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True Obedience in the Church: A Guide to Discernment in Challenging Times
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
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?
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
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?
81 pages, Kindle Edition
Published December 20, 2021
32 people are currently reading
79 people want to read
About the author
Peter Kwasniewski
57 books81 followersDr. Peter A. Kwasniewski holds a bachelor’s degree in liberal arts from Thomas Aquinas College in California and an M.A. and Ph.D. in philosophy from The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C.
After teaching at the International Theological Institute in Austria and for the Franciscan University of Steubenville’s Austrian Program, he joined the founding team of Wyoming Catholic College in Lander, Wyoming, where he currently serves as Professor of Theology and Choirmaster. He is a board member and scholar of The Aquinas Institute for the Study of Sacred Doctrine, which is publishing the Opera Omnia of the Angelic Doctor, and a tutor for the Albertus Magnus Center for Scholastic Studies.
Kwasniewski has taught and written extensively on a wide variety of subjects, especially Thomistic thought, sacramental and liturgical theology, the history and aesthetics of music, and the social doctrine of the Church. He has published two books with The Catholic University of America Press and a volume of music for liturgical use, Sacred Choral Works (Corpus Christi Watershed, 2014). His latest book, Resurgent in the Midst of Crisis: Sacred Liturgy, the Traditional Latin Mass, and Renewal in the Church (Angelico Press, 2014), is being translated into eight languages.
Dr. Kwasniewski writes for several major weblogs, including New Liturgical Movement and Rorate Caeli.
After teaching at the International Theological Institute in Austria and for the Franciscan University of Steubenville’s Austrian Program, he joined the founding team of Wyoming Catholic College in Lander, Wyoming, where he currently serves as Professor of Theology and Choirmaster. He is a board member and scholar of The Aquinas Institute for the Study of Sacred Doctrine, which is publishing the Opera Omnia of the Angelic Doctor, and a tutor for the Albertus Magnus Center for Scholastic Studies.
Kwasniewski has taught and written extensively on a wide variety of subjects, especially Thomistic thought, sacramental and liturgical theology, the history and aesthetics of music, and the social doctrine of the Church. He has published two books with The Catholic University of America Press and a volume of music for liturgical use, Sacred Choral Works (Corpus Christi Watershed, 2014). His latest book, Resurgent in the Midst of Crisis: Sacred Liturgy, the Traditional Latin Mass, and Renewal in the Church (Angelico Press, 2014), is being translated into eight languages.
Dr. Kwasniewski writes for several major weblogs, including New Liturgical Movement and Rorate Caeli.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
July 31, 2022
Catholics are obliged to resist and disobey the pope when he tries to limit the Old Latin Mass, because limiting is an attack upon the Common Good and it would be a sin to obey such a sinful command. This is the heart of the author’s claim in this 128 page ‘tract.’
The argument is presented relatively clearly, although a few more section breaks would have been helpful. The argument fills about 2/3 of the book and the other third is endnotes and further reading, so the book is well documented and it enables readers to follow up points for themselves.
The book was informative, but there was an enormous hole in the argument, as the book does not consider the implications of Vatican I’s 1870 declarations of Papal Supremacy. In Chp 3 of Pastor Aeternus Vatican I declared that the Pope’s authority in the Church is supreme. All Catholics are bound to submit to it in everything which relates to faith, morals, discipline and governance of the Church. Essentially the pope is supreme in determining issues which relate to belief and behaviour, and there is no appeal to any authority higher than the pope.
The author dismisses Catholics who go on about obedience to the Pope as having a neo-ultramontanist zeal (Kindle 43%). But Vatican I’s declaration is in fact a type of triumph of neo-ultramontanist thought. If Catholics accept Vatican I then it seems an unavoidable consequence that they have to accept a degree of the neo-ultramontanist implications of doing so, ie that the pope has supreme authority to settle all the issues raised by the author.
For example the author insists that celebrating the Latin Tridentine mass is essential to the ‘common good’ (Kindle 25%). But that is his opinion about an issue of faith and morals. The pope has a different opinion and Vatican I has declared that the Popes opinion is superior to the author’s opinion. So how can a Catholic accept Vatican I and yet reject the pope’s opinion on issues of faith?
The book illustrates how the author thinks this is possible, when at the end it says that a future pope or council will vindicate a rejection of the current pope’s views (Kindle 58%). But Vatican I directly condemns Catholics who appeal to future councils as a justification for ignoring a present pope.
The author also asserts that there is a perennial right to celebrate the Tridentine rite, because a previous pope said so in a document called ‘Quo Primum’ (36%). But that cannot be right. Firstly Pius XII changed the Easter celebrations of the old rite in 1951 and extended the changes to the whole Church in 1956. No one objected that this was contravening ‘Quo Primum.’ Furthermore, to assert that popes can bind successors is, arguably, to deny an aspect of the papal supremacy decreed by Vatican I.
Disappointingly the book does not consider issues like this. And most of its core claims are just a series of assertions. The old mass is an ‘immutable’ expression of the Church’s faith (28%) – in the author’s opinion. No one can just choose to stop using professions of faith like a mass or a creed (29%) – in the author’s opinion. Although, the reduction in usage of the Athanasian Creed may well question aspects of that particular opinion.
Ultimately this book seems to have a logical hole at its heart. If the author is adamant in his refusal to obey the pope, then there are two logical positions that he could take. He could deny the validity of Vatican I, as the Old Catholics do. Or he could say that there is currently no valid pope to obey, as the Sedevacantists do. But to say that there is a pope, and to accept that Vatican I has declared that the Pope has the right to definitively settle all the issues raised by the author…, that just makes the author’s insistence on a right to disobey the pope seem illogical. To the extent that he is ‘judging’ the pope to be wrong, and appealing to future authorities to justify his position, it also raises the possibility that the author’s opinions are potentially falling within the scope of what Vatican I rejected as an acceptable viewpoint for a Catholic.
Cleary the author must disagree with this conclusion. What a shame that this tract does not explain how, or why he thinks that he can (logically) do so.
The argument is presented relatively clearly, although a few more section breaks would have been helpful. The argument fills about 2/3 of the book and the other third is endnotes and further reading, so the book is well documented and it enables readers to follow up points for themselves.
The book was informative, but there was an enormous hole in the argument, as the book does not consider the implications of Vatican I’s 1870 declarations of Papal Supremacy. In Chp 3 of Pastor Aeternus Vatican I declared that the Pope’s authority in the Church is supreme. All Catholics are bound to submit to it in everything which relates to faith, morals, discipline and governance of the Church. Essentially the pope is supreme in determining issues which relate to belief and behaviour, and there is no appeal to any authority higher than the pope.
The author dismisses Catholics who go on about obedience to the Pope as having a neo-ultramontanist zeal (Kindle 43%). But Vatican I’s declaration is in fact a type of triumph of neo-ultramontanist thought. If Catholics accept Vatican I then it seems an unavoidable consequence that they have to accept a degree of the neo-ultramontanist implications of doing so, ie that the pope has supreme authority to settle all the issues raised by the author.
For example the author insists that celebrating the Latin Tridentine mass is essential to the ‘common good’ (Kindle 25%). But that is his opinion about an issue of faith and morals. The pope has a different opinion and Vatican I has declared that the Popes opinion is superior to the author’s opinion. So how can a Catholic accept Vatican I and yet reject the pope’s opinion on issues of faith?
The book illustrates how the author thinks this is possible, when at the end it says that a future pope or council will vindicate a rejection of the current pope’s views (Kindle 58%). But Vatican I directly condemns Catholics who appeal to future councils as a justification for ignoring a present pope.
The author also asserts that there is a perennial right to celebrate the Tridentine rite, because a previous pope said so in a document called ‘Quo Primum’ (36%). But that cannot be right. Firstly Pius XII changed the Easter celebrations of the old rite in 1951 and extended the changes to the whole Church in 1956. No one objected that this was contravening ‘Quo Primum.’ Furthermore, to assert that popes can bind successors is, arguably, to deny an aspect of the papal supremacy decreed by Vatican I.
Disappointingly the book does not consider issues like this. And most of its core claims are just a series of assertions. The old mass is an ‘immutable’ expression of the Church’s faith (28%) – in the author’s opinion. No one can just choose to stop using professions of faith like a mass or a creed (29%) – in the author’s opinion. Although, the reduction in usage of the Athanasian Creed may well question aspects of that particular opinion.
Ultimately this book seems to have a logical hole at its heart. If the author is adamant in his refusal to obey the pope, then there are two logical positions that he could take. He could deny the validity of Vatican I, as the Old Catholics do. Or he could say that there is currently no valid pope to obey, as the Sedevacantists do. But to say that there is a pope, and to accept that Vatican I has declared that the Pope has the right to definitively settle all the issues raised by the author…, that just makes the author’s insistence on a right to disobey the pope seem illogical. To the extent that he is ‘judging’ the pope to be wrong, and appealing to future authorities to justify his position, it also raises the possibility that the author’s opinions are potentially falling within the scope of what Vatican I rejected as an acceptable viewpoint for a Catholic.
Cleary the author must disagree with this conclusion. What a shame that this tract does not explain how, or why he thinks that he can (logically) do so.
June 10, 2022
Timely
A timely and concise treatment of what true obedience and “common good” are based on Catholic theology and historic examples. Must read in this strange time.
A lot of further reading materials are referenced in the. back of the book too, so it is easy for readers who are new to this topic to catch up with the background of this topic afterwards.
A timely and concise treatment of what true obedience and “common good” are based on Catholic theology and historic examples. Must read in this strange time.
A lot of further reading materials are referenced in the. back of the book too, so it is easy for readers who are new to this topic to catch up with the background of this topic afterwards.
February 8, 2026
This timely text offers one a sane view of the Crisis in the Church. Well written and well cited if one is curious about this issue then this text will bring you the information in a way that is easy to understand and digest.
Ideas that I have heard and that are reinforced in my mind:
Liberalism and Modernism are mind viruses.
Quo Primum is an inviolable document that binds all pastors of the Church and the tragic modern hierarchy is casting itself and some of the faithful head long into darkness and tragedy.
Viva Christo Rey
Viva SSPX
Ideas that I have heard and that are reinforced in my mind:
Liberalism and Modernism are mind viruses.
Quo Primum is an inviolable document that binds all pastors of the Church and the tragic modern hierarchy is casting itself and some of the faithful head long into darkness and tragedy.
Viva Christo Rey
Viva SSPX
July 19, 2022
This book was a succinct primer on what authentic obedience entails. Every Catholic - in our troubled times - must learn their Faith and defend it from the errors or ideologues in high places of ecclesial office. Thanks be to God for such a short book as this, to convict the reader that an unthinking, hyperpapalist position is not going to be blessed by God.
February 12, 2022
Informative
Well researched and written and easy to read. As a recent convert I appreciated it greatly as I start to learn about the history and traditions of the Church. I found it enlightening and encouraging. Would make a great gift. Perhaps even for your priest or bishop.
Well researched and written and easy to read. As a recent convert I appreciated it greatly as I start to learn about the history and traditions of the Church. I found it enlightening and encouraging. Would make a great gift. Perhaps even for your priest or bishop.
July 4, 2022
A good read with strong reasoning for retention of the TLM. It is truly a Mass for the ages that serves the common good and draws many to a deeper faith in the church.
April 3, 2025
A most fantastic work helping those souls who want to stay faithful to the Church and those who are confused and demand blind obedience. I would particularly recommend this book to the latter, as they seem to need it the most. In relevant form, the following came to mind.
The Tridentine liturgy, like the papacy, is handed down through tradition. It is a matter of faith and morals, and as such, the Pope can not dispense with it as he wishes, just as he can not dissolve the papacy if he so desired.
Our Lord did not explicitly institute the papacy like he did the Church. Neither did he direct how the papacy was to be transmitted.
Yet, the papacy and all its aspects are faith and morals handed down to us by tradition. If Francis wished to abolish the papacy, he would lack the authority to do so, as the pope is subject to tradition. The same applies to the Mass of Ages, handed to Church by tradition.
“As George Neumayr witheringly observes: ‘For a religion predicated on Tradition, the suppression of tradition makes no sense unless the goal is to suppress that religion fundamentally…. [Francis], of course, embodies the very division he claims to deplore. He is dividing Catholics at the deepest possible level—from Catholic Tradition itself.
A “unity” rooted in heterodoxy is a sham …. By disregarding the authority of past popes, Francis is impliedly erasing his own.’”
The Tridentine liturgy, like the papacy, is handed down through tradition. It is a matter of faith and morals, and as such, the Pope can not dispense with it as he wishes, just as he can not dissolve the papacy if he so desired.
Our Lord did not explicitly institute the papacy like he did the Church. Neither did he direct how the papacy was to be transmitted.
Yet, the papacy and all its aspects are faith and morals handed down to us by tradition. If Francis wished to abolish the papacy, he would lack the authority to do so, as the pope is subject to tradition. The same applies to the Mass of Ages, handed to Church by tradition.
“As George Neumayr witheringly observes: ‘For a religion predicated on Tradition, the suppression of tradition makes no sense unless the goal is to suppress that religion fundamentally…. [Francis], of course, embodies the very division he claims to deplore. He is dividing Catholics at the deepest possible level—from Catholic Tradition itself.
A “unity” rooted in heterodoxy is a sham …. By disregarding the authority of past popes, Francis is impliedly erasing his own.’”
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 15, 2024
While only a tract, could have been more thorough (maybe more examples from history, etc). Not much of a guide, given that.
March 10, 2025
Short, concise explanation of the limits of the Pope’s and hierarchy’s ability to change the nature of The Catholic Church. Excellent additional reading resources and endnotes are provided.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews