Obeying the church guarantees obeying the Lord?

Pope Benedict XVI is quoted by Ruth Gledhill as saying, in effect, that Roman Catholics' obedience to the Church is their guarantee of being obedient to the Lord.  That sounds uncomfortably like the old Navy saying that the captain may sometimes be wrong, but he's always the captain. 

Within limits, that principle is OK  for situations like a ship at sea.  On a ship, a less-than-perfect decision, promptly made and carried out, is likely to be way better than a flawless decision that takes forever to arrive at, or that never gets made or carried out at all. 

Even at sea, the obedience principle has limits.  Moreover not every realm of life is like being at sea. 

To paraphrase something my wife once said, God gave us brains and consciences, and we have to assume he expects us to use them at least some of the time.

Here's an excerpt from Gledhill's quotation of then-Cardinal Ratzinger:

[Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger in 2001:]  I have always been much impressed by something Harnack said in a discussion with Peterson, a Protestant theologian who at that time was moving towards converting to Catholicism; Harnack answered the questions of his younger colleague by saying: it is obvious that the Catholic principle of Scripture and Tradition is better, and that it is the correct principle, and that it implies the existence of a given authority in the Church; but even if the principle in itself, the Catholic principle, is correct, we are better off living without an authority and without the actions such an authority might take. He had confidence that the free use of reason in studying the Scriptures would bring men to the truth, and that this was better than being subject to some authority which could equally make mistakes.  That is true, authority can make mistakes, but being obedient to that authority is for us the guarantee of our being obedient to the Lord.

(Emphasis added.)

Comments

[trog]

Matt. 11:15-He that has ears to hear, let him hear.
Matt. 11:15-qui habet aures audiendi audiat

obey c.1290, from O.Fr. obeir, from L. oboedire "obey, pay attention to, give ear," lit. "listen to," from ob "to" + audire "listen, hear"

The Church is infallible. The church is fallible. Both are intertwined: to listen for one is to hear both; to not listen for one is to be deaf to both.