THE SSPX, DAVID, ABSALOM, JOAB AND GUAM

By Tim Rohr

Bishop Athanasius Schneider, a bishop well-known to many of us in Guam after his visit of a few years ago, has appealed to Pope Leo to permit the SSPX to proceed with its announced consecration of bishops. 

Schneider's larger point, though, is even if the SSPX proceeds without papal permission, the act is not schismatic, hardly warrants excommunication, and at most may be an act of disobedience. 

Schneider argues that papal primacy does not unilaterally equate to an absolute requirement of obedience. The pope has primacy in matters of faith and morals but not always in administration - at least that's Schneider's position (and I agree with him).

To buttress his point, Schneider presents the case of St. Athanasius:

"...in 357, St. Athanasius disobeyed the order of Pope Liberius, who instructed him to enter into hierarchical communion with the overwhelming majority of the episcopate, which was in fact Arian or semi-Arian. As a result, he was excommunicated. In this instance, St. Athanasius disobeyed out of love for the Church and for the honor of the Apostolic See, seeking precisely to safeguard the purity of doctrine from any suspicion of ambiguity."

In other words, Pope Liberius had ordered Athanasius "to enter into hierarchical communion" with heretics and a heresy which absolutely contradicted the very nature of the Son of God. Schneider points out that Athanasius disobeyed out of "love for the Church and for the honor of the Apostolic See" i.e. the papal office and not necessarily the person in that office.

By coincidence, yesterday, in my daily two chapters a day bible reading (one chapter from the OT and one from the NT), I read the account of David's grief at the death of his son, Absalom. (2 Kings 19 or 2 Samuel 18). 

Absalom had revolted against his father, turned the majority of Israel against him, and was set on killing David. David escaped into the wilderness with a few loyalists, including the warrior-general, Joab. David sent Joab to engage and conquer Absalom and his forces but instructed Joab not to kill Absalom. Joab killed him anyway. 

Commentators conclude that Joab disobeyed David because saving the Kingdom was more important than accommodating David's sentimental feelings for his son. In other words, Joab deemed duty to the Kingdom more important than obedience to the king. David was wrong. He had put his personal need over his larger duty to the kingdom. 

Of course, David had famously done the same previously with the neighbor lady (Bathsheba). And by the way, Joab knew this. In fact, it was Joab, who carried out David's order to murder Bathsheba's husband, Uriah. It's just an aside to the main point of this post, but given that experience (killing Uriah to cover for David's adultery), Joab may well have felt license to disobey David when, once again, David put his personal needs before the security of the kingdom.

Joab was eventually killed by Solomon, another of David's sons, but Joab's death was due to his forming an alliance with another brother against Solomon, not his killing of Absalom. 

Here in Guam, those of us who stood up to the then-current "king," the archbishop-abuser-in-chief, were violently criticized for not being "obedient" to the archbishop when we were functionally commanded to "shut up and sit down." 

Imagine what would have happened had we obeyed.