Pinch-hitting for Cardinal Castrillon-Hoyos, who bowed out of the role of celebrant of the Traditional Latin Mass at the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, DC, Bishop Slattery of Oklahoma gave a sermon that is being widely praised in the conservative quarters of the Catholic blogosphere extolling the virtue of obedience. The Cardinal was replaced as celebrant because reports had surfaced that he had praised a bishop who had protected a priest accused of abuse from the police.I'm not sure that in this context, the replacement was much better. At the very least, I wish there had been a bit more nuance and qualification in the sermon, given the times we live in. Bishop Slattery talked about obedience to Christ--which is laudable, beautiful, and difficult. But the practical question is who interprets the will of Christ, and how should an individual proceed when a religious superior or the magisterium or a parish priest interprets it differently from the individual himself. The call to obedience always has to be contextualized and limited by some recognition that human authorities --in both church and state--can wrongfully call for obedience to actions that do not in fact instantiate the will of Christ.Soldiers have a duty to obey orders--but not if those orders are to shoot civilians. Priests should obey their superiors--but not if the order is to cover up criminal activities. Given the revelations about the Legionnaries of Christ, which was in essence turned into a criminal conspiracy protecting Maciel by making use of the vows of obedience, I think it would have been prudent for the Bishop to put a few more qualifications in his sermon about how obedience operates in this sort of situation--qualifications that the Church itself recognizes.But here's my radical question: Why is obedience to another human being an intrinsic virtue, rather than an instrumental virtue? I set aside here all forms of instrumental obedience: the obedience of a child to a parent; of a soldier to a superior; of an employee to a boss, or of a patient to a physician. I also set aside charitable deference. You want to go to dinner for Mexican food, I want Japanese, I defer to your wishes--I want to be nice and make you happy. That's not obedience, unless it's required a priori in some way.I want to consider a pure case. Why is it good for one adult human being to OBEY another adult human being--when one knows as much as he or she does about the topic at hand?And just to be clear: I don't see a good argument for pure obedience-- I'm looking for one, and skeptical that it could be found.