Fifth Conference

Rebellion of Core, Dathan and Obedience

Numbers 16:1-3, 8-10, 12-18

- - - - - - - - - - - - - -

My dear brothers and sisters,

Although we have read only very little of this chapter, it is enough to see that the authority of Moses as highest authority over the entire people of Israel did not go unchallenged during the forty years they wandered in the desert, nor was the privileged role of Aaron and his sons among the already privileged status of all the tribe of Levi allowed to go unquestioned by other Levites. In those parts of chapter 16 that I haven’t read, we have an example of the just wrath of God that nowadays we find difficult to reconcile with a loving, merciful God. For at the request of Moses, God caused the earth to gape open and swallow up the rebels who refused to recognize the authority of Moses over the entire community, namely Core, Dathan and Abiram. Also, God caused fire to come down and consume all those Levites who presumed they had also the right to function as priests along with Aaron for destroying so may of their number, and that God then sent a destroying plague among them as punishment. But then when Aaron, at Moses command, went among the complainers offering incense, in his office as priest, the Lord’s anger was placated and the plague abated. This episode offers us the opportunity to talk about the role of authority and obedience in our spiritual journey, relating it to the problem posed by Moses and Aaron’s authority among the people of Israel on their journey toward the Promised Land. It is amazing at how closely the rebellion of Core, Dathan and Abiram resembles the kind of rebellion against authority we see in our own times in all quarters of society. Amazing, too, is the close resemblance between the reasons advanced then by the rebels, and the reasons being advanced in our own day to justify disobedience.

Those who question religious authority say: “Are we not all baptized Christians? Have we not all received the Holy Spirit to be the interior guide for each one of us on the road to fullness of charity, perfection in the life of Grace? Does not the Holy Spirit enlighten us so clearly that we are able to form our own consciences and to discern with no external help what is right and wrong, what is sinful or not? Why do I need a priest or a magisterium to tell me what God’s will is for me? I am able to be my own priest, my own magisterium, relying on the help of the Holy Spirit.”

And those who question disciplinary authority, whether in civil society or in the Church say: Look, we’re not achieving the goals and objectives we are supposed to be striving for! Where is the peace and prosperity, justice and equity we are supposed to be enjoying? Do you really expect us to continue following you blindly? We have even had the counterpart of the perishing of Core, Dathan, and Abiram in the tragic defection of so many members of the Church: Priests, religious, lay Catholics. And even in those who have not defected we find dissatisfaction with the way the Church has allegedly “harshly treated” the defectors, as if the Church were to blame for their leaving us. This is a counterpart of the non-rebellious segment of the Israelite community, which blamed Moses and Aaron for the death of the rebels.

It behooves us to say something about authority, therefore, and I propose to do so under three headings: First, the capricious ways in which individuals come to occupy positions of authority. Second, the traditional defense of rigid authority and third, the manner in which authority ought to be exercised, especially in the Church, as exemplified for us by Jesus Himself, to whom all authority in Heaven and on Earth has been given.

What do I mean by the capricious ways by which our leaders have come to power? Well, despite the fact that our leaders are almost always elected to office, it is equally almost always due to the force of circumstances that places them in a position whereby they become possible and available candidates for offices of authority. It all seems to depend on pure chance; a chain of events that seem quite disconnected, one from the other, places a person at the right spot at the right time when a particular office has to be filled. Such a person happens to be born at the right time, happens to have attended the right schools, happens to be noticed by the right people and happens to be there when a vacancy has to be filled. How many of our public officials or superiors began planning for the day they would be in office while in high school or college? After all, we don’t control circumstances; we are always trying to respond adequately to the circumstances in which we happen to find ourselves. And even the qualifications for office are due to chance. Parents meet, and the child just happens to have the native ability he or she is born with.

When I first prepared this talk in the 1960’s I used the example of how Lyndon Johnson and Harry Truman happened to become presidents. The sudden death of Franklin Roosevelt gave Truman the Presidency, and the equally unforeseen assassination of John F. Kennedy rushed Lyndon Johnson into the office of President. We are told that originally JFK’s father had begun working to get his son Joseph into the Presidency almost from the time the child was born. When Joseph died in World War II, he began carefully grooming Jack for the office. He barely gets in, and an assassin’s bullet removes him. I guess what I am trying to say is that if public offices were filled the way non-elective offices are, there would be massive talent searches, the way college presidents and deans and executive officers of huge corporations, or school superintendents are chosen. And I am willing to bet that none of the ones now in office would have been the one chosen as a result of a talent search. However, we should not be disappointed with the fact that mere happenstances plays such a major role in the selection of our leaders, one should rather be delighted, because that is what leaves the most room for the Providence of God.

Again, going back to the 60’s who does not see the surprise election of Pope John XXIII to have been an act of Divine Providence. He was not considered “capable”, or a likely choice for Pope, yet he was, and he just happened to have served in a number of different posts in his long career that produced a cast of mind that enabled him to call a General Council. At that time, a General Council was the most unlikely thing that could have happened in the opinion of trained observers of ecclesiastical affairs. So, in my opinion, the more the element of chance enters into a situation, the easier it is to ascribe its effects to the Providence of God.

We are told by physicists that the closer one gets to the elemental particles of matter, the less possible it is to predict how they will behave. Randomness (another word for chance) rules. Yet it is by means of this randomness that God maintains such an orderly universe. Perhaps that is precisely the reason why the Church has always steadfastly maintained that once a person is duly constituted in an office or authority, he shares in the authority of God. He stands in the place of God in regard to his or her subordinates. This is so particularly in the Church, but more so in religious orders. In the days when in our monasteries we used to have a “night sentence” following night prayer in common, one that we frequently used was: “Obedience (to lawful authority, obviously) is the basis of all monastic perfection”. St. John of the Cross was so convinced that the superior stands in God’s place that in the First Precaution against the Devil, he states that we should not undertake a single enterprise, no matter how good and full of charity it may seem without the sanction of obedience. He says that if we withdraw these objectively wonderful deeds from under the umbrella of obedience, that is, lawful authority, we shall have to reckon them as lost, since God wants obedience, not sacrifices (i.e. the greatest of external good deeds without obedience.)

That brings us to our second point, the traditional concept of obedience. Once we understand the traditional concept we find it so reasonable and beautiful that we cannot help but admire it, and we see why through the centuries souls imbued with respect for authority have been able to achieve marvelous results for the good of souls and the glory of God. You see, authority and obedience are absolutely necessary whenever several human beings, each of whom is endowed with understanding and free will, unite to work toward a common goal. Authority is necessary because the individuals contributing to the effort are not going to be in agreement as to how the individual efforts should be coordinated. The greater the number of the participants, the greater the difference in outlook and mentality among the participants, the greater the need for authority because the differences of opinion among the participants as to how best to achieve the common goal will be more diverse and more profound.

Obviously, the kind of authority and the kind of power vested in authority figures will vary according to the particular nature of the joint efforts being expended. Even so trivial an organization as a football team has its authority figures. There is the quarterback on the field, who is analogous to the “local superior” who is in immediate contact with the players on the field, and he makes the decisions and directs their execution. Then there is the coach, who is analogous to the “major superior”. He sits on the sidelines, outside the limits of the playing field, and he does not participate directly in what’s happening on the field, as is the quarterback, the local superior. Nevertheless, he has a better perspective; he can see the whole picture, and he can be more objective. Every once in a while he intervenes directly in the proceedings by sending in instructions to the quarterback and even ending in a play.

I am convinced that the need for authority is deeply rooted in human nature. So deeply that authority and obedience pertain to Natural Law. And that is just another way of saying that it is God’s will that there be authority. In the middle ages the expression “the divine right of kings” functioned as a kind of axiom at the basis of social relations. St. Paul says clearly in Romans 13: “Let every soul be subject to the higher authorities, for no authority exists that has not come from God. Those that are, are ordained by God. So what whoever resists authority, has resisted the ordinances of God.”

The need for authority is greater also when the common goal or purpose of a particular society is higher or greater, that is, the more difficult it is to reach, and the further it lies beyond the reach of individual efforts. This is, indeed, why human beings gather together to form societies. We are capable of aspiring to goals that far surpass our unaided powers. That does not surprise us because no matter how much we know we still thirst for greater knowledge, no matter how much we love or are loved, we continue to crave to give and receive more, and so there is no limit to the objectives we can conceive with our minds and pursue with our desires. And the more exalted and more difficult the goal, the greater the number of individuals needed to share in the efforts. Burdens and responsibilities have to be parceled out in small enough shares so that individual members of the society, with limited powers, may be able to adequately and successfully discharge them. The authority serves to distribute these and to coordinate them.

Certain societies are natural societies in that the objectives pursued are common to all human beings because they arise out of our common humanity. The two most obvious are the family and the nation. Actually, the family is of divine ordination based on the command of God: “Increase and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it.” It would appear that having that first in mind, God then created our humanity male and female, and the goal of the family is “stewardship” of human life in all its dimensions.

The nation is a natural society because it provides the content within which the natural society, the family, pursues its God-given objectives, and also within which context everything is provided by means of which all legitimate human aspirations outside the family may be pursued with a minimum of obstacles and impediments. Our own constitution expresses a mere human concept of the good of every nation: to provide life, liberty and to allow the pursuit of happiness to every individual citizen. And it is precisely in regard to these very objectives that we see how desperately authority is needed, the power to govern and to coerce human activity. Not everyone defines “life” and its legitimate human aspirations the same way. Not everyone agrees as to the limits of “liberty” and it is obvious that happiness can be pursued in such a way as to jeopardize the happiness of other citizens. It is the role of authority then to keep the individual free agents comprising the citizenship from working at cross purposes. If two very strong men both want to move a huge boulder, that only their combined effort can budge, they have to push in the same direction. If they push from opposite sides, it won’t move, and they’ve depleted their strength. So without authority to help us move in the same “general” direction, none of us would ever attain the legitimate goals we were created by God to achieve.

The power vested in authority also varies in different types of societies. In some it is very strong, in others quite weak. By distinguishing between natural societies and “free” societies, that is, societies “freely” entered into, the natural are those who are “born” into, we can see that in the natural societies authority must be strong, whereas in the free societies it can be strong, weak, or somewhere in between. In a society freely entered into, the authority is only as strong as the individual members make it. In natural societies, when the common goal is not attained, that is a tragedy for the majority of the members. In the nation, the tragedy that might befall the citizens from a failure to achieve the common goal is warded off by the power of the sword, as St. Paul states in Romans 13. It is used to ward off enemies from without as well as enemies within. Unfortunately, many, many, injustices have been perpetrated both without and within by simply alleging national security.

The counterpart of the sword in the natural society, the family, is the parental authority to discipline unruly children. Unfortunately again, there is no way to defend against an “unruly” parent in the family, at least from the children’s point of view.

In free societies, when the common goal has not been attained: professional or cultural societies, the tragedy is not so great. The dissatisfied member simply drops out. I guess we could say that in our day and age many people are acting as if the family and the nation are also “free” societies in the sense that professional and cultural societies are freely entered into and freely left. We are familiar with the evil of divorce; we are not familiar with a person seeking judicial release from the obligations of citizenship. Yet we all know that ever so many have seceded from the nation in their hearts. Would that all those in authority both in the family and the nation were like Abraham Lincoln, adamantly opposed to any “secession” from the family and the nation, and as willing to mount an appropriate kind of struggle to prevent such tragedies.

So far we have said little about the society which is the Church. But, before we say more, I should say one thing more about natural societies. The possibilities of heroism and self-sacrifice for the sake of the common good are almost limitless. This is what ennobles natural societies. Within their framework it is possible to attain exalted expressions of love for and dedication to the welfare of all. Within them, both for those in authority and those subject to it, there occur innumerable opportunities to die to oneself – to die to a narrow, limited life and find a higher wider and fuller life on behalf of the society as a unit and of the individual members.

When speaking of the Church we know we cannot call it a natural society in the strict sense, nor can we call it a free society in the strict sense. Though it is true that we either freely choose to join the Church as adults or freely ratify the gift of membership given to us by our parents when we were baptized as infants, we are never free to leave the Church. And though we exercised free will in joining the Church or ratifying our baptism, we did so because we knew we were bound in conscience to do so. Thus there are serious moral consequences to leaving the church, whereas leaving a free society, strictly speaking, invokes neither praise nor blame. In this respect, not being free to leave the Church, the Church is like a natural society. Once I have been born into a family or a nation, I simply can’t cancel the fact of being born of certain parents at a certain time and place in history.

We said above that the more difficult a society’s goal is to attain, the stronger the authority must be that guides the member to the common goal. But, the goal of the Church is to guide all its members to the fullest possible participation in divine life that each is capable of attaining. It is reasonable therefore, that the authority of the Church is stronger than that of any other society, and explains why many centuries ago the church, (better, Bishops in its bosom), allowed the civil sword to be wielded against heretics and anyone else whose Bishops deemed to be a grave threat to the purity of Christian doctrines and morals. Perhaps in our day and age, the Bishops in the bosom of the Church have gone to the other extreme. Some seem to countenance very serious errors in faith and morals within their dioceses, that is, by not speaking out strongly against them, by not mounting vigorous campaigns to cure the harm done to consciences and to souls by exposure to falsehood and widespread example of serious moral evils and perversions.

In regard to Religious Orders, authority must also be very strong because so many members of the Church are called to pursue very special goals consistent with, and even very conducive to the attainment of personal sanctity that the structure of diocesan or parish life does not empower them to achieve. The contemplative life, for example, or a life of total dedication to teaching, a spiritual work of mercy, or to spreading the Faith, or to alleviating the miseries of the poor and the sick. Superiors are needed not only to coordinate the efforts of the members of these Orders and Congregations, and to provide the ambient and the means to succeed in fulfilling individual duties within the society, but, also to provide that external, visible human authority figure that they must have in order that they may be sure they’re really doing God’s will, and not their own, no matter how wonderful and heroic their works seem objectively speaking.

Even those instances where the need for authority in the Church is recognized and accepted, one is likely to hear complaints about how authority in faith and morals is exercised, that is, the complaint is made that it is modeled upon how parents exercise authority over young inexperienced children. It is said that those charged with upholding Christian Doctrine and Morals do not respect, as they should, the freedom of conscience of the individual Catholics. Most Catholics are well educated; they are able to personally approach the source of Divine Revelation, the Sacred Scriptures, they are able to develop an intense personal relationship with Jesus in prayer, they are able to invoke the help of the Holy Spirit, and all that will help them discern God’s will for them consistent with their own individual circumstances. Thus, they claim the moral judgments they make are reliable, and cannot be questioned by Church authority. Stop treating us like children, they say!

Another complaint is that the principle of collegiality ought to be introduced into the exercise of lawful authority, especially Religious Orders. It is said that a Religious Order or Congregation is a freely entered association of peers, so that important decisions are to be reached in a democratic fashion. If the question is asked, “Will this not make sanctity more difficult to attain? If we achieve consensus, am I not really doing my own will when I act accordingly?” Those favoring collegiality say it helps us to be more balanced and more responsible, and thus foster sanctification because grace builds upon nature, and that death to self is personally inflicted upon oneself rather than have it inflicted from without. My personal opinion is that respecting the consciences of the mature, well educated Catholics has introduced error and confusion into the ranks of the faithful and that these religious communities that proactive collegiality are dying for lack of vocations for that very reason.

Now, how should authority be exercised in the Church and in religious societies? We have to return to the example of Jesus Himself, to whom all authority in Heaven and on earth has been given. He has said, “Behold, I am in your midst as one who serves. The Son of Man came, not to be served, but to serve. The princes of the Gentiles Lord it over them, their great ones make their importance felt. It must not be that way with you.” Therefore authority exists for the good of the community as a unity and the good of the individual members. The resources and the helps, the time and the circumstances must be made available to each member so that he or she can advance in the pursuit of personal aspirations that God has placed in the heart of each of the subjects, and the efforts must be coordinated in such a way that they do not impede the fulfillment of those aspirations. Of course, the aspirations of all tend toward fulfilling the goals of the Church, the salvation of souls, the specific goals of the society, a particular corporal or spiritual work of mercy, and personal sanctity.

What this means is that the superior should get to know and value the specific gifts and talents of the members, the subjects, and encourage the members then to develop them. Obviously, counsel and encouragement is to be given. An equitable distribution of responsibilities is necessary, and acknowledgement of things well done and of good will shown. This means, too, that the superior will listen to the subjects, allow them to free and easy access to his office and make it clear to them that he welcomes their comments and ideas. All input he should respectfully consider, and only then come to a decision that affects them all.

We haven’t said anything about obedience, considered in itself, but I do want to make this final observation about those in authority. The superior whom subjects find easy to obey is the one who is obedient himself to higher authority, of course, but obedient to the individual needs and unique requirements of the individuals, in the light of Christian Perfection and the Spirit of the Order or Congregation. The depth of the commitment of the Superior to these ideals can be sensed by the individual a members, and so also can the Superior sense the depth of commitment of the individual member of the Community. When each can sense in the other a sincere generous dedication to the goals of the community and to all the members, both the exercise of authority and obedience to it become a joy.

<<<Journey index

>>>next conference

* * * * * * *

MISSION STATEMENT: This web site was created for the purpose of completing the work of Fr. Bruno Cocuzzi, O.C.D These conferences may be reproduced for private use only. Publication of this material is forbidden without permission of the Father Provincial for the Discalced Carmelites, Holy Hill, 1525 Carmel Rd., Hubertus, WI 53033-9770.