by Father Paul L. Kramer
Perhaps the most common objection leveled against Father Gruner by his detractors is this: Father Gruner is "disobedient." Father Gruner should "obey" his bishop and "obey" the Holy Father—or words to that effect.
The simple answer to this objection is that Father
Gruner has never disobeyed any legitimate command from any legitimate authority
in the Church. In fact, his priestly life has been a life precisely of
obedience—obedience to the Faith and obedience to his vows as a priest.
This
objection to Father Gruner and his apostolate is founded on confusion about the
nature of obedience. What is obedience? This is what one must understand before
accusing anyone, including Father Gruner, of being "disobedient." As Saint Thomas
teaches, obedience is a special virtue consisting in one's readiness to follow
the lawful command of one's lawful superior, when the superior is acting within
the sphere of his authority. (Summa Theologica, II-II, 104.) Despite what some
people in the Church today suppose, obedience is not a theological virtue.
Unlike faith, hope and charity, obedience does not have God as its object, but
rather the command of one's human superior. Accordingly, it is nonsense to say,
as some do, that one is not a Catholic if one does not "obey." One may indeed
sin through disobedience to a human superior, but in committing that sin one
remains a Catholic, as do Catholics who commit other sins which do not involve
the loss of Faith. The matter involved in the precise sin of disobedience is
failing to give a human superior what is due to him in justice. This is to be
distinguished from sinning against faith (by heresy), sinning against hope
(despairing of one's own salvation) or sinning against charity (by unkindness
toward another). So, three things must be present in order to establish a duty of
obedience to one's human superior: (1) a lawful command, (2) by a lawful
superior, (3) acting within the proper sphere of his authority. As Saint Thomas
puts it most succinctly: "a subject is not bound to obey his superior if the
latter command him to do something wherein he is not subject to him." To these
three criteria must be added a fourth, from the basic moral law: the subject
has a duty to obey the command of his superior unless he has a legitimate
excuse from obedience, such as illness, impossibility or truly grave
inconvenience. Regarding the first criterion — that the command be lawful
— the Church has always taught that one may not obey any command which is
contrary to the law of God. As Saint Thomas says: "if the emperor commands one
thing and God another, you must disregard the former and obey God." Likewise,
Saint Peter teaches that "God must be obeyed rather than men." All of this is really
a matter of simple common sense. Let us consider some examples. Example #1: A
Bishop orders one of his priests to offer Mass every day — but in the
cathedral of another Bishop. The command to offer Mass is lawful, and is given
by a lawful superior, but it exceeds the Bishop's authority because he has no
right to usurp another Bishop's cathedral. Example #2: The Bishop of Diocese A
orders a priest of Diocese B to say Mass every day in the cathedral of Diocese
A. Here we have a lawful command — to say Mass every day — but the
Bishop of Diocese A is not the lawful superior of the priest of Diocese B and,
therefore, is acting outside the sphere of his authority. Example #3: The
Bishop of Diocese A orders a priest of Diocese B to use apple juice instead of
wine for Mass. Here all of the first three criteria are violated: the command
is unlawful (being contrary to the ordinance of God Himself), since no one has
authority to substitute apple juice for the wine Our Lord Himself prescribed
for the Sacrament of Holy Communion; the Bishop is not the lawful superior of
the priest; and the Bishop is acting outside the sphere of his diocese.
Example
#4: A Bishop orders his priest to celebrate Mass in some distant location
in the diocese on a given Sunday, but the priest refuses to go because he has
pneumonia and cannot even stand on his feet. Under the fourth criterion, the
priest has a valid excuse from the duty of obedience based on illness. (He
would also have an excuse based on impossibility.) Example #5: A
Bishop says to one of his priests, "It might be a good idea if you were to
resign your post as pastor of a parish and be a chaplain at the cemetery." The
priest does not go to the cemetery because, in this case, there is simply no
command which requires obedience in the first place. In none of these five
hypothetical cases could the priest justly be accused of "disobedience." Either
the superior exceeded the scope of his authority, or the superior was not a
lawful superior, or the command itself was unlawful, or the priest had a valid
excuse, or there was simply no command given. There can be different
combinations of these factors in each case presenting a question of due
obedience. So, the question of "obedience" is not so simple as: a superior has
spoken, therefore one must obey. Of course, in the common-sense experience of
our own lives we know that obedience is never that simple. Yet in the case of
Father Gruner, his detractors demand blind, unquestioning obedience without
regard to facts or circumstances. Now, let us apply these considerations to Father
Gruner's particular case. According to his detractors, Father Gruner has
"disobeyed" two alleged commands: First, the alleged command that he "return"
to the Diocese of Avellino and abandon his apostolate after 23 years. Second,
the alleged command of "the Holy Father" that no one must seek any longer the
Consecration of Russia, since allegedly this has already been accomplished.
Concerning
the first alleged command — that Father Gruner "return" to Avellino —
an examination of the facts shows that no duty to obey this alleged command can
possibly exist.
- First, Father Gruner was incardinated in the
Archdiocese of Hyderabad on November 4, 1995. The Archbishop of Hyderabad,
whose decree of incardination declares that Father Gruner is doing "God's work"
(including the support of an orphanage in the Archdiocese), affirmed the
incardination in a March 1999 decree which states as follows: After due discernment,
I am convinced that I am acting correctly though I was partly misled by
influential people. I strongly feel that the good work he [Father Gruner] is
doing in spreading devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary should not be
hampered for the present, especially through undue canonical or juridical
pressures. May Jesus Christ be praised! The Archbishop is here referring to the
completely illicit and unprecedented efforts of certain elements of the Vatican
Secretariat of State to use the Congregation for the Clergy to block Father
Gruner's incardination by a whole series of benevolent bishops who wished to
foster his apostolic work. Rightly resisting this interference in his
prerogatives, the Archbishop proceeded to incardinate Father Gruner, so that
the Bishop of Avellino no longer has jurisdiction over Father Gruner. Second,
the ostensible basis for demanding that Father Gruner "return" to Avellino is
the claim of Cardinal Castrillón Hoyos and his predecessors at the
Congregation for the Clergy that Father Gruner's conduct of an apostolate in
Canada while being incardinated elsewhere is an "irregular condition" which
must be "corrected." But the alleged offense of having an "irregular condition"
does not exist under Church Law. Thousands of priests engage in apostolates or
other full-time activities outside the dioceses of their incardination, and not
one of them is accused of having an "irregular condition." The Code of Canon
Law says nothing about "irregular condition." On the contrary, the Code says
diocesan priests like Father Gruner have a God-given right to join or establish
private associations of the faithful. (Canons 278, 299) The offense of having
an "irregular condition" is, therefore, a pure invention. It makes no more
sense than citing a motorist for "irregular driving" when there is no violation
of any specific provision of the motor vehicle code. In short, there is simply
no basis for punishing Father Gruner by ordering him to "return" to Avellino
— even if the Bishop of Avellino had jurisdiction over Father Gruner,
which he does not. Third, even if the Bishop of Avellino had
jurisdiction, and even if there were such a thing as an "irregular condition"
warranting Father Gruner's "return" to Avellino, the command to "return" is
patently illegal. Father Gruner cannot simply take up permanent residence in
Italy. He is a Canadian citizen who would be arrested and deported at the
Italian border if he entered the country in order to reside there without a
proper permanent resident visa. The only way he could gain entry into Italy
without a proper visa is to lie and say he was entering only as a tourist for a
brief visit. Over the past 23 years the Bishop of Avellino has taken no steps
whatsoever to obtain a visa for Father Gruner, which would require (among other
things) the Bishop's written guarantee of financial support, medical coverage
and old age pension for Father Gruner. The Bishop of Avellino has provided not
one penny of support to Father Gruner over the past 23 years and shows no signs
of guaranteeing such support now or doing anything else to obtain a visa for
Father Gruner's "return" to Avellino. Why? Because the Bishop clearly has no
interest in Father Gruner's "return," which is being engineered entirely by the
Vatican Secretariat of State through its instrument, the Congregation for the
Clergy. It is impossible to cover the details of this scheme in this document.
Please consult the 77-page apologia for Father Gruner, which contains citations
to the documents and other evidence proving the activities of the Vatican
Secretariat of State in this regard. Call the Fatima Center for your free copy.
The Church
binds herself to observe applicable civil law, including Italian law on
immigration. (See Canon 22, 1983 Code of Canon Law.) Thus, the order to
"return" to Avellino violates both civil and Church law. The order is legally
impossible to obey. Fourth, the Church in her mercy recognizes that "no
one can be punished for the commission of an external violation of a law or
precept [i.e., particular command] unless it is gravely imputable by reason of
malice or culpability." (Can. 1321, §1) Since the precept that Father
"return" to Avellino is based upon a concocted offense which does not exist in
the law of the Church — the so-called "irregular condition" — and
since the precept is manifestly void because it violates Italian law and thus
Church law (per Canon 22), there can be no valid punishment of Father Gruner.
Neither malice nor culpability is "gravely imputable" to him under Canon 1321
since the command to "return" to Avellino is based on nothing, and is in any
event legally impossible to obey. Fifth, even if there were some legitimate
basis for ordering Father Gruner to return to Avellino, and even if this
command were not legally impossible to obey, Father Gruner would nonetheless be
excused from obedience. While Father Gruner's persecutors in the Vatican
Secretariat of State may show no mercy, the law of Holy Mother Church does.
Thus, the Code of Canon Law provides that no one may be punished for violating
a precept if "necessity or grave inconvenience" prevents compliance. (Can.
1323, §2) A commonplace example from your own experience as laymen is that
you are excused from the law of the Church requiring attendance at Mass on
Sunday if illness or some other reason makes it necessary not to go to Mass, or
at least gravely inconvenient to do so. Of necessity, Father Gruner cannot "obey" a
precept which would require him to violate Italian immigration law. Also, the
precept would manifestly cause "grave inconvenience" in that it would require
Father Gruner to destroy his entire life's work, abandon the apostolate and its
150 employees (along with the orphanage in India), leave behind his home and
personal affairs, and take up residence as an illegal alien in a foreign
diocese which has made no provision for his support, medical care and old age,
and where he would be a virtual prisoner for life without any canonical
mission. (The very reason Father Gruner was given permission to live in Canada
back in 1978 is that he cannot speak the obscure dialect of Avellino and could
never be a parish priest there. The Bishop of Avellino was quite willing to
have Father Gruner go elsewhere.) Sixth, standing above all these
considerations, as compelling as they are, is the most important of all: the
salvation of souls, which is the highest law of the Church. Father Gruner
cannot in conscience "obey" a dishonestly contrived, patently illegal and
shockingly unjust order which would not only work his personal ruination but
would threaten the existence of a legitimate apostolate that preaches the
Gospel, promotes Catholic devotions and sacramental helps, has benefitted
countless thousands of souls, and defends the integral Message of Fatima,
which, as Our Lady Herself said, was given to men as an aid to the salvation of
souls in our time. Moreover, this is not just Father Gruner's judgment but the
judgment of no fewer than three benevolent bishops who wished to incardinate
him with permission to continue his work. These include the Archbishop of
Hyderabad, who rightly declares that "undue canonical or juridical pressures"
by the Vatican bureaucracy should not be allowed to interfere with a valid,
important and totally permissible apostolic work.
Returning to our four criteria for the existence of a duty to obey
a given command, we can see that, in view of these facts, there is no duty to
obey the alleged command to "return" to Avellino —
- The command is not lawful. It violates civil law, Church law and the highest law of all: the salvation of souls. In essence, there is no command at all because the command is void. Moreover, the pretext for the command is a concocted offense — "irregular condition" — which does not even exist in Church law. The alleged offense has no more validity than the aforementioned citation for "irregular driving" when no motor vehicle law has been violated.
- The command was not given by Father Gruner's lawful superior, who is the Archbishop of Hyderabad — not the Bishop of Avellino.
- The command is thus outside the sphere of the Bishop of Avellino's authority.
- Even if there were a valid command, Father Guner would be excused from obedience because the command is morally and legally impossible to obey, or at the very least "gravely inconvenient" as envisioned in can. 1323.
In sum, Father Gruner cannot be punished for "disobeying" a void
order, issued as punishment for an offense which does not exist; nor for
"failing" to do what is illegal, impossible, or even gravely inconvenient. The
baseless precept to "return" to Avellino is all of these. Under the law of the
Church itself, therefore, Father Gruner has no duty to obey the command to
"return" to Avellino, and any penalty imposed for "disobedience" would be of no
effect before God and the Church. What is more, when a superior commands something that is
contrary to justice and the common good of the Church, Catholic theology
teaches that a subject may licitly resist the unjust and harmful command. Here
too we are dealing with a matter of common sense: a ruler, even in the Church,
may be opposed when he abuses his authority and seeks to cause harm. As just
one of many examples of this teaching, the eminent theologian Francisco de
Suarez, praised by Saint Pius V as a "pious doctor" of the Church, rightly
observed that even if the Pope "tries to do something manifestly opposed to
justice and to the common good, it would be licit to resist him." All the more
so a local bishop, or a member of a Vatican congregation, who is abusing his
authority. Granted, the question of resistance to a superior's command is a
matter of conscience and personal judgment in which one can err. But the moral
principle of this licit resistance is undeniable, and the evidence is clear
that Father Gruner has good grounds for resistance and has not erred in
following his conscience here. At any rate, this is between him and God, not
him and his self-appointed judges in the Catholic press. Now we turn to the
second of the alleged commands that Father Gruner is accused of "disobeying"
— the alleged command of "the Holy Father" that one must no longer ask for
the Consecration of Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary because allegedly
this has already been done. Quite simply, there is no such command and thus no duty
of obedience. The Holy Father has never "commanded" nor even said in any
binding public pronouncement to the Church that the Consecration was
accomplished in 1984, 1982, or at any other time. Quite the contrary, both
during and after the 1984 consecration ceremony the Pope spontaneously added to
the prepared text a phrase clearly indicating that he himself considered that
the specific consecration of Russia has yet to be accomplished. Before 200,000
people in Saint Peter's Square, after he had pronounced the words of the
consecration formula, the Pope declared to the Virgin Mary Herself: "Enlighten
especially the people whose consecration and entrusting You are awaiting from
us."(1) Three hours later, before 10,000 witnesses inside Saint Peter's
Basilica, His Holiness referred again to "those peoples for whom You Yourself
are awaiting our act of consecration and entrusting."(2) Why would the Pope say
that the Virgin was still awaiting the consecration of Russia if the
consecration had just been done? We now have important evidence which confirms
what Father Gruner and many others have long suspected: the Pope spoke as he
did because his advisors have counseled him not to consecrate Russia by name. A
recent article in Inside the Vatican magazine reveals that a Cardinal described
as "one of the Pope's closest advisors" advised His Holiness not to make
mention of Russia in any consecration ceremony because this would offend the
Russian Orthodox.3 It seems clear, then, that in 1984 the Pope was trying to
signal to the world that the Consecration had been deferred, based upon this
(extremely bad) advice to him. What else could the Holy Father's spontaneous
comments possibly mean? Therefore, "the Holy Father" has commanded absolutely nothing
concerning whether the Consecration has been done or whether the faithful,
including Father Gruner, may continue to request it. This charge of
"disobedience" against Father Gruner is specious and dishonest. We ought to consider
here a related accusation against Father Gruner: that in continuing to petition
for the Consecration of Russia he is being "disrespectful" and "disloyal" to
the Holy Father, because the Holy Father (so the accusers say) believes that he
has done the consecration. A simple analogy suffices to demonstrate the folly
of those who make this accusation. Let us suppose there is a large ocean liner, which we
shall call the Titanic. A lowly deckhand realizes that the captain of the
Titanic has been given inaccurate information by his ship's officers about the
location of icebergs in the sea lane the Titanic is traversing. In fact, the
deckhand discovers that the most recent dispatch on the location of icebergs
has been tossed in the garbage and forgotten. The deckhand tries to call the
captain's attention to the discarded dispatch and to warn him of the danger of
the icebergs; the ship's officers upbraid the deckhand for his insolence. They
accuse him of being disrespectful and disloyal to the captain and undermining
their own authority and prestige by questioning the safety of the Titanic's
course. The ship's officers refuse to convey the deckhand's urgent pleas to the
captain and threaten to throw the deckhand in the brig if he persists in his
attempts to speak to the captain. Soon the Titanic hits an iceberg and sinks,
and the lives of many passengers are lost. Which member of the crew was truly loyal to
the captain? Obviously, the lowly deckhand who tried to get the correct
information into the captain's hands and warn him of the danger if the
information were disregarded. As for the ship's officers, their professed
loyalty to the captain was a false loyalty, and in fact a form of pride.
If Father
Gruner and the millions of Catholics who share his convictions are right, then
true loyalty and respect for the Holy Father require that they continue to
petition him for the consecration of Russia, by name, to the Immaculate Heart
of Mary. For if the Virgin spoke the truth — and She cannot lie to us
— then the failure to heed Her message at Fatima poses a danger infinitely
greater than the iceberg which sank the Titanic. Nor can we be expected to
ignore that danger out of a false human respect for the prestige and authority
of Vatican advisors who tell the Pope that the Bark of Peter has clear sailing
ahead. Those
who continue to pursue the Consecration of Russia, including Father Gruner, are
acting reasonably upon the basis of empirical evidence which looms as large as
any iceberg in the sea. As Saint Thomas teaches, contra factum non argumentum
est — against a fact there is no argument. And the facts are that in the
17 years which have elapsed since the alleged "consecration" of 1984 there has
not only been no conversion of Russia, but a continued dramatic decline in her
spiritual, moral and material condition. It is the height of absurdity to
contend that we must "obey" the suggestion that a nation which aborts 3.5
million children each year, whose population is dwindling at an alarming rate,
and whose laws prohibit the Catholic Church from seeking converts, establishing
dioceses, or even having permanent resident priests and bishops (unless they
marry Russian women!) is a nation where the Immaculate Heart of Mary is
triumphant. This is not only absurd, but blasphemous. And no argument from
authority by Vatican bureaucrats, no matter how high their offices, can negate
the facts before our very eyes. Finally, it is worth noting that those who profess such
indignation over the "disobedience" of Father Gruner tend to show very little,
if any, concern about the priests and even bishops who promote or tolerate
heresy or commit unspeakable scandal in dioceses throughout the world. This is
not even to mention the vast majority of laity who call themselves Catholic but
follow only those Catholic teachings with which they happen to agree. The Pope
himself has decried this situation in his recent letter to the German
Cardinals. The same situation obtains throughout the Catholic world. With the Church in the
throes of what can only be called a growing apostasy, why are Father Gruner's
detractors spending so much time deriding a Marian priest who has kept the
Faith and kept his vows, a priest who does what the Archbishop of Hyderabad
rightly describes as "God's work"? If Father Gruner's critics were really
concerned about the problem of obedience in the Church today, they would be
turning their attention to the many clerics who really are disobedient, and who
at this very moment are inflicting innumerable wounds upon the Mystical Body.
As it is, their obsession with Father Gruner bespeaks a different agenda —
one that has nothing to do with the common good of the Church and the salvation
of souls. Footnotes
1. L'Osservatore Romano, March 27, 1984, pp. 1, 6.
2. Avvenire, March 27, 1984, p. 11.
3. Inside the Vatican, Nov. 30, 2000.
