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| Armand Veilleux, O.C.S.O. |
THE VIRTUE OF OBEDIENCE
Jesus said to Simon, “Put out into deep water and lower your nets for a
catch.” Simon said in reply, “Master, we have worked hard all night and have
caught nothing, but at your command I will lower the nets.” When they had done
this, they caught a great number of fish and their nets were tearing. They
signaled to their partners in the other boat to come to help them. They came
and filled both boats so that they were in danger of sinking. When Simon Peter
saw this, he fell at the knees of Jesus and said, “Depart from me, Lord, for I
am a sinful man.” For astonishment at the catch of fish they had made seized
him and all those with him. (Luke 5:4-9)
Jesus’ authority is unique in history and it is a mistake to apply the
same obedience to Jesus to obedience to human authority. True, in specific
cases human beings directly exercise the authority of Jesus. However, it is
necessary for maintaining a sound, healthy spiritual life to make the critical
distinction.
Not all obedience to human authority is obedience to God. This point
should be obvious yet millions of people continue to make the mistake of
merging the two when the identification is insupportable.
“We must obey God rather than men.” (Acts 5:29)
When we misconstrue or substitute human authority for the authority of
God—through ignorance, concupiscence, for whatever reason—then we sin against
the First and Second Commandments:
You shall not have other gods beside me. You shall not make for
yourself an idol or a likeness of anything in the heavens above or on the earth
below or in the waters beneath the earth; you shall not bow down before them or
serve them. (Exodus 20:3-5)
We sin because we make a god of human authority unfounded or
inadequately founded on divine authority.
***
One of the most famous studies of obedience in psychology was carried
out by Milgram (1963).
Stanley Milgram, a psychologist at Yale University, conducted an
experiment focusing on the conflict between obedience to authority and personal
conscience.
—Saul McLeod, “The Milgram Shock Experiment,” SimplyPsychology, updated 2017
Conscience is an important and fundamental source of knowledge about
God’s will.
Conscience is the most secret core and sanctuary of a man. There he is
alone with God, Whose voice echoes in his depths.—Gaudium et Spes, 16
***
Let us not forget that the abuse of authority, including religious and
spiritual authority, is always possible. Whenever a person is placed in a
position of power, control, or influence over another person in a subordinate
or dependent position, the possibility of abuse of authority always exists. We
know from countless documented cases that human authority—managers, government
officials, parents, doctors, teachers, counselors, and so on—is inevitably
abused, so that the risk of abuse of authority always exists. Clergy and
religious are not exempt from this possibility.
Instances of the abuse of religious and spiritual authority include:
- Verbal abuse, such as yelling, swearing, insulting, mocking,
name-calling, threatening, humiliating, demeaning, and so on—this can occur,
for example, in spiritual direction or in religious doctrine classes
- Teaching incorrect religious doctrine—for example, the obligation
exists for religious or spiritual authority that publicly represents the Roman
Catholic Church to teach doctrine accurately, not to propagate their particular
biases or opinions, or those of the particular organization they represent
within the Roman Catholic Church, as if those positions are the official stance
of the Roman Catholic Church
- Concealing by dissimulation, evasion, omission, or outright lying
information to which the persons concerned have a right
- Imposing religious, spiritual, or various kinds of contractual
obligations—generally through the foregoing means—without the informed consent of
the persons concerned
- Denying persons the right of conscience, often accomplished through
the foregoing means
- Disclosing private information about a person without the permission
or consent of the person confiding
- Using private information to blackmail the persons concerned
- Excluding, ignoring, or by various other means socially isolating
individuals as a method of coercing them psychologically or socially
- Making sexual innuendos, improper touching, or direct sexual assault
- Denying abuse and blaming the victim
- Gaslighting
- Gaslighting
The list is by no means complete.
Insisting upon obedience to religious and spiritual authority is a form
of abuse under any or all of the above conditions. We should be careful to
assign obedience to religious and spiritual authority an absolute spiritual
value because the possibility always exists that this type of obedience co-opts
a situation of systemic or incidental abuse.
When religious and spiritual authority is abused, it may be termed
religious or spiritual abuse.
***
The will of God for every man is written in his own heart. Any form of
obedience that alienates man and leads him to a mechanical submission to
exterior laws belongs to that long series of religious means that man has
invented through history in order to refuse to accept his own responsibility,
asking the gods to make his decisions in his place. The only truly Christian
obedience is the one that leads man to the discovery of his own heart, that is,
of that part of himself where he is one with God. That obedience can bear its
fruits only in the one who has chosen it freely and accepts sincerely and
honestly all its implications and consequences.
Armand Veilleux, O.C.S.O.
Former Abbot
Monastere Notre-Dame de Mistassini
Mistassini, Quebec, Canada
“Meditation
on Obedience,” October 2, 2004
***
Saint Joseph is a special case of obedience. He obeyed dreams. He was
filled with the spirit of God in an exceptional degree and as a result was able
to discern correctly. We cannot say the same for the vast majority of humanity.
Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, “Do not let your
prophets who are in your midst and your diviners deceive you, and do not listen
to the dreams which they dream.”—Jeremiah 29:8
Before we “obey,” we must have at least the moral certainty that it is
indeed God who commands.
***
“Intelligent” obedience is to consult our conscience and to soundly
discern when we obey any human authority. This principle of judgment and action
is even more imperative when human authority claims to speak for God.
“Intelligence” is required not only in implementing a directive but also in
evaluating it.
Many decisions in life like obeying traffic rules do not require
special consideration or any sort of extended deliberation.
***
THE FREEDOM OF OBEDIENCE
“It is not always easy to discern the will of God in all the details of
life. By entrusting our way to a pneumaticos, a spirit-filled abba or amma, we
can benefit by the discernment of one who is more under the influence of the
Spirit than ourselves. In the later institutionalization of the monastic orders
there has been added to this the gift which Christ gave to his Church to guide:
‘He who hears you, hears me.’
“...One of the benefits of this obedience is freedom. The monk walking
in the way of obedience is freed from having to devote time and energy to
discerning God’s will in so many of the details of life. He can simply do what
he is told and walk with God. This could, of course, be a disguise for laziness
or undue dependency. It is only the mature who can truly obey, like Christ. The
dependent go with the flow for less than fully human reasons, rather than seek
maturely to embrace the will of God. The immature struggling for a sense of
self cannot obey, for they fear that in subordinating themselves to another
they will lose themselves. Mature persons can submit themselves freely to
another without fear of losing themselves. They see obedience, rather, as the
way to more surely attain what they want.”
In M. Basil Pennington, O.C.S.O., A
Place Apart: Monastic Prayer and Practice for Everyone (Liguori, Missouri:
Liguori Publications, 1998), pages 85-86.
The “freedom of obedience” applies to religious obedience.
The vast majority of lay people do not live under a vow of religious
obedience, the “freedom of obedience.” This situation, I believe, is as it
should be. The conditions of the laity vary so greatly that it would be
impossible, in my opinion, for a religious or spiritual superior, however
knowledgeable or holy, to deal soundly with this vast array of circumstances.
To require obedience of a lay person to the directives of a religious or
spiritual superior who is potentially so inadequately informed would be very
unwise.
The laity must come to terms with the existential burden of making
their own decisions with respect to the extremely diverse aspects of their
lives and then to take full responsibility for their own decisions.
Photo of Armand Veilleux, O.C.S.O. is posted on this website according to principles of fair use, specifically, it is posted for the purposes of information and education.
ReplyDeleteGonzalinho
Opus Dei is identified with God—a sin against the first two commandments—so that the choice of Opus Dei is represented as the choice of God. This identity is untenable in the absolute sense. Opus Dei is not God.
ReplyDeleteGonzalinho
THE FREEDOM OF DISCERNMENT
ReplyDeleteWe are all obliged to follow the law of God revealed through the teachings of the Church. On the other hand, in many situations in life, God does not reveal his will explicitly. Very often we have to judge and act according to our own discernment of spirits. Discernment is thus a type of obedience to God. It is obedience to our understanding of the will of God, which may or may not fully correspond to God’s will, because discernment is hardly ever infallible.
The virtue of obedience consists, first, in our desire to do God’s will, and second, in our knowledge of it. This knowledge may not infallible but it should be sufficient for moral certainty. When we act upon our knowledge of God’s will, we do so virtuously, however imperfectly. Our obedience is virtuous to the degree that we have discerned God’s will correctly.
It may not be possible to determine God’s will with certitude or in detail, and in a certain sense it is even impossible to know God’s will, because in the final analysis the will of God is inscrutable. The prospect always exists that when we act with moral certainty we do so in error.
Notwithstanding, obedience to our understanding of the will of God is genuinely obedience.
“Moral certainty is a concept of intuitive probability. It means a very high degree of probability, sufficient for action, but short of absolute or mathematical certainty.”
—“Moral Certainty,” Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_certainty
“The quaint-sounding term ‘moral certainty’ dates back to c.1400. The Oxford English Dictionary defines it as ‘a degree of probability so great as to admit of no reasonable doubt.’ In the seventeenth century it became an important term in the law….”
https://philosophynow.org/issues/118/Moral_Certainty
—Toni Vogel Carey, “Moral Certainty,” Philosophy Now, 2017
Gonzalinho
To speak of obedience is to speak of searching for the will of God in order to carry it out.
ReplyDelete…As we know, the will of God has two aspects. On one hand, there is what is necessary to arrive at God and what touches upon every human being, as is expressed in the commandments, which has the purpose of preserving human life, not to oppress it tyrannically. On the other hand, there is what God offers or asks of each one in particular so they can collaborate with his Plan of Life, in their concrete life, with their personal, historical, cultural baggage. This manifestation of the will of God is infinitely multiform, as is infinitely multiform the history of humanity and even that of every person in particular. This will of God can only be grasped in a attentive and daily listening to the Spirit which communicates to us these invitations, suggestions and petitions of God:
The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the (John 3:8.)
…This attentive listening is called spiritual discernment of the will of God.
…There is no other way of knowing the concrete will of God in our lives than spiritual discernment. And, even still, this knowing is not infallible. Discernment brings us to moral or “spiritual” certitudes, more or less strong, but never infallible.
…Besides the proof of acceptance by the Church, there is the proof of the fruits, which is decisive, even though this test generally requires the passage of time: You will know them by their fruits (Matthew 716-20.) The later fruits of the life of Ignatius have fully confirmed the authenticity of his spiritual experiences and of his discernment.
http://www.sjweb.info/documents/cis/pdfenglish/200912004en.pdf
—Francisco López Rivera, S.J., “Obedience and Discernment,” Review of Ignatian Spirituality (January 2009) 40(120)
Gonzalinho
The article is excellent in its exposition of the subject of the spiritual discernment of the will of God, with two important qualifications.
DeleteFirst, it describes the discernment of the spirits under the conditions of religious obedience and in the Society of Jesus in particular, and these conditions do not obtain for the vast majority of the Roman Catholic faithful who do not live under the vow of obedience.
Second, it does not investigate the ramifications for obedience, discernment, and their particular dynamic in cases when religious or spiritual authority is abused, for which we can cite as a prominent contemporary example the wrongheaded policies of the bishops, including that of the pope himself, Saint John Paul II, during the decades-long scandal of clerical sexual abuse. The Church hierarchy perpetrated cover-ups, legal settlements, and payoffs to protect the reputation of clergy and religious, resulting in major psychological damage to the victims. The gravely misguided policies were successfully maintained over many decades in part because of the prevailing Roman Catholic ethos of obedience.
Gonzalinho
OBEDIENCE IN THE RULE OF SAINT BENEDICT
ReplyDeleteMonastic obedience takes place in an enclosed, highly structured environment that has no direct parallel outside the cloister. As a consequence, the type of obedience propounded by Saint Benedict has no place outside the cloister except in the broad sense of basic Christian principles.
Gonzalinho
Much is said about obedience in the Rule of Saint Benedict. The term appears at least 24 times in the Rule. Sample excerpts:
DeleteThe first degree of humility is obedience without delay. This is becoming to those who value nothing as more dear to them than Christ, on account of the holy servitude they have professed, whether through fear of hell or on account of the glory of life eternal. As soon as any order has been given by a superior, as being the same as if the order were divinely given, they can brook no delay in carrying it out. Concerning these the Lord says: “As the ear heard, he obeyed Me.” And again He says to teachers: “He who hears you, hears Me.”
Therefore such as these, at once relinquishing what they are doing, desert their own will and quickly freeing their hands by leaving unfinished what they were about, proceed with the foot of ready obedience to carry out the order given; and it is as if, in the case of those upon whom rests the love of attaining to life eternal, both things, the command first spoken by the master and the perfected work of the disciple, were in a single moment, with a quickness due to holy fear of God, mutually unfolded with great swiftness. Thus do they seize the narrow way of which the Lord says: “Narrow is the way that leads to life”; so that not guiding themselves in life by their own judgment they obey not their own desires and wishes, but walking by the judgment and commands of another, pass their life in community and are more than content to have an abbot over them. Without doubt such as these reproduce that maxim of the Lord’s wherein He says: “I came not to do My will, but His Who sent Me.”
But this same obedience will only then be acceptable to God and pleasing to man when that which is ordered be carried out neither with trepidation nor tardily and lukewarmly, nor yet with murmuring and the back answer of one unwilling; for obedience yielded to superiors is an offering laid before God: for Himself He has said: “Who hears you, hears Me.” And with goodwill should disciples yield it because it is the cheerful giver God loves. For if it is with ill-will the disciple obeys, if even he murmur in his heart and not only by actual word of mouth, though he fulfil the command, yet will he not now be accepted as obedient by God, Who regardeth the heart of the murmurer. And for such act he earns no reward; but rather he incurs the murmurer’s penalty, unless he amend and make satisfaction
—Chapter 5, Concerning Obedience
To be continued
Gonzalinho
Continued
DeleteThe third step in humility is that one for love of God subject himself in all obedience to his superior, imitating the Lord, of Whom the Apostle says: “Made obedient even unto death.”
The fourth step in humility is if in that same obedience, though things hard and contrary and even injuries, no matter of what kind, have been inflicted, he keep patience with a quiet conscience and enduring grows not weary nor gives in, for Scripture says: “He who perseveres to the end, the same shall be saved.” And again: “Let thy heart be comforted and wait for the Lord.” And showing that the faithful man ought for the Lord’s sake to wait patiently, seem all things never so contrary, it says in the name of the suffering: “For Thy sake we are afflicted all the day; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.”
And they, secure in their hope of divine retribution, gladly follow on and say: “But in all these things we overcome by Him Who loved us.”
And again in another place: “Thou, O God, hast tested us,” says Scripture, “Thou hast examined us with fire, as silver is examined with fire. Thou hast led us into the snare, Thou hast placed troubles upon our back.” And to show that we ought to be under a superior, it follows on, saying: “Thou hast placed men over our heads.” Moreover, fulfilling the Lord’s command by patience amid adversities and injuries those struck on the cheek offer the other also; with him who deprives them of their tunic they leave their cloak in addition; constrained to go a thousand paces, they go two thousand; with Paul the Apostle, they endure false brethren and bless those that curse them.
—Chapter 7, Concerning Humility
Gonzalinho
EQUAL-MINDEDNESS OF THE SPIRITUAL DIRECTOR AND THE PERSON BEING DIRECTED
ReplyDeleteThe task of the spiritual director is to guide the person being directed according to the will of God and the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, discernment of the spirits must be exercised on the part of BOTH the person being directed the spiritual director.
A critical condition for discerning correctly is “spiritual detachment.” Spiritual attachment is an inordinate attachment to creatures, desiring them for our own self-serving purposes, so that spiritual detachment is its opposite—the desire for creatures and use of creation for the ends for which they have been created, the service and love of God.
Someone who is inordinately attached to creatures will naturally have difficulty in discerning correctly, because they will be drawn to make choices out of weakness of will and for their own self-serving purposes.
Spiritual detachment has been described as “Ignatian indifference.” A better term, in my view, is what Father Mitch Pacwa, S.J. calls “equal-mindedness.”
“When it comes to dealing with good, legitimate options, I can either make a decision by the seat of my pants, or I can really seek to determine what God is asking of me. …If we want to do what God wills, then we can be open to any possibility, because God our Lord made everything good, including riches, poverty, or a relatively simple lifestyle. God can work through people with wealth (many saints were kings and queens) or through very poor people (St. Francis of Assisi and many other saints). These various possibilities are good in themselves, and therefore they are ways to become holy and to give glory to God who made them. How do we choose among these good options?
“If God can use everything and everything is good, then an essential starting point of being able to discern God’s will is the gift of being ‘equal-minded.’ St. Ignatius of Loyola called this gift being ‘indifferent,’ but some modern people interpret this term as not caring about the choices. Better is the term ‘equal-minded,’ which implies that I am happy to take either this option or that option. Neither option matters to me except insofar as one gives greater glory to God than the other. Seeking to give greater glory to God is one of the most important principles of discerning God’s will for my life.”
—Fr. Mitch Pacwa, SJ, How to Listen When God Is Speaking: A Guide for Modern-Day Catholics (2011), pages 72-73
If discernment of the spirits is to be exercised for the spiritual benefit of the person being directed, BOTH the person being directed and the spiritual director have to seek and pursue equal-mindedness in spiritual direction.
Gonzalinho
THE CASE OF OPUS DEI
DeleteOften enough Opus Dei is obstructed in the task of spiritual direction because its primary agenda is not to help people spiritually but to propagate itself. The organization relies on a self-serving distillation of historical Roman Catholic spirituality—something that suits the objective of propagating the organization but that clearly does not address the spiritual needs of many because it is narrow in scope and deficient in understanding.
Spiritual direction in Opus Dei is compromised by its overriding objective—which is not the spiritual good and well-being of the person being directed but rather the propagation of the institution of Opus Dei and the protection of its reputation. This type of spiritual direction has the potential to inflict grave harm and lasting damage on the person being directed because the objective of the spiritual director is not the spiritual welfare of the person being directed but rather the corporate agenda of Opus Dei.
When the spiritual director is principally motivated by the corporate agenda of the organization he represents, he inevitably lacks an attribute necessary for promoting the spiritual benefit of the person being directed: equal-mindedness. The spiritual director is not primarily motivated by the spiritual welfare of the person being directed but rather by the corporate agenda. The two are not necessarily aligned.
Gonzalinho
REQUISITE CONDITIONS FOR THE OBLIGATION OF RELIGIOUS OBEDIENCE
ReplyDeleteOne way in which the obligation of obedience is legitimately constituted in the Roman Catholic Church is by means of public or private vows. The matter of vows calls for a closer and more careful look because vows impose an obligation of obedience and from the standpoint of the Roman Catholic religion they do so legitimately.
The juridic aspect of vows is taken up in the 1983 Code of Canon Law, canons 1191-1198.
The canons are not simply legal imperatives but they are also theological claims and practical directives.
Vows are founded on a theological basis and are exercised in a theological context. They are based on religious understanding and practice.
Vows are practical—they are put into effect in a manner that directly, substantively, and sometimes radically affects the lives not only of the vowed but also of those who receive the vow and who exercise religious and spiritual authority in the name of the Church and of God to oblige observance of the vow and compliance with it, and who thereby assume the role of religious superior with weighty religious and moral obligations.
Title V of the Code describes vows (and oaths) as “…acts of religion that have a sacred character and impose obligations of religion. …Vows and oaths are, moreover, juridic acts which have juridic effects.”
“A vow, that is a deliberate and free promise made to God about a possible and better good, must be fulfilled by reason of the virtue of religion.”
What are some of the conditions under which a vow is legitimately constituted?
Specifically, under what conditions is the obligation of religious obedience, meaning, obedience to a religious superior, made operative and brought into effect?
Commentary (in quotation marks) on the canon law provisions cited below is taken from John D. Beal, James A. Coriden, and Thomas J. Green, eds., The New Commentary on the Code of Canon Law: Commissioned by the Canon Law Society of America (New York, New York: Paulist Press, 1999), pages 1416-1420. See:
https://www.franciscanpenancelibrary.com/vows#:~:text=A%20vow%20must%20be%20made,vow%20and%20has%20no%20effect
—“Public and Private Vows in Roman Catholic Church,” Franciscan Penance Library, 2016
To be continued
Gonzalinho
REQUISITE CONDITIONS FOR THE OBLIGATION OF RELIGIOUS OBEDIENCE
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Canon 1191 §3 A vow made out of grave or unjust fear or malice is null by the law itself.
Commentary
“A vow must be made with sufficient deliberation, knowingly, and with due discernment. The object of the vow must be something good; otherwise, it is not a vow and has no effect. …it must be something better, i.e., better than not doing it, or better than its opposite.
“…The vow must be freely made, i.e., without grave and unjust fear, or as a result of malice. A vow made under such circumstances would be invalid. Fear is grave when, in order to escape some serious harm that is perceived, a person sees no alternative other than to take the vow. Fear is unjust if it is inspired by a threat that is not deserved; it is just if it is inspired by a threat that is deserved.
“…Malice (dolus) in the context of this canon is the deliberate act of lying or of concealing the truth in order to get another person to make a vow which he or she would not do if the truth were known, or in order for oneself to get permission to make a vow, which would not be permitted if the truth were known.
“…Also invalid is a vow made out of ignorance or error concerning an element which constitutes the substance of the vow or which amounts to a condition sine qua non (c. 126). Ignorance is lack of knowledge; error is mistaken judgment. Ignorance or error invalidates a vow if the person vowing lacked knowledge of, or erred in judgment about, something that is of the substance of the vow.
“…A condition sine qua non is one which is so important that the vow would not have been taken if it had been known that the condition was not verified or could not be fulfilled.”
The first point we would make is that a vow of obedience is done with informed consent, in the words of the commentary, “with sufficient deliberation, knowingly, and with due discernment.” When the right to informed consent is not satisfied, the obligations of the vow are undercut and even lose their obligatory character, possibly entirely.
In the case of Opus Dei, this condition is violated when the Opus Dei member is required to profess the religious vows, in particular, the vow of poverty, and then repeatedly told over many years that they are lay, not religious—a claim which is contradicted by the obligatory profession of the vow itself.
The right of informed consent is further violated when the member is told that the religious community to which they belong does not possess common property but rather that all the members own private property and exercise their right to it—and then years later, in a turnaround that amounts to a betrayal of trust, that they are obliged to sign over their entire private property (which might be very substantial) to a corporate vehicle that the organization legally controls, and that this surrender is required of their ongoing commitment to the organization—a condition to which they never consented at the start!
To be continued 2
Gonzalinho
REQUISITE CONDITIONS FOR THE OBLIGATION OF RELIGIOUS OBEDIENCE
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The above illustrates additional conditions under which the obligations of the vow of obedience would be nullified, namely:
“…Malice (dolus) in the context of this canon is the deliberate act of lying or of concealing the truth in order to get another person to make a vow which he or she would not do if the truth were known.”
Malice is not definitively assumed here but rather it is posited that malice could be an underlying factor, especially since recruitment into the organization, what Opus Dei euphemistically terms “apostolate,” represents the very raison d’être of the organization.
“Also invalid is a vow made out of ignorance or error concerning an element which constitutes the substance of the vow or which amounts to a condition sine qua non…. A condition sine qua non is one which is so important that the vow would not have been taken if it had been known that the condition was not verified or could not be fulfilled.”
Still another condition that undercuts the obligation of obedience in Opus Dei is when the organization as a matter of religious conviction, that is, according to its corporate theology, repeatedly threatens that the member who chooses to leave is likely to be damned in hell.
“The vow must be freely made, i.e., without grave and unjust fear…. A vow made under such circumstances would be invalid. Fear is grave when, in order to escape some serious harm that is perceived, a person sees no alternative other than to take the vow.”
We opine that it is a better decision to never join Opus Dei under the aforementioned conditions, because to join entails the explicit, insistent threat of eternal damnation, whereas the opposite, not joining, does not.
Put another way, why knowingly take on the threat of eternal damnation when it is very well possible—and we might add, well attested by the history and tradition of the Roman Catholic Church—to pursue a solid Christian life, even attaining exemplary holiness, outside the confines of Opus Dei or any similarly maddeningly restrictive religious organization in the Roman Catholic Church?
Besides, joining Opus Dei when the right to informed consent has been gravely violated renders the insistent threat of eternal damnation upon departure from the organization unjust, besides the fear that arises therefrom.
To be continued 3
Gonzalinho
REQUISITE CONDITIONS FOR THE OBLIGATION OF RELIGIOUS OBEDIENCE
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Finally, it is highly disputable that joining Opus Dei is a better good than not joining the organization for the principal reason that the spirituality and the theology upon which the institution is built is in important and major respects questionable, objectionable, and even demonstrably immoral.
“The object of the vow must be something good; otherwise, it is not a vow and has no effect. …it must be something better, i.e., better than not doing it, or better than its opposite.”
Opus Dei’s claim that Saint Josemaria Escriva is infallible when he defines the spirituality of the organization—infallible, meaning, that the founder speaks for God directly and mirrors the person of God in his actions—is untenable.
Denial and violation of fundamental rights in Opus Dei, systemic duplicity, overbearing and insupportable thought control, and psychologically damaging cultic practices represent, among others, attributes of the so-called Opus Dei spirit that can hardly be said to proceed from God. They rather appear to reflect the autocratic, flawed, and deleterious convictions of Escriva himself.
To be continued 4
Gonzalinho
REQUISITE CONDITIONS FOR THE OBLIGATION OF RELIGIOUS OBEDIENCE
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Canon 1194 deals with cessation of a vow.
Commentary
Canon 1194 A vow ceases by the lapse of the time designated to fulfill the obligation, by a substantial change of the matter promised, by the absence of a condition on which the vow depends, by the absence of the purpose of the vow, by dispensation, or by commutation.
“A vow ceases to bind…
“(2) when there has been a substantial change in the matter promised, i.e., the thing promised becomes impossible or wrongful whether in itself or due to circumstances, e.g., one vows to attend Mass each year at a certain church and the church is closed, or one vows to give a large donation to the parish building fund and it becomes necessary to use the money to pay for emergency medical care;
“(3) when a condition on which the vow depends no longer exists, e.g., one vows to fast every day because of obesity, and the excess weight is lost; …”
The obligation of vowed obedience in Opus Dei—or simply obedience, which in Opus Dei is represented in an absolutist manner as obligatory—is nullified by at least the following conditions that have been observed, as expounded earlier and above:
“substantial change of the matter promised”
“…the thing promised becomes…wrongful…in itself”
“absence of a condition on which the vow depends”
Gonzalinho
Jesus teaches us to love, and obedience to God’s law and God’s will is how we love God. Jesus does not teach obedience for its own sake.
ReplyDeleteGonzalinho