CSDC 400

Recognizing that natural law is the basis for and places limits on positive law means admitting that it is legitimate to resist authority should it violate in a serious or repeated manner the essential principles of natural law. Saint Thomas Aquinas writes that “one is obliged to obey ... insofar as it is required by the order of justice”.⁸²³ Saint Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, II-II, q. 104, a. 6, ad 3um: Ed. Leon. 9, 392: “principibus saecularibus intantum homo oboedire tenetur, inquantum ordo iustitiae requirit”. Natural law is therefore the basis of the right to resistance. There can be many different concrete ways this right may be exercised; there are also many different ends that may be pursued. Resistance to authority is meant to attest to the validity of a different way of looking at things, whether the intent is to achieve partial change, for example, modifying certain laws, or to fight for a radical change in the situation.