On the question of how far one must one assent to the Church.
It has always been rather simple for me. Precisely because I am not
an expert in the vastness of what encompasses our faith (as I’m sure none of us
are), is one good reason why we must assent. At the very least passively should
be the default.
On many occasions I've noticed the people (of the traditionalist
flavor typically) that rehash this issue in what they term as false obedience
seems to be entangled with the idea of how they view the Church and authority. Specifically
in the need of always knowing who exactly is in the visible Church and who is
not; particularly with clergy.
I like to think of assent to some of the lower levels of Church
teaching as something rather practical in the real world. Say for example you
are about to enter a restaurant and have concerns of COVID so you ask politely
if they have taken any measures to make the place safe. The place isn't dirty
or shiny necessarily but in your mind, you expected laboratory-style clean room
and are a bit suspect but give assent anyway because quite frankly the task of
knowing for certain is daunting. If in some rare chance you do get COVID after
practical precautions were taken, then you may die, but chances are very low
for the majority of people.
This correlates nicely in my opinion with how we assent to the lower
level teachings of the Church; with the glaring difference being that if you do
assent in Church teaching, you will not die. This part right here is often missed
by some of my more Traditionalist leaning friends. We are held more accountable
for obedience than we are understanding.
As a note, those who push this false obedience narrative open a can
of worms because they themselves disagree with each other on when is proper to
disobey. It quickly becomes a cancer that they cannot cure. No mechanism exists
in such a scenario to cure it; and they know it.
Imagine your kids having that conversation? On when it is appropriate to disobey and creating entire theological points on that exact topic. It is not incomprehensible to imagine a situation where one can question or ask for clarification while still assenting to the Church.
See the different levels of teaching authority:
https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/most/getwork.cfm?worknum=4
