Chris Jackson @BigModernism You keep repeating “lawful” as if legality were the same as legitimacy. But the Church doesn’t think that way. Authority in the Church is not self-justifying; it’s bound to the ends for which Christ instituted it. A decree that discourages reverence toward the Eucharist is contrary to those ends, even if it follows every canonical form. Your logic is the same as the modern state’s: once the paperwork is in order, it’s “lawful.” That’s not Catholic obedience; it’s legal positivism. You also keep pretending this is just a matter of administration, but forbidding the faithful to kneel or removing altar rails isn’t neutral “regulation.” It changes the posture of adoration that the entire Catholic tradition has associated with the Real Presence. You don’t need a dogma to see that. It’s what every saint, every pope, and every catechism before 1965 took for granted. True obedience doesn’t mean doing whatever you’re told. It means submitting when authority acts ...