visible aspect—seems to have lost its mind.”—SEBASTIAN MORELLO “Examines the difficult topics of authority and obedience with forthrightness and a willingness to engage even the most controversial debates… a timely guide to how Catholics might respond when truth and tradition are under attack by those who should be their foremost defenders.”—ERIC SAMMONS “As with his earlier books, so here, Kwasniewski emerges as an apostle of tradition and a paladin of the ancient Roman rite. A book to be treasured.”—MICHAEL SIRILLA “Both summarizes the author’s recent thought and serves as a guide and resource for beleaguered faithful… theoretically challenging and eminently useful.”—STUART CHESSMAN “Critiques the latest (and historically worst) abandonment of our grip on the cord that ties us, through tradition, to the Word Incarnate—and indicates the paths along which health and sanity will be recovered.”—JOHN C. RAO “Offered with his usual mixture of scholarship and wit, Kwasniewski’s analysis is primarily and accurately applied to the situation in the Church, but the principles he explores in this book also admit of far wider application.”—CHARLES A. COULOMBE “This thoroughly researched and cogently argued book could not have been published at a better time.”—BRIAN M. MCCALL