I may have a sense of your dilemma. I am a former Marine, and I have disobeyed an direct order, in the face of the person giving the order. The particular case was when a missile strike was ordered to be called in which would have been “danger close”. It was against procedure, though not technically illegal, for the commander to issue that order. He was incompetent, in my judgment at the moment. There was a real possibility that if I called in the strike that myself and other Marines could have been wounded or killed.
But… it was a judgment call on my part. In his eyes I had a moral obligation to obey his direct order. In my eyes I had a moral obligation to disobey his direct order. I was willing to suffer the legal consequences of that decision, if it came to that.
Personally, I am gay. Big issue around here, and with the Church, and with its relationship to society as civil rights are won. The Church had the same struggle over slavery in the 1800’s.
I was baptized as a Catholic. I have been estranged from the Church at least for much of my life in a large measure because of the Church’s teaching on homosexuality. It is difficult to reconcile one’s life to the teachings of the Church, if they ring hollow to one’s own life experience. Every gay person knows a couple of things (1) sexuality is not a choice; (2) coming to realize one’s sexuality is not much different from person to person. It feels normal and natural (in the commonly used sense, not the theological sense). So as a younger person, I had a strong opinion that the Church was simply wrong. That opinion was well and reasonably founded in my life experience, and also by the opinion of the medical community who specializes in such matters.
I failed to understand that when the Church labels something as “objectively disordered”, that the phrase is meant in the context of a theological view of what is “natural”, and not in a scientific or secular sense. That judgment is a moral teaching, not a statement of more objective fact, as a modern persons understands scientific objectivity. The Church are very careful to avoid the causative question, which seems to be lost on some Catholics. As the scientific evidence accumulates to confirm the internal experience of gay people, I imagine that the Church will be faced with an interesting dilemma. This may be my own prejudice, but I am expecting the Church to struggle with this over the coming decades as more biological evidence accrues. At present, I am willing to accept a teaching from a higher authority which is discordant to my perceived reality. As immature as I am, I am aware enough to know that my perceptions are not objective.
I don’t know if that helps to clarify your own moral dilemmas. Maybe there is something in there of use.
