When Can One Disobey the Law?

By Fr. DONNELL KIRCHNER, CSSR

BATON ROUGE, LA. — Having returned recently from teaching ethics courses in Brazil, I am discovering so many people, many of whom are religious minded, challenging US laws by backing sanctuary cities, hiding illegal immigrants, demanding protection for DACA kids, demanding better treatment and respect for immigrants, etc.

So much is at stake. The future of the USA. Jobs. Security. Educational opportunities and health care. Obviously we cannot allow or assimilate everyone who wishes to come. With the children born here, 27% of the inhabitants in the US now are immigrants.

As a white (privileged) person who grew up in the Middle West (Omaha), I was fed on that image of the Norman Rockwell America. When a police car drove by the house, I felt safe. Laws were good, made by wise honest people to protect us. That was reinforced by that biblical notion that keeping the law is to walk with and follow the Lord (cf. Rom 13/1ss). Or to paraphrase Pope John Paul II, one does not create his or her truth, but discovers and follows it.

But the ’60s, with famous people assassinated, the Vietnam protests, Civil Rights, invasions of foreign lands and now the Trump era have upset that stable apple cart. A South American saying seems to have crossed the Rio Grande: If there is a government, I am against it.

All reasonable people agree that there is need for basic order, that we need to know the rules of the game to have stability and enjoy peace and security. Traffic laws may be annoying, but they do save lives. However knowing so much more about corrupt politicians, who have been bought by lobbies or other interest groups, has affected our faith and trust in the system.

One of the fine points about a democracy is that it allows people to protest against unjust laws which discriminate. Yet who is to decide? How far can one group exercise its rights without bringing down Humpty Dumpy? What are the basic rights and obligations which all must follow if everyone is to be safeguarded? What principles are to be invoked?

Paraphrasing great ethical thinkers like Martin Luther King Jr., it is necessary that we recognized the right and authority of constitutionally-endowed law makers to make laws which are to be followed. If one is going to disobey them, then, one should do it respectfully and without violence, joyfully and without hatred. Those who are not with us are our adversaries or opponents, not enemies. One must be willing to suffer the consequences for disobeying and resisting unjust or unethical laws, which means being arrested and doing jail time.

One wise old moral principle which can be remembered is to recall the principle of EPIKEIA: one can break a law to achieve a greater good. When a lawmaker says that one can only drive 15 miles an hour by a school, he is thinking about school being in session. At 3 in the morning, however, if you are rushing a dying person to the hospital, the lawmaker surely does not expect you to slow down and obey the law.

To invoke Epikeia means you recognize the right and authority of the lawmaker, that this law has good purposes, but in this particular concrete situation, the legislator does not intend that the law be applied.

Most reasonable people know that the basis of a strong society passes through good family life. Any law that destroys, or has as a consequence the separation of, family members is immoral and unethical and is to be opposed and rejected. So the rights for otherwise law-abiding citizens to keep family members together could justify disobeying legislation that was created for criminals and felons.

About the only absolute law with no exceptions is that one must do good and avoid evil. Every other one is subject to interpretation, change, growth. That includes the United States Constitution, a very valuable and useful document, but not absolute and untouchable. (That is why we have the Bill of Rights!)

Does the Government have the right and authority to make laws which govern immigration policies? Yes. Should they be normally followed? Yes. Is one wrong for disobeying certain norms which are separating or destroying family life? It depends. Can anti-immigration positions be used as political tools to inflame sectors of society who feel threatened by new comers? It is no longer possible to justify crazy laws by an appeal that one must obey the law.

Maybe we need to remember St. Peter saying that there are times when we need to obey God rather than men (cf. Acts 5/29).

Father Donnell Kirchner, CSsR, received a degree in moral theology in Rome and taught for 39 years as a Redemptorist priest in Brazil, teaching at a regional pastoral institute in Manaus. He is currently ministering in Baton Rouge, La.

From The Progressive Populist, May 1, 2018

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