Newman, St. Catherine, and Pius X: Three papalolators.

am just going to leave these here. The clar­i­ty of faith­ful Catholics like Car­di­nal New­man, St. Cather­ine of Siena, and Pope St. Pius X speaks for itself. (I do, how­ev­er, include some emphases and com­ments of my own.)

• Blessed John Car­di­nal New­man.

[W]hat need I say more to mea­sure our own duty to it and to him who sits in it, than to say that in his admin­is­tra­tion of Christ’s king­dom, in his reli­gious acts, we must nev­er oppose his will, or dis­pute his word, or crit­i­cise his pol­i­cy, or shrink from his side? There are kings of the earth who have despot­ic author­i­ty, which their sub­jects obey indeed but dis­own in their hearts; but we must nev­er mur­mur at that absolute rule which the Sov­er­eign Pon­tiff has over us, because it is giv­en to him by Christ, and, in obey­ing him, we are obey­ing his Lord.

[“Absolute rule”? We must nev­er mur­mur or dis­pute his word? Nev­er crit­i­cize his pol­i­cy? That’s extreme. Sounds like Ultra­mon­tanism!]

We must nev­er suf­fer our­selves to doubt, that, in his gov­ern­ment of the Church, he is guid­ed by an intel­li­gence more than human. His yoke is the yoke of Christ, he has the respon­si­bil­i­ty of his own acts, not we; and to his Lord must he ren­der account, not to us. Even in sec­u­lar mat­ters it is ever safe to be on his side, dan­ger­ous to be on the side of his ene­mies.

[“Even in sec­u­lar mat­ters”: Which means New­man will have none of this “we don’t have to lis­ten to the pope except on faith and morals” non­sense.]

Our duty is—not indeed to mix up Christ’s Vic­ar with this or that par­ty of men, because he in his high sta­tion is above all parties—but to look at his for­mal deeds, and to fol­low him whith­er he goeth, and nev­er to desert him, how­ev­er we may be tried, but to defend him at all haz­ards, and against all com­ers, as a son would a father, and as a wife a hus­band, know­ing that his cause is the cause of God. And so, as regards his suc­ces­sors, if we live to see them; it is our duty to give them in like man­ner our duti­ful alle­giance and our unfeigned ser­vice, and to fol­low them also whith­er­so­ev­er they go. (“Our Oblig­a­tions to the Holy See,” 1866)

• St. Cather­ine of Siena.

He is insane [St. Cather­ine did not mince words.] who ris­es or acts con­trary to this Vic­ar who holds the keys of the blood of Christ cru­ci­fied. Even if he was a demon incar­nate, I should not raise my head against him, but always grov­el and ask for the blood out of mer­cy.

Even if he was a demon, says St. Cather­ine. Even then I would grov­el. She speaks strong words.

And don’t pay atten­tion to what the demon pro­pos­es to you and you pro­pose under the col­or of virtue, that is to say to want to do jus­tice against evil pas­tors regard­ing their fault. Don’t trust the demon. Don’t try to do jus­tice about what does not con­cern you.

[Mind your own damn busi­ness, says St. Cather­ine. Who do you think you are?]

God wants nei­ther you nor any­one else to set them­selves up as a righter of the wrongs of His min­is­ters. He reserves judg­ment to Him­self, and He reserves it to His Vic­ar; and if the Vic­ar does not do jus­tice, we should wait for the pun­ish­ment and cor­rec­tion on the part of the sov­er­eign judge, God Eter­nal. (Let­ters, Vol. I. Let­ter No. 28).

St. Cather­ine had more to say on this theme on oth­er occa­sions.

He left you this sweet key of obe­di­ence. [Obe­di­ence is one of the coun­sels, but it is for the laity too.] For as you know He left His vic­ar, the Christ, on earth, whom you are all oblig­ed to obey until death, and who­ev­er is out­side His obe­di­ence is in a state of damna­tion. (Dia­logue, Trea­tise on Obe­di­ence)

And here is one more from St. Cather­ine.

[D]ivine obe­di­ence nev­er pre­vents us from obe­di­ence to the Holy Father. Nay, the more per­fect the one, the more per­fect is the oth­er. And we ought always to be sub­ject to his com­mands and obe­di­ent unto death. How­ev­er indis­creet obe­di­ence to him might seem, and how­ev­er it should deprive us of men­tal peace and con­so­la­tion, we ought to obey; and I con­sid­er that to do the oppo­site is a great imper­fec­tion, and deceit of the dev­il. (Let­ter to Broth­er Anto­nio of Niz­za)

When a Doc­tor of the Church says your rebel­lion is a “decit of the dev­il,” you should lis­ten. You should take coun­sel.

• Pope St. Pius X.

It seems incred­i­ble, and is even painful, that there be priests to whom this rec­om­men­da­tion must be made, but we are regret­tably in our age in this hard, unhap­py, sit­u­a­tion of hav­ing to tell priests: love the Pope!

[Noth­ing new under the sun. That’s where we are still, in our own age.]

And how must the Pope be loved? Non ver­bo neque lin­gua, sed opere et ver­i­tate. [Not in word, nor in tongue, but in deed, and in truth — 1 Jn iii, 18] When one loves a per­son, one tries to adhere in every­thing to his thoughts, to ful­fill his will, to per­form his wish­es. And if Our Lord Jesus Christ said of Him­self, “si quis dilig­it me, ser­monem meum serv­abit,” [if any one love me, he will keep my word — Jn xiv, 23] there­fore, in order to demon­strate our love for the Pope, it is nec­es­sary to obey him.

[It is not option­al. It is the duty of a Catholic.]

There­fore, when we love the Pope, there are no dis­cus­sions regard­ing what he orders or demands, or up to what point obe­di­ence must go, and in what things he is to be obeyed; when we love the Pope, we do not say that he has not spo­ken clear­ly enough—

[I love that part. We are not to quib­ble over his words, or whether this or that is infal­li­ble.]

—almost as if he were forced to repeat to the ear of each one the will clear­ly expressed so many times not only in per­son, but with let­ters and oth­er pub­lic doc­u­ments; we do not place his orders in doubt, adding the facile pre­text of those unwill­ing to obey — that it is not the Pope who com­mands, but those who sur­round him; we do not lim­it the field in which he might and must exer­cise his author­i­ty—

[Just so. None of this, “Well, the pope is almost nev­er infal­li­ble, so I almost nev­er have to lis­ten to him.” Pius X will have none of that.]

—we do not set above the author­i­ty of the Pope that of oth­er per­sons, how­ev­er learned, who dis­sent from the Pope, who, even though learned, are not holy, because who­ev­er is holy can­not dis­sent from the Pope.

This is the cry of a heart filled with pain, that with deep sad­ness I express, not for your sake, dear broth­ers, but to deplore, with you, the con­duct of so many priests, who not only allow them­selves to debate and crit­i­cize the wish­es of the Pope, but are not embar­rassed to reach shame­less and bla­tant dis­obe­di­ence, with so much scan­dal for the good and with so great dam­age to souls.

(Our good friends at Rorate Cæli pro­mot­ed Pius’s words—that debate and crit­i­cism of the pope caus­es scan­dal and dam­age to souls. They did that, of course, when Bene­dict XVI was pope.)