However, several hundred years from now, Catholics may very well ask something like, “Why were they listening to Humanae Vitae, the private opinion of Pope Paul VI, rather than the infallible teaching of the Church?”
I understand what you are saying, and in fact posed a similar question on the CAFs a while back, regarding embryonic stem cell research, homosexual unions, etc.
Itjustdave1988 gave a lengthy but trenchant response: (see
here for full discussion)
"I understand that they are my superior, not because they are always right, but because they were commission and appointed by lawful authority.** I often suffer to submit to the will of another, even though I believe they are wrong. **Being wrong is not the same as being contrary to God’s will.
For example, wasn’t Moses often going the “wrong” direction, away from the promised land while wandering in the desert? There were many who didn’t want to submit to him anymore (Korah, cf. Num 16). Yet, even though Moses was headed the wrong way, he was being navigated by God every step of the way. We cannot always understand why God navigates his holy people in divergent directions. But the response of the faithful is the “obedience of faith” spoken of by St. Paul in the Epistle to the Romans, even if we can’t understand why.
The problem is that many people aren’t really obeying God when they enter into homosexual relations, or appreviate the Bible and start their own church like Luther did. They aren’t really applying Act 5:29, but instead obey their own faulty understanding rather than the submitting to the Church, what Scripture calls “the pillar and foundation of truth.” (1 Tim 3:15)
Everyone needs limits and correction from lawful authority, because we have a tendancy, as individuals, to go faster than the speed limit, for example, and otherwise rationalize our unlawful actions, pretending that God wants me to do X, despite the norms established by lawful authority.
By doing so we make our faulty self the de facto pillar of truth, which is certainly contrary to God’s will. It is certainly contrary to Christ’s affirmation that the final arbiter is the Church (see Matt 18:15ff). We are commanded by Scripture to “listen to the Church.” All the evil in the word can be attributed to a failure to do so. How are we to responsond “if he refuses to listen even to the church” as the final arbiter of truth? And make no mistake, heresy and dissent from the teachings of the Church is certainly a sin against Christ’s brethren. Scripture is quite clear in this regard.
And this:
St. Catherine of Sienna:
“For divine 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)
Wherefore we teach and declare that, by divine ordinance, the Roman Church possesses a pre-eminence of ordinary power over every other Church, and that this jurisdictional power of the Roman Pontiff is both episcopal and immediate. Both clergy and faithful, of whatever rite and dignity, both singly and collectively, are bound to submit to this power by the duty of hierarchical subordination and true obedience, and this not only in matters concerning faith and morals, but also in those which regard the discipline and government of the Church throughout the world.
Pius IX:
“we cannot pass over in silence the boldness of those who “not enduring sound doctrine” [II Tim 4:3], contend that “without sin and with no loss of Catholic profession, one can withold assent and obedience to those judgements and decrees of the Apostolic See, whose object is declared to relate to the general good of the Church and it rights and discipline, provided it does not touch dogmas of faith or morals.” There is no one who does not see and understand clearly and openly how opposed this is to the Catholic dogma of the plenary power divinely bestowed on the Roman Pontiff by Christ the Lord Himself of feeding, ruling, and governing the universal Church.” (Pius IX, Encyclical Quanta Cura (1864), Denzinger 1698)
Pius XII, Humani Generis, 20
"Nor must it be thought that what is expounded in Encyclical Letters does not of itself demand consent, since in writing such Letters the Popes do not exercise the supreme power of their Teaching Authority. For these matters are taught with the ordinary teaching authority, of which it is true to say: “He who heareth you, heareth me”
Catechism of the Catholic Church, 892:
892 Divine assistance is also given to the successors of the apostles, teaching in communion with the successor of Peter, and, in a particular way, to the bishop of Rome, pastor of the whole Church, when, without arriving at an infallible definition and without pronouncing in a “definitive manner,” they propose in the exercise of the ordinary Magisterium a teaching that leads to better understanding of Revelation in matters of faith and morals. To this ordinary teaching the faithful “are to adhere to it with religious assent” which, though distinct from the assent of faith, is nonetheless an extension of it.
Code of Canon Law:
“Can. 752 Although not an assent of faith, a religious submission of the intellect and will must be given to a doctrine which the Supreme Pontiff OR the college of bishops declares concerning faith or morals when they exercise the authentic magisterium, even if they do not intend to proclaim it by definitive act; therefore, the Christian faithful are to take care to avoid those things which do not agree with it.”
:shrug:
We won’t discuss what a Christian’s response is to hard sayings apparently given by God.