Okay, just to make sure I understand what you saying. You believe Catholics are permitted to "sift" the laws of the Church to determine for themselves which are good and which are not, and are only required to obey those that they believe are beneficial for the Church?
And can you cite the canon from the 1917 or 1983 Code that you are referring to?
Whoops, it's not canon law. My mistake there. I'm referring to the principle of Epikeia. The third aspect of it states:
When particular circuмstances unforeseen by the legislator would indicate that it was not his mind or intention to bind the subject, epikeia may be used.This is the position used by Sedevacantists. They believe that when the law was passed requiring Papal approval for bishops to be ordained, the legislator (pope) was not aware that at this time, there would be no pope to ordain bishops so under the principle of Epikeia, this law is no longer binding. There's also the case after the western schism when bishops were appointed during the time period where there was much uncertainty of the actual pope. When Pope Gregory X (I believe it was him) came to power, he declared that all bishop ordinations were valid during the preceding time period when there was no pope or uncertainty of who the actual pope was.
Topic: Is there a One Ring in Tradition, to rule them all? (Read 29973 times)