Must Not Be Obeyed

'Heretical bishops must not be obeyed, ... even if they enforce their power with brute force, just as the Arian and Donatist bishops once persecuted true Catholics.' - His Eminence Gerhard, Cardinal Müller

From Happy Despite Them

By Leila Marie Lawler

Yes, I too, in my own small way, also try to advert to John Henry Newman and the clear example of history, studied and depicted by that admirable saint, regarding the Arian heresy and its resisters. (I even wrote a chapter of my book God Has No Grandchildren, pointing to Newman to show the appropriateness of the laity resisting false teaching in the case of Amoris Laetitia, Pope Francis' apostolic exhortation following the Synods on the Family that took place a few years ago.)

Fr. Hunwicke can rest assured that there is at least one housewife deep in Central Massachusetts who joins him in his crusade (but I freely admit there are probably more than just one!), which he describes here:

I keep on writing about the terminology elaborated by S John Henry Newman: which he termed 'the Suspense in the function of the Ecclesia Docens': a way of looking at things which arose from Newman's own detailed study of the period of the Arian Controversy. I last did this, I think, on March 16. Nobody ever seems to take much interest in my one-man campaign, although I think that it is an essential hermeneutic for living in the Church at this present moment. Go on ... sneer ... raise one of your many expressive eyebrows and then move on ... see if I care ...

So I am grateful to him for pointing to the recent words of Cardinal Gerhard Müller in an interview with LifeSite News. Cardinal Müller says:

Whoever wants to prescribe to the faithful other sources of revelation besides the Holy Scriptures and the Apostolic Tradition, has fallen away from the Catholic faith (cf. Vatican II, Dei verbum 9f). Heretical bishops must not be obeyed, and every Catholic is called upon to bear witness to the truth against them, even if they enforce their power with brute force, just as the Arian and Donatist bishops once persecuted true Catholics.

Must Not Be Obeyed.