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“What earlier generations held as sacred, remains sacred and great for us too…” Pope Benedict XVI (7 July 2007)

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Views from the Choir Loft

Obedience to the Church

Fr. David Friel · June 11, 2013

INDING TIME TO READ is difficult, but absolutely necessary for the life of the mind. My family and teachers taught me that the mind is a gift from God, and so we should do everything possible to develop it. Personally, I value reading a variety of things: news, fiction, professional material, poetry, periodicals, etc. Eight years spent in seminary formation, surrounded almost entirely by people with similar worldviews, taught me especially to value the purposeful digestion of other points of view. For this reason, I regularly read three periodicals: one with which I generally sympathize, a second with which I generally disagree, and a third that is published outside the USA and offers an international perspective.

A recent letter to the editor in one of those periodicals confounded me:

“The [Second Vatican] Council was, in many ways, our own Reformation. Yet many of its reforming efforts were largely thwarted by Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI. Those popes imposed an atmosphere of obedience and ‘orthodoxy’ that has squelched dissent. . . . They made it impossible for dialogue and renewal to overcome the archaic demands of silence and obedience to church authorities. . . . But obedience is not what the church needs from the faithful. It needs compassion.” (Commonweal, May 17, 2013)

The author seems to have an understanding of obedience that is utterly unfamiliar to me. Obedience, in my life, is one of the greatest sources of my freedom. It is in my obedience to the truths of faith, the revelations of Jesus, and the authority of our Mother, the Church, that I have experienced the truest freedom. Since promising obedience to my bishop at ordination, I have found the natural result to be interior peace and freedom of soul, not feudalistic indentured servitude. I have found imitation of Mary’s profound obedience to be the core of my spiritual life.

Does the Church need our obedience? Well, Christ demands our obedience to Him, so, insofar as the Church is a structure of divine establishment, yes. One should always be cautious when the word “dissent” is employed positively while the word “obedience” is used negatively.

This letter to the editor caused me to think of a musical analogy. When I play an organ score, a satisfying performance begins with playing the notes that are written in the score and is intensified by the charisma I can bring to it. In a certain sense, every musician who desires to be great must, before all else, be “obedient” to the notes of the particular composition. Disregarding the notes in the name of “freedom” would not engender peace or beauty. The results, rather, would be chaos and disharmony. Discord and division, of course, are synonyms for sin.

A wildly misguided understanding of obedience is not a surprising result of a culture in which self is central and in which freedom and license are nearly universally conflated. The Church very much needs our obedience—to Christ, and to the Church He kindly established as our saving refuge.

Opinions by blog authors do not necessarily represent the views of Corpus Christi Watershed.

Filed Under: Articles Last Updated: January 1, 2020

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About Fr. David Friel

Ordained in 2011, Father Friel served as Parochial Vicar at Saint Anselm Church in Northeast Philly before earning a doctorate in liturgical theology at The Catholic University of America. He presently serves as Vocation Director for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia and teaches liturgy at St. Charles Borromeo Seminary.—(Read full biography).

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Corpus Christi Watershed

Quick Thoughts

    “Glory To God” • (For Choir + Congregation)
    I wish to thank everyone for the nice comments I received vis-à-vis my Glory To God setting for Choir & Congregation. A gentleman with a musical doctorate from Indiana University wrote: “Love this setting so much. And I will pray, as you asked, for your return to composition more fully. You are very very good.” A female choir director wrote: “I love your harmonizations, your musicality, and the wonderful interplay you have with dissonance and consonance in your music. So fun to listen to, and great for intellect, heart, and soul!” A young woman from California wrote: “Thank you for releasing your new Glory To God in honor of Saint Noel Chabanel. I'm enjoying reading through the various parts and listening to your recordings.”
    —Jeff Ostrowski
    William Byrd • “Mass for Five Voices”
    Our volunteer choir is learning the “Sanctus” from William Byrd’s Mass for Five Voices. You can hear a short excerpt (recorded last Sunday) but please ignore the sound of babies crying: Mp3 recording. We still have work to do—but we’re on the right track. Once we have some of the tuning issues fixed, I desire to use it as an example proving volunteers can sing complicated polyphony. — One of our volunteer choirs also sang that SANCTUS on 24 September 2023, and you can listen to how that came out.
    —Jeff Ostrowski
    “Baptism” • A Unique Hymn
    Father Christopher Phillips is the founding Pastor of Our Lady of the Atonement Catholic Church. One of his hymns is unique and (in my humble opinion) quite beautiful. His hymn is basically a prayer to the Holy Trinity but also speaks of Baptism and the Holy Eucharist. It would be an ideal Communion hymn on Trinity Sunday or the feast of the Baptism of the Lord. You can hear live recording from last Sunday by clicking here.
    —Jeff Ostrowski

Random Quote

They were not ashamed to lay their hands on Sedulius, on Prudentius, on St. Ambrose himself. Only in one or two cases does some sense of shame seem to have stopped their nefarious work. They left “Ave maris stella,” “Jam lucis orto sidere,” and St. Thomas Aquinas’s hymns alone (they would have made pretty work of “Sacris solemniis”). In 1629 their mangled remnants were published.

— Rev’d Adrian Knottesford Fortescue (25 March 1916)

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