What is the duty of the ordinary Christian?

So many questions swirling around, about our relationship to authority in the Church, when that authority is going wrong. We can clearly see the result of dismissing authority full stop. Christ founded His Church and a hierarchy to govern it (this is clearly laid out in the Book of Acts).

But when the Gospel isn't being defended? Then what?

I recommend meditating on this beautiful sermon by St. John Henry Newman: The Gospel A Trust Committed to Us. You can also listen to it here (I don't know what the quality of the narration is). Print it out, take it to your prayer, meditate on it slowly. 

Ask for a copy of his collected sermons for Epiphany or your birthday -- they have nourished me for many years (affiliate link),

Your conscience is a real voice within and must be heeded. Know the 10 Commandments and the catechism to grow in wisdom. There are many good catechisms -- this one is short and to the point. A book to help you understand when to obey: True Obedience in the Church.

Must Not Be Obeyed

(On the papacy of Pope Francis: Part One here. Part Two here.) 

Yes, I too, in my own small way, try to advert to John Henry Newman and the clear example of history, studied and depicted by that admirable saint, regarding the Arian heresy and its resisters. (I even wrote a chapter of my book God Has No Grandchildren (affiliate link), pointing to Newman to show the appropriateness of the laity resisting false teaching in the case of Amoris Laetitia, Pope Francis' apostolic exhortation following the Synods on the Family that took place a few years ago.)

Fr. Hunwicke can rest assured that there is at least one housewife deep in Central Massachusetts who joins him in his crusade (but I freely admit there are probably more than just one!), which he describes here:

I keep on writing about the terminology elaborated by S John Henry Newman: which he termed 'the Suspense in the function of the Ecclesia Docens': a way of looking at things which arose from Newman's own detailed study of the period of the Arian Controversy. I last did this, I think, on March 16. Nobody ever seems to take much interest in my one-man campaign, although I think that it is an essential hermeneutic for living in the Church at this present moment. Go on ... sneer ... raise one of your many expressive eyebrows and then move on ... see if I care ...

So I am grateful to him for pointing to the recent words of Cardinal Gerhard Müller in an interview with LifeSite News. Cardinal Müller says:

Whoever wants to prescribe to the faithful other sources of revelation besides the Holy Scriptures and the Apostolic Tradition, has fallen away from the Catholic faith (cf. Vatican II, Dei verbum 9f). Heretical bishops must not be obeyed, and every Catholic is called upon to bear witness to the truth against them, even if they enforce their power with brute force, just as the Arian and Donatist bishops once persecuted true Catholics.

Must Not Be Obeyed.