By Henry Aloysius Barry
Obedience is the perfection of freedom. Our Lord came down from heaven to do the will of Him Who sent Him. He was obedient unto death. We know our Lord's teachings as they are made clear to us by those who were sent to teach all nations and preach the Gospel to every creature. There can be no ground for dispute on the truths, which the Infallible Church, divinely charged in the matter, proposes to our assent. To conform, then, our judgments and lives to such in a more cultured obedience secures to us true liberty, which rightly assumes creatureship on the one hand and the dominance of God and a divine authority on the other.must be rejected as, at heart, erroneous. To conform to them with inward assent, that is, with judgment and will, is Catholic duty. The divine authority of the Church is not reared by the consent of men; it is built upon God; rather, it is God
Himself. In the revealed truths expounded by the Church, human judgment and free will must bend the knee and make a renunciation of themselves, that is to say, they have found, on these points, the right and the truth, the way and the life. Their quest is at an cud, in so far as these truths are concerned. "I am the way," says Pope Leo XIII. "Wherefore if the truth be sought by the human intellect, it must first of all submit it to Jesus Christ and securely rest upon His teaching, since, therein truth itself speaketh. There are innumerable and extensive fields of thought, properly belonging to the human mind, in which it may have full scope for its investigations and speculations and that not only agreeable to its nature, but even by a necessity of its nature. But what is unlawful and unnatural is that the human mind should refuse to be restricted within its proper limits and, throwing aside its becoming modesty, should refuse to acknowledge God's teaching. This teaching upon which our salvation depends is entirely about God and the things of God. No human wisdom has invented it, but the Son of God hath received it and drunk it in entirely from His Father—hence this teaching necessarily embraces many subjects which are not indeed contrary to reason— for that would be an impossibility—but so exalted that we can no more attain them by our own reason than we can comprehend God as He is in Himself. If there be so many things hidden and shielded by nature, which no human ingenuity can explain, yet which no man in his senses can doubt, it would be an abuse of liberty to refuse to accept those which are entirely above nature, because their essence cannot be discovered. To reject dogma is simply to deny Christianity. Our intellect, must bow humbly and reverently, "unto the obedience of Christ." (Encycl. Holy Year, 1900.)
How would the world fare at the hands of fanatics and dreamers, of feeble-minded and uneducated ranting demagogues? The divine Supremacy, the Papacy, tames the erring judgment, prunes and directs the free will by supplying it with the rules of spiritual science.
Republics are essentially built on the consent of the governed. This is very good for temporal states, but with religion it is different. Our Lord says, "You have not chosen Me, I have chosen you." Revelation and revealed .authority must be respected by individuals and nations. No institution can antagonize it and see success written on its horizon. The individual who is out of tune with it cannot have the peace of the Holy Ghost. There is independence, but there is no such thing as one's evading authority of one kind or another. It is essential in the world. You may vote for a president of these United States; a permanent rector may vote for an Ordinary—subject of course to Rome's final decision—this is democracy, this is republican so to speak, but anterior to all is (rod. He created us, He preserves us and He redeemed us. He is, and must be, by His very Godhead and Redemptionship, our Ruler and Teacher, and, we must obey Him in our conscience and in His revealed Voice, His Church. "If he will not hear the Church let him be to Thee as the heathen and the publicans." "The test of the spiritual man is his conformity to the mind of the Church." "The presence of the Holy Ghost in the Church, is the source of its infallibility."
Obedience is the perfection of freedom. Our Lord came down from heaven to do the will of Him Who sent Him. He was obedient unto death. We know our Lord's teachings as they are made clear to us by those who were sent to teach all nations and preach the Gospel to every creature. There can be no ground for dispute on the truths, which the Infallible Church, divinely charged in the matter, proposes to our assent. To conform, then, our judgments and lives to such in a more cultured obedience secures to us true liberty, which rightly assumes creatureship on the one hand and the dominance of God and a divine authority on the other.must be rejected as, at heart, erroneous. To conform to them with inward assent, that is, with judgment and will, is Catholic duty. The divine authority of the Church is not reared by the consent of men; it is built upon God; rather, it is God
Himself. In the revealed truths expounded by the Church, human judgment and free will must bend the knee and make a renunciation of themselves, that is to say, they have found, on these points, the right and the truth, the way and the life. Their quest is at an cud, in so far as these truths are concerned. "I am the way," says Pope Leo XIII. "Wherefore if the truth be sought by the human intellect, it must first of all submit it to Jesus Christ and securely rest upon His teaching, since, therein truth itself speaketh. There are innumerable and extensive fields of thought, properly belonging to the human mind, in which it may have full scope for its investigations and speculations and that not only agreeable to its nature, but even by a necessity of its nature. But what is unlawful and unnatural is that the human mind should refuse to be restricted within its proper limits and, throwing aside its becoming modesty, should refuse to acknowledge God's teaching. This teaching upon which our salvation depends is entirely about God and the things of God. No human wisdom has invented it, but the Son of God hath received it and drunk it in entirely from His Father—hence this teaching necessarily embraces many subjects which are not indeed contrary to reason— for that would be an impossibility—but so exalted that we can no more attain them by our own reason than we can comprehend God as He is in Himself. If there be so many things hidden and shielded by nature, which no human ingenuity can explain, yet which no man in his senses can doubt, it would be an abuse of liberty to refuse to accept those which are entirely above nature, because their essence cannot be discovered. To reject dogma is simply to deny Christianity. Our intellect, must bow humbly and reverently, "unto the obedience of Christ." (Encycl. Holy Year, 1900.)
How would the world fare at the hands of fanatics and dreamers, of feeble-minded and uneducated ranting demagogues? The divine Supremacy, the Papacy, tames the erring judgment, prunes and directs the free will by supplying it with the rules of spiritual science.
Republics are essentially built on the consent of the governed. This is very good for temporal states, but with religion it is different. Our Lord says, "You have not chosen Me, I have chosen you." Revelation and revealed .authority must be respected by individuals and nations. No institution can antagonize it and see success written on its horizon. The individual who is out of tune with it cannot have the peace of the Holy Ghost. There is independence, but there is no such thing as one's evading authority of one kind or another. It is essential in the world. You may vote for a president of these United States; a permanent rector may vote for an Ordinary—subject of course to Rome's final decision—this is democracy, this is republican so to speak, but anterior to all is (rod. He created us, He preserves us and He redeemed us. He is, and must be, by His very Godhead and Redemptionship, our Ruler and Teacher, and, we must obey Him in our conscience and in His revealed Voice, His Church. "If he will not hear the Church let him be to Thee as the heathen and the publicans." "The test of the spiritual man is his conformity to the mind of the Church." "The presence of the Holy Ghost in the Church, is the source of its infallibility."
