The evangelical counsel of obedience is the call which derives from this obedience of Christ unto death. Those who accept this call, expressed by the words follow me, decide - as the Council says - to follow Christ who by an obedience which carried him even to death on the Cross, redeemed humanity and made it holy. By living out the evangelical counsel of obedience, they reach the deep essence of the entire economy of the Redemption (John Paul II, Apostolic Exhortation Redemptionis Donum, 1984, No. 13).

I ask all the Church's pastors and the Christian faithful to receive this catechism in a spirit of communion and to use it assiduously in fulfilling their mission of proclaiming the faith and calling people to the Gospel life (Pope John Paul II, Apostolic Constitution Fidei Depositum on the Publication of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, Catechism of the Catholic Church, p. 4.)

Among the virtues most necessary for the priestly ministry must be named that disposition of soul by which priests are always ready to seek not their own will, but the will of him who sent them. ... Indeed, there can be no genuine priestly ministry except in communion with the Supreme Pontiff and the Episcopal College, especially with one's own diocesan Bishop who deserves that filial respect and obedience promised during the rite of ordination... Only the person who knows how to obey in Christ is really able to require obedience from others in accordance with the Gospel... Priestly obedience has a particular pastoral character. It is lived in an atmosphere of constant readiness to allow oneself to be taken up, as it were consumed, by the needs and demands of the flock (Pope John Paul II, Post Synodal Apostolic Exhortation, Pastores Dabo Vobis, 28).

There are two kinds of obedience, one necessary and the other voluntary. By necessary obedience, you should humbly obey your ecclesiastical superiors such as the Pope, the Bishop, your parish priest and those who have been authorised by them. You have to obey the civil authorities: your Prince and the officers he has appointed over your country. You have to obey your household superiors: your father, mother, master, mistress. This obedience is called necessary because no one can exempt himself from the duty of obeying these superiors since God has given them authority to command and govern, each in the area he has charge over us. Do then what they command you as of necessity (St. Francis de Sales, Introduction to the Devout Life, Part III, Ch. 11).

Common obedience has three conditions: The first is to consent to what is ordered and gently yield our will to it; being happy to be commanded; for we cannot become truly obedient if there is no one to command us just as the means to become gentle is not to live all alone in a desert. The second condition lies in the promptness with which we obey. Opposed to this is laziness or spiritual sadness. Rarely a sad person does things readily and earnestly... The third condition is perseverance. It is not enough that we consent to obey a command for some time only. We need to persevere in it, and it is perseverance which merits for us the crown (Mt. 10:22; 24: 13) (St. Francis de Sales, Spiritual Conferences, Vol. 1, SFS Publications, Bangalore, 1995, pp. 114).