The Independent News Source
Twitter - Facebook - Email Alerts - RSS
Conscience issue separates Catholic moral camps
Nov. 10, 2009
Printer-friendly version
Send to friend
PDF version
Printer-friendly versionSend to friendPDF versionFrom the last two national elections to the current controversy over health care reform, the struggle over the Roman Catholic conscience in American politics has been in full public view. Too often in this struggle, however, the concept of the Catholic conscience is ill-defined or offered as a conversation-stopping absolute. Accordingly, a group of scholars gathered last spring at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University in order to clarify the use of the concept in American public discourse. This essay is the result of that gathering. The names of the authors follow the essay.
What the Second Vatican Council left unresolved has remained unresolved to the present day: Conscience within Catholicism is tugged in two interpretive directions. In its earlier, more theological section, the conciliar document Gaudium et spes refers to conscience as “the most secret core and sanctuary of a [person].There he is alone with God, whose voice echoes in his depths.” This formulation points to a personalist view of conscience.
Conscience is not identified with the voice of God, much less with the hierarchical teaching office of the church. Rather, the encounter with the divine basis of moral obligation is mediated through the agency of a person and, hence, through the spirit, reason, affections, and relationships that constitute human agency. This view of conscience is rooted in a “personalist” theology that reaches back to such sources as the medieval scholastic tradition and Thomistic notions of prudence and practical wisdom.
By contrast, in a later passage, Gaudium et spes states that married couples should be “governed according to a conscience dutifully conformed to the divine law itself, and should be submissive toward the Church’s teaching office, which authentically interprets that law in light of the Gospel.” This way of portraying conscience prioritizes a view of the person whose moral formation depends less on the workings of personal responsibility and more on conformity to hierarchical definitions. It can be called the “ecclesial conscience” and emerged in tandem with the heightened importance given to the centralized teaching office of the Church in the 18th and 19th centuries.
There is overlap between the personalist and ecclesial views of conscience: Both affirm an objective and divine basis to morality. But the divide between the views can be seen if we consider the three-part structure of conscience manifested in the Catholic theological tradition. First, conscience is an innate, basic awareness of individual moral responsibility. Both views share this characteristic. Second, conscience is a process by which a person educates oneself morally. Here the personalist view in principle is open to a wide range of moral sources, including reflective moral experience; custom and culture; natural law; moral exemplars; the teachings of theologians, pastors, bishops, and popes; and the words of the Gospel. The ecclesial view strongly favors the formative influence of the teaching authority of the hierarchy. Third, conscience is a judgment of what one believes to be moral truth. The personalist view understands this judgment to be an exercise of personal responsibility in light of the mystery of the Word of God. The ecclesial view nominally accepts this transcendent perspective. But this acceptance is in tension with the insistence that moral truth is primarily to be attained by conformity of one’s conscience to the definitions put forth by the hierarchical teaching office. However much the Second Vatican Council articulated these two perspectives on conscience, it is the ecclesial view that in the last decades has dominated Catholic discourse in the American public square.
The one who defines the problem sets the terms of the debate and, in the last decades, the Catholic advocates of the ecclesial view have defined the problem of conscience in American society as relativism. The inspiration behind this identification of the problem was the writing of John Paul II, who gave credibility to this view by his frequent reference to the ominous opposition in contemporary democracies between freedom and the moral law. Benedict XVI sounded a similar, dark note when, just before his election, he raised the specter of a societal “dictatorship of relativism” to which the church must respond.
Behind these criticisms is something like the following analysis. The citizens of Western democracies are afflicted with an understanding of conscience that is entirely subjective and private. The subjectivity is established by the inevitably idiosyncratic nature of one’s feelings, which become the ultimate court of appeal for one’s conscience. This court is a private one. It is neither possible nor desirable to explain through public, commonly accessible reasons the contours of one’s personal moral judgment.
Rather, one merely asserts the verdict of conscience. In its reliance on feelings and in its rejection of the possibility of shared reasons, this understanding of conscience rests on the assumption that there is no objective, universal truth. Moreover, the relativist conscience in a democratic society lives off a paradox: To guard its radically individualistic decisions, it insists on the absolute protection of non-negotiable moral and legal rights. But such absolute rights require a foundation in shared reasons that specify what it is in persons that obliges such absolute protection.
Relativism, committed as it is to the impossibility of such shared reasons, cannot provide this foundation. And so a democratic politics rife with relativism often deals with issues like abortion less like a scene of reasoned discourse and more like a battleground of unyielding efforts to assert a right to abortion that, finally, rests on little more than an arbitrary assertion of will. In fact, this ecclesial view of the problem of contemporary conscience in part rings true: One hears this extreme logic in the rhetoric of the most ardent pro-choice activists.
But the definition of the problem of conscience as relativism has several profound – and often overlooked – weaknesses. One weakness is empirical: There are just not that many hard-core relativists running loose in the United States. Scratch beneath the surface of a Nietzsche-enchanted undergraduate and find many a moral realist wanting to emerge. But the more important weaknesses are theoretical and stem from misplaced emphases within the ecclesial model of conscience. These weaknesses can be identified as the problem of law versus practical reason; the problem of the impaired conscience of fellow citizens; and the diminished social nature of the ecclesial conscience.
Against the tides of relativist freedom, the ecclesial conception offers a portrait of conscience as a bulwark of objective and universal moral law. Conscience discovers the moral truth understood as the moral law that applies anywhere and in all circumstances. Prudence is subordinate to the stern obligation of this moral truth. At most, prudence is understood as the virtue that applies the requirements of the moral law to a particular situation. For the most part, though, the ecclesial view of conscience distrusts prudence, emotions, practical reason – anything that is not law and that suggests too subjective a drift to the judgments of conscience.
We can see the limits of this view in the attempt, backed by prominent Catholics, in the final days of the Bush administration to promulgate Federal conscience clause regulations to supplement laws that since the 1970s had prohibited health care workers from being compelled to perform abortions.
The last-minute Bush rules, now under review by the Obama administration, sought to extend the protection of the existing conscience laws beyond doctors or nurses who could be immediately involved in an abortion to all health care workers involved in “any activity with a reasonable connection to a procedure [like abortion], health service or health service program, or research activity.”
In this wider scope of protection, one hears echoes of the ecclesial view of conscience in which any association – however distant – with a questionable practice can only be interpreted as intentional transgression of the moral law. But such a wide scope of protection leaves little space for the exercise of practical reason through the use of such time-honored tools of the Catholic tradition as the principle of cooperation.
In the technical terms of moral theology, this principle seeks to illumine the degree to which one may be morally involved – or “cooperate” – in a complex action in which a definite evil occurs alongside a number of moral goods. The principle poses questions like: What is the precise “object” of the action of the health care worker and the “object” of the one seeking an abortion? To what extent is a health care worker in their precise work near or far from a problematic procedure like abortion? These questions central to the Church’s tradition of casuistry are devalued in the ecclesial case for conscience. Their subtlety finds no place in the Bush-era rules.
We have already argued that the description of American society as pervasively relativist is inaccurate. But it is crucial to consider the theoretical assumptions about the nature of conscience that inform this description. And chief among the assumptions are those that factor into the use of the phrase “culture of death” to describe this relativist world. This locution, taken from John Paul II and used commonly today, carries a harsh tone of moral judgment for culpable evil.
In turn, it appears to assume that such culpability impairs rationality, vitiates freedom, and darkens conscience. But how does such a description of the pervasively culpable and impaired conscience account for the millions of Americans for whom abortion is not a moral right but a tragic choice? Or for the millions of Americans for whom the determination of when the first stages of human life require absolute protection is a matter of sincere and well-considered conscience that differs from the Catholic doctrinal view of the matter? Here it is important for the Catholic engagement with American democracy to recover – and rename – the notion of “invincible ignorance” in which, from the Catholic perspective, the consciences of fellow citizens may be mistaken but not culpably so.
Correspondingly, the consciences of such citizens – and their rational and volitional powers – are not compromised by culpability. Indeed, it was striking that such a notion informed Swiss theologian George Cottier’s praise of President Obama’s willingness to engage fellow citizens who disagreed with him on such matters as abortion legislation. By doing so, Cottier argued, Obama affirmed a presumption of good faith in others that is an “inspiration of an inwardly Christian kind” by which democracy lives and through which citizens respect the enduring capacity for truth in others.
We would like to call attention to one other shortcoming in the ecclesial conception of conscience: Its diminished social nature. This is evident in the conception’s sharply restricted space for moral formation. Too little credence is given to such things as professional associations; the American medical, legal, and political culture; and the prudence and insight gained by the practice of participants in contested fields like health care and politics. Instead, the ecclesial conception maintains that the overriding factor in the moral formation of a Catholic conscience is the hierarchical teaching office.
Moreover, the narrow social nature of the ecclesial conscience fails to account for the full range of values at stake in legal and political disputes like those to which the Bush-era conscience-clause regulations were meant to apply. Invocations of conscience should not of themselves trump all other values at stake in such matters. Yet this is often how it seems when listening to those speak – often with a strongly individualistic and anti-government air – about the need for extensive conscience clause protections. By contrast, Jesuit theologian John Courtney Murray argued that the conflict between the individual conscience and the political community could only be understood in its properly moral character when it was seen as a conflict between the conscience of an individual and the “conscience of the laws” of the political community.
The theologian Thomas Shannon spelled out the range of values at stake between these two claims of conscience, individual and political. He argued that a democratic citizen in a pluralist society derives an obligation to obey the civil laws on a number of grounds. First, this obligation is filtered through the values derived from a citizen’s membership in an association like the Catholic Church: How consonant are the values embodied by the civil laws with the values central to crucial institutions like the Catholic Church that play a decisive role in the moral formation of citizens? Second, the obligation to obey the laws can be understood as a return in kind for benefits like security and safety provided by the state. Third, the obligation arises from the existence of fair electoral and political procedures. And, finally, the obligation is present on account of the fairness required of citizens who obey laws and accept imperfections with which they disagree because other citizens of different convictions accept similarly disagreeable matters.
Murray’s and Shannon’s logic requires us to see that the citizen exercising conscience in the face of legal or social pressure never in fact or in right departs from the political community. Moreover, while the exercise of a citizen’s conscience may affirm values of special importance to an association like the Catholic Church, nevertheless such values must be considered along with – not entirely over against – values like public order and fair play among diverse citizens.
Seeing claims of conscience in such a broad light helps one to understand the wisdom of Martin Luther King, Jr., who as a matter of conscience disobeyed unjust laws and who as a matter of conscience also accepted the punishment for such disobedience as, among other things, a way to affirm the abiding value of law and political community.
We have intended in this essay to call attention to several overlooked aspects of the understanding of conscience at work in the current Catholic engagement with the American public square. Of course, no consideration of that engagement should be made without attention to the broader context in which these invocations of conscience are taking place: The issues of gender at the base of so many of the so-called problems of conscience; the diminished authority of the American hierarchy on account especially of bishops’ roles in the sexual abuse scandal; and the fact that only a few centuries ago the hierarchical teaching office of the church found it far less necessary to promulgate teachings to bind the consciences of the Catholic faithful. Instead, we have largely restricted our arguments to matters of moral philosophy and moral theology. We hope in the course of our treatment to have pointed to the resources in these disciplines for a renewal of the Church’s understanding of conscience – a renewal that might draw on the personalist tradition of Catholicism and that would accord better with the experience of the Catholic democratic citizen in a pluralist society.
The above essay was formulated by Albert Jonsen, author “The Abuse of Casuistry: A History of Moral Reasoning” and Senior Ethics Scholar-in-Residence and Co-Director, Program in Medicine and Human Values, California Pacific Medical Center; Kirk Hanson, Executive Director, Markkula Center for Applied Ethics, and University Professor of Organizations and Society, SCU; Denise Carmody, Jesuit Community Professor, Religious Studies, SCU; Gerald D. Coleman, S.S., Vice President, Corporate Ethics, Daughters of Charity Health System; Miriam Schulman, director of Communications, Markkula Center for Applied Ethics; Margaret McLean, director of Biotechnology and Health Care Ethics, Markkula Center for Applied Ethics; Lawrence Nelson, Associate Professor of Philosophy, SCU; J. Brooke Hamilton III, Milam & Steen/BORSF Professor of Business Administration, University of Louisiana at Lafayette, and Visiting Scholar, Markkula Center for Applied Ethics. The essay was written by David E. DeCosse, director of Campus Ethics Programs, Markkula Center for Applied Ethics.
What I have decried over time
What I have decried over time is the dichotomy between the personalist and ecclesial views of conscience. Although touched on in this remarkable and wonderful essay, this dichotomy ought not to exist. The ecclesial teachings of the church must be studied and understood before one can make an informed and conscience-driven decision.
For example, and to be simplistic, the church's stand on abortion must be understood before one can come to the conclusion that this view is strictly law driven and does not take into account the physical, mental, emotional or social condition of the woman who must make the 'tragic choice'. Further, if abotion is completely deemed to be illegal, and women are driven to 'back-alley' abortions, the chances of the woman dying are great. And we are back to the question, are we to reverence life after birth as well as before it? Or are the lives of women of no value?
Anyway, thank you all for a very thoughtful essay. I'm sure there will be many comments!
David, I agree with all
David, I agree with all you've written here. When it comes to decisions of conscience, we are indeed divided into personalist and ecclesial camps. But I would like to discuss why Catholics find themselves falling into--or pigeonholed into--either one or the other, as this is not how most Catholics would like to define themselves.
Your most telling statment comes near the end of your essay: "only a few centuries ago the hierarchical teaching office of the church found it far less necessary to promulgate teachings to bind the consciences of the Catholic faithful."
And that, I think, is why we find ourselves in the current situation. Though the pope has used the term "relativism" a lot, the real issue is that the Church has decided to take a strongly vocal public stand against abortion in particular, and to a lesser extent gay marriage and birth control.
Once the Church makes abortion its central social message, any divergence from that message is seen as a challenge and any differing statement by a Catholic politician is seen as dissent and scandal.
Anti-abortion advocacy has, therefore, become more than a divisive issue among Catholic faithful. It has become the litmus test for whether or not someone is a good Catholic.
I'm not in favor of unrestricted access to abortion; however, I'm saddened that the Church seems ready to sacrifice the multi-faceted, nuanced understanding of conscience in order to oppose abortion. It's a bargain that did not have to made. We are paying the price now as the church continues to drive a wedge between Catholics who reckon moral decisions differently.
Great post matt. The only
Great post matt. The only thing I would add is that when personal and ecclesial consciences are one and the same, differences tend to be seen as personal attacks, not different reasoned opinions. This phenomenon lends tons to the toxicity of the whole abortion debate.
The true teaching on
The true teaching on conscience can be found in the Summa of St Thomas Aquinas. If a person is willing to stand before God and say he believes he is right on some controversial issue, then he has nothing to worry about. However, in all honesty, conscience invoking has more to do with NOT doing something, rather than with doing something. A case in point would be the mandatory abortion laws in China. If a woman feels she shouldn't comply then she really shouldn't even though she will suffer for it. In Catholic history, look at the man for all seasons, Sir Thomas Moore, who followed his conscience and lost his head quite literally!
This is why Catholics who invoke conscience in the case of contraception, only the pill since it is indirect contraception and was under question by the Church, are a bit disengenuous since they invoke conscience to do something, rather than refrain from doing something. I don't dispute that Catholics can follow their conscience since all people can but I think Catholic conscience today has more to do with convenience than honesty.
And a further point of disengenuousness is on the part of Catholics who disagree with the Church on certain moral issues like contraception but feel they can still receive the sacraments. This is the main point of contention between liberals & conservatives in the Church. We all agree that a person will not be held accountable by God for sin if they do something which the Church proscribes if they truly believe it is right. But such people have no right to the sacraments! Liberals are completly wrong when they say such people can receive the Eucharist in good conscience.
Also, consider the colossal cheek of these people who think they know the mind of God better than the Magisterium! HAH! People who advocate civil disobedience accept the fact that they will have to pay the price in the law. Liberal Catholics need to pay a price too for their dissent.
Liberalism is about being
Liberalism is about being able to see many sides to an issue, and to understand the choices that are being made and their consequences for oneself and others. The decision to try to make liberalism--which is obviously based on the idea of having the freedom to think--some strawman is really about protecting clericalism. Do you really think that Jesus intended for a bureacratic church, full of high priests in flowing robes being the ones to decide what is loving? It's really quite preposterous once you spend some time in the New Testament.
Liberalism is about seeing
Liberalism is about seeing every side of an issue except the traditional view, Liberalism is about seeing every side of an issue except the orthodox view, and Liberalism is about seeing every side of an issue except the conservative view. In essence, Liberalism accepts all the heresies, pagan beliefs, and false teachings. Liberalism accepts everything except the Magisterium.
Tom A., I know that you
Tom A., I know that you believe this as you right as you write it, but it is certainly not what liberalism is. The reason higher education is called liberal education is exactly this process of seeing every side of an issue, and it does include the traditional, the orthodox and the conservative. Often people are dismayed because they feel that the exploration or presentation of any alternative to the traditional, the orthodox, and the conservative is a threat to it/them, and overly-dramatize the few minutes--comparatively--spent in exploration of alternatives over the substantive time and strength of the traditional, orthodox and conservative. If you believe in the 'marketplace of ideas,' then buck up. Explain what the issue is about, but be open to discussing it. The church itself has moved incresingly in the direction of the liberal perspective through the centuries, and, in point of fact, supported the development of higher education as liberal education, at least to the door of whatever its present traditional, orthodox, and conservative perspective is at the time. In other words, one thing that actually has a strong place in Catholic tradition, orthodoxy and conservatism is the right to think and explore ideas. This is quite pre-v2 and resides at the point of discussion of even the basic philosophies that have supported the traditional, orthodox, and conservative views of Church. When people want to stop that process in others to increase their own comfort, the Church has not stood by their side, at least not in the documents that are promulgated. You can find this easily by spending some time on the website for the Catholic Encyclopedia of 1917. I think you would find much that is in that encyclopedia breathtaking in its acceptance of liberal education and thinking. Imagine that: the church of the early twentieth century was more liberal in its documents than many of its laity and clergy of the early twenty-first century. Simply amazing.
I agree the word Liberal has
I agree the word Liberal has been hijacked and no longer represents its original meaning.
I also think you have a false notion of the conservative mind. I do not promote orthodoxy because it makes me "comfortable." For me it is a matter of logic. If it is intrinsically evil to commit a certain act, then I see no reason to continue "debating" the issue, especially with others who proclaim to be of the same faith. One of our duties should be to promote that truth to the rest of society. Some of these topics are truths with a capital T and not open to negotiation.
I fear the divide between liberal and conservative (lack of a better term) Catholics always hinges on this issue. For one side, compromise is always available and for the other side, no compromise is allowed. If that is the case, then further dialogue is pretty much useless and fruitless.
Orthodoxy (or so it's called)
Orthodoxy (or so it's called) = Christian orthotoxy.
I just wanted to add to your mishmash on traditional, liberalism, orthodox, conservative, heresies, pagan beliefs, false teachings, and magisterium.
I agree. If your personal
I agree. If your personal conscience is is such that you are in open defiance of the Church on some thing she teaches is gravely important (ie not "struggling to be obedient/understand the teaching"), then it would seem to be honest with yourself and consistent to your conscience, you should accept as a consequence that you are not in full union with the Church and should at least refrain from the sacramental signs that claim full unity; at most, you would need to re-evaluate whether your continued self-identification as Catholic is honest. I would hope such a reflection would spur people to return to the heart of the Church and seek to more correctly form the content of their consciences, but if one wishes to remain obstinate, they have cut them selves off long before any institutional censures are imposed.
So, yes, personal conscience must always be respected, but reason must also be respected and if personal and ecclesial conscience are too far separated and are not moving closer in an individual case, we must have the integrity to be hbonest about the implications of that.
Paul, I also seriously doubt
Paul, I also seriously doubt that they know the mind of God better than the Magisterium; but they do know the factors that affect their own lives better. The Catholic Church has always allowed for those factors to come into the mix when reckoning culpability in issues of conscience. Almost any moral theologian will admit to this. I think we have got to come away from our corners when we debate the sort of issues raised in this essay or we'll never get anywhere on this stuff. Some people on either side of these kind of debates might say "so what?" Let 'em go if they don't agree. I'm not willing to do that.
That is a good point, primacy
That is a good point, primacy of conscience affects culpability for not the objective correctness of an act. Indeed, no amount of believing something is correct or incorrect will make it so. A moral object is what it is, always.
And what is a moral object?
And what is a moral object?
There are issues and there
There are issues and there are issues. Not all answers can be found in the CCC. We have all been in situations where you are not sure what is the right thing to do. This is where the voice of conscience clearly comes in. I just have an issue with people who think they can deny objective moral truth as clearly defined by the Church in the name of conscience.
No paulte, the truth is you
No paulte, the truth is you need liberal Catholics to pay a price for their dissent. The punishment and exclusion is what seems to validate following the rules for you.
I on the other hand am perfectly OK with the notion that the Sacraments, in a sense, police themselves. The effectiveness of the Grace they may bestow is in the control of the receiver, not the giver. Lots of law abiding Catholics prevent themselves from receiving the full benefit just the same as dissenting Catholics. No one is perfect. I think we all know that.
God does punish the sinner,
God does punish the sinner, yes, here or hereafter. The best defense the Liberals can offer the Lord of creation is that they were misguided. Maybe they can say, "Forgive us Lord for we didn't listen to the logic of truth as your offered by your emissary, paulte!
Paulte, So the Sacraments are
Paulte,
So the Sacraments are a reward for good behaviour? The Eucharist is a symbol of ecclesial unity and has little to do with spiritual nourishment by the "Bread of Life?" To present oneself for Communion without accepting lock, stock and barrel everything in the CCC is to live a lie? Bishop DeSmedt, where are you when we need you?
The last time I checked the
The last time I checked the Church said that one should not be conscious of grave sin before one receives Communion. The next time you are at Mass, crack open that missalette & look on the inside cover. It will tell you just what I said. This is not a paulte view, it is the Church's teaching.
I accept the Church's teaching on conscience and if a person in good conscience feels they did no wrong in violating a Church teaching then they did not sin. So not conscious of mortal sin, they could receive Communion. But such a person is on very shaky grounds in my view. Do they really want to stand before God and say they know better than the Magisterium of the Church?
My theological opinion, conscience notwithstanding, is that those who disagree with the Church on an issue which involves the matter of mortal sin should refrain from Communion out of respect for the sacramental presence of Christ in the Eucharist and just fear for the salvation of their souls.
Paulte, The invoking of
Paulte,
The invoking of conscience does not need to be an act of denial. In fact, some of the most powerful acts of conscience are deliberate acts of mercy in the midst of an uncaring society. Think of all the people who ran the Underground Railroad. Each of these heroes had very compelling reasons to not get involved. But after an examination of their perception of right and wrong they invoked conscience to act, not to refrain from acting. They broke many laws to work for a good that, in their judgment, outweighed the bad of breaking laws.
Conversely, in the case of contraception couples who practice it actually are refraining from doing something, (as your definition prefers); they are refraining from producing a child.
Also, I understand that you hate Liberals. That you hate them and want to see them punished, humbled, brought low, and otherwise chastised for their multiple transgressions. But don't drag the Church into your crusade. Because if the Church starts denying communion to people who feel the use of contraception will help save the world from over-population, then it will also have to deny communion to people who support unjust wars (John Paul II's words, not mine). It will have to deny communion to those who oppose nuclear disarmament, and to those in favor of capital punishment. Remember, Jesus ate with the sinners, not the pious. Do we really feel qualified to change his policies?
Before it is too late, I urge you to turn away from judging people. I will try to do the same. Neither of us are really qualified to know what is in someone else's heart. And certainly no one, including the Magisterium, knows what is in God's mind. Claiming to is a terrifying act of pride.
The Church is not infallible. We know it. They know it. Since their teaching is fallible, it must be questioned. Therefore, we are ultimately left with our own conscience in our heads and the voice of the Spirit within our hearts to guide us. Will some people lie and claim conscience for convenience/personal choice? Of course. But that is far above our pay grade. God will handle it better than we ever could.
Don't drag the political into
Don't drag the political into it! Who is to judge when a war is just? And JPII distorted the Church's teaching on the death penalty to bring the Church into conformity with European politics. The true teaching on the death penalty can be found in the teaching of Pius XII. In conscience I dissent on JPII's teaching on the death penalty because he is contradicting the whole Catholic Tradition here. All of the Doctors of the Church supported the death penalty and so does paulte! JPII is a problematic pope in many ways.
You are correct Paulte, the
You are correct Paulte, the Church has a teaching called Just War Theory and if anyone here has ever read it, they would remember that it basically puts the onus on the one who launches the war to determine if the war is just or not. It is more a guideline for leaders to consider before launching a war. It was NEVER official church teaching that the US involvement in Iraq was intrinsically evil. It does make a good case that the war was questionable in its preemptive nature and certainly worth more reflection and discussion.
As far as capital punishement goes, just read the Cathecism. It says there are many alternatives available to a modern society, but it never outright says that capital punishement is intrinsically evil. I suspect the reason is because there are less modern societies that may need capital punishment in order to preserve peace and order in thier societies.
And John Paul II of happy memory spoke on many topics. On these topics he was not speaking ex cathedra or covered under the umbrella of infaliability.
When the CCC came out, I read
When the CCC came out, I read the section on the death penalty and I agreed with it. Then after JPII's encyclical, they had to change it. This is not Catholicism. If you look at what JPII said, you can clearly see the problem. He focused on one end of the death penalty. There are actually three, justice, expiation & deterrence. The Pope of your fond memory just looked at deterrence. He said that since the modern penal system can effectively deter crime, the death penalty was no longer necessary for all practical purposes.
The problem here is twofold. When Pius XII addressed & defended the death penalty in 1952 & 1953, that was clearly the modern era. Secondly, what competence does the Church really have in sociology or criminology? Exactly none! How can a Pope judge the effectiveness of the modern penal sysytem? The Church's competence is in faith & morals. Also, we still have plenty of crime going on in America in spite of our sophisticated modern penal system.
And there is something particularly ugly in the crimes committed today. You rarely had the kind of gruesome crimes we have today (torture murders, rape murders, child molestation murders, multiple murders, etc.) or at least the frequency of them back in the times of Pius XII. But we are told by Rome now that we don't need the death penalty for all practical purposes? HAH! I beg to differ!
So, by the same logic the
So, by the same logic the Church should not make pronouncements on contraception.
Good. I understand your position now. Thanks very much.
A humble thank you,
A humble thank you, PoorFellow. What a loving, thoughtful, and appropriate reply.
Paulte, your anger seems misdirected-- that you are actually speaking to someone in particular.
A well thought through
A well thought through article but not easy to understand as a lay person. All I know is that if the church wants us to understand these things than they must speak to us as human beings not as intellectuals. Thanks for trying.
Paulte: Your judgmental
Paulte: Your judgmental reasoning has many flaws. YOU sanctimoniously claim to know the mind of God by making such outrageous claims involving a human "magesterium." I do not say this in a disrespectful tone, I see your outright hatred for others because they may hold equally valid but different points of view regarding the individual human conscience. I feel sorry for you because I really think you have failed to achieve the most basic understanding of Christ's love for all living things. You are so hard wired about "liberal" vs. "conservative" that you miss the point of David DeCosse's informative essay. Christ Himself would DISAGREE with the Roman Imperial Magesterim model of the Latin Rite Church on a large number of issues. His life and teachings illustrate this and it completely escapes you because you are so blinded by your hatred. Sad.
As a Catholic, I believe that
As a Catholic, I believe that there is no such thign as conscience, and that all this talk about conscience smells hypocrisy.
What about the conscience of little abused boys that your priests abused of ? Is that conscience ? Thank God it isn't !
Picking up on John Paul II's
Picking up on John Paul II's characterization of the "culture of death", I would direct thinking toward a "universalist" sense of conscience, that is, to the common ground of morality which points to essentials of relationships that are universal and commonly essential.
Probably the most conflicted and the least considered aspect of personal/ universal conscience is how we personally and collectively relate to nature, its diversified weblife and its unconditional ecological correlations. The problem is human dominion over all life and the exploiting of life to its death by corporate capitalism and by the unqualified church expectation of women and men to keep every act of sexual intercourse "open" to conception. The "culture of death" most threatening to the ecological webs of life, and indeed to humankind, is the suffocation of nature from human overreach, excess consumption, genetic and environmental pollution.
Where is the moral proportionality between the individual obligation to "increase and multiply", and the universal, conscionable obligation not "to eat the fruit in the middle of the garden?"
genetic pollution? I hope you
genetic pollution? I hope you mean messing with DNA, rather than the other meaning...
Personal and ecclesial views
Personal and ecclesial views of conscience find their basis in the human and divine will of Christ. The conversion of the individual is found in the formation of the human intellect and will to the divine will.
In the Garden of Gethsemane, we see the perfect example of the human will of Christ formed to the perfect divine will of the Father. This is the example, that the Church calls us to when the Church calls us to adopt the mind of the church, which is guided by the Holy Spirit in light of the Gospel.
The Church is not asking for blind obedience. The Church is asking us for Metanoia. This is what Gaudium et Spes speaks of, and it is this understanding that is missing from most of the "conscientious objectors" to many of the moral issues of today.
I understand where you are
I understand where you are going with this, but there is a huge difference between Christ conforming His will to His Father, and the expectation that we conform our will to the Church. Frankly I follow Jesus's example and by doing that I find myself in a great deal of conformity with the Church, but I also find the Church is not in conformity on some issues itself.
This is no different in my mind than Jesus finding Himself not conforming with some issues held by the Pharisees and temple priests.
As I understand this essay,
As I understand this essay, the ecclesial version of conscience presupposes that the institution setting the rules is going to be more morally perfect than individuals. Is that assumption really true???
The kind of an institution that sets up such absolutist rules isn't listening to the diversity of experiences of its members before it makes the
rulings usually... it also implies a lower sense of trust and love for the "obeyees", which tends to turn them into "objects", not "subjects".
The social sciences have repeatedly warned about "group morality" being less moral than individuals' morality on at least several points --
1) group morality reverts to a less adult behavior in general, in an effort to find a common denominator;
2) people find maintaining unpopular heroic moral stands against the group norms quite difficult -- eg Milgrim experiments showed how willing people were to cause "harm" to others if they thought they had group approval to do so;
3) It is easier for an individual to change one's behavior if wrong, than it is for an instituion to do so, since the power, prestige and inertia of the group as a whole is greater;
All the most lovely theoretical concepts won't survive being be dashed forcefully on the rocks of actual experiences... All too often, Church documents on humans sound as if they were written by little green men from Mars...
Also, consider the colossal
Also, consider the colossal cheek of these people who think they know the mind of God better than the Magisterium! HAH!
Oh I see. I guess "the mind of God" thinks it's okay to take a priest who diddled the altar boys and transfer him to another parish so he can diddle some more altar boys, and then if the family of the altar boy has the "cheek" to sue the diocese, subject the poor kid to eight hours of cross-examination.
The bishop who does all that can hand out communion but some poor sap can't receive it becasue he used a condom to have consensual sex with his wife.
I guess I should become a Unitarian then. Thanks for straightening me out, Paulte.
The whole point of the
The whole point of the protection and guidance of the Church and its teaching office by the Holy Spirit is exactly so that this dilemma is avoided. Some very bad people have held very high office in the history of the Church (think middle ages corruption and such) and yet the teaching of the Church was and is still as reliable as its foundation in Christ. If a bishop or priest has sinned, lightly gravely heinously greenly publicly softly or secretly, he needs mercy just as you do, and if his sin was grave it is just as much a sacrilege (if not more) for him to partake of the sacraments as it would be for you to partake after committing the grave sin of artificial contraception. However, sin does not lessen the priest's power to confect the sacraments for you and others, nor does it diminish the Bishop's authority to teach, sanctify, and govern the people of God.
Even were the Church involved in some vast heinous conspiracy, the Magisterium's doctrinal purity would remain protected.
The Magisterium is a useful
The Magisterium is a useful guide in the formation of conscience on a particular issue. But it can by no means be treated as the infallible authority exclusive of all other factors for the simple reason that it is not infallible.
The Magisterium has been wrong in the past in its rulings on heresy. The fact that it is comprised of humans means that it will no doubt be wrong in the future.
When Galileo defied the Magisterium and maintained that the earth revolved around the sun he did so as an act of conscience; he could not deny the data that he had collected simply to appease a hierarch's misplaced allegiance to Aristotle's cosmology. In the end, he was objectively correct and the Church was wrong.
Within its scope of practice (theology) the Magisterium is a useful resource. But as no one would go to a dentist for a break job, we need to do our homework, use our best judgment, and listen to the voice of the Spirit in our hearts to come to our own conscience.
Oh please! The entire essay
Oh please! The entire essay is an egomaniacal dance designed to get to the pre-determined result that the author can be a Roman Catholic and still believe anything he wants. Supporters should quit wasting their time and energy (no matter how good it makes them feel) and join their own Church of What's Happening Now.
paulte said: "but I think
paulte said: "but I think Catholic conscience today has more to do with convenience than honesty. "
You've got that right. Preach it brother/sister!
The reason I agree is that I am a catechist in my parish, and i've never heard a single person who dissents from this teaching and claim conscience to even be able to properly articulate the reasoning for the Church's teaching on contraception.How can someone form their conscience if they don't even properly know why the Church teaches as it does?
I think that paulte is drawing so much fire here because it's hitting too close to home for a lot of people!
I don't think so, DanMan. No
I don't think so, DanMan. No one should make the mistake in thinking that because one cannot "properly articulate the reasoning for the Church's teaching..." it means that their conscience is not operating fully. That is quite demeaning of humankind's ability to sense injustice - or the correct road to travel - when and where it occurs. To follow your thinking, those who agree with the Chuch's teaching on contraception should also be suspect, if they cannot "properly articulate" their reasons for doing so But for sake of this discussion, consider another issue. Why is it that Pope Paul VI, who "stacked" the commission examining the issue of contraception with highly conservative members beyond the original group convened by John XXIII, disregard the overwhelming majority report that recommended that contraceptive forms be allowed? Even the pill, which utilized the woman's natural cycle in preventing pregnancy, as developed and explained by a Catholic physician, was rejected by Paul VI, all because he could not find a way of contradicting his predecessors who condemned contraception decades (or more) before the pill was invented. So much for "magesterial teaching" being as perfect as some hold it out to be. This is why we must protect the primacy of conscience above all else.
"Morality of conscience and morality of authority as two opposing models, appear to be locked in struggle with each other. Accordingly, the freedom of the Christian would be rescued by appeal to the classical principle of moral tradition that conscience is the highest norm by which man is to follow even in opposition to authority. Authority, in this case the Magisterium, may well speak of matters moral, but only in the sense of presenting conscience with material for its own deliberation. Conscience would retain, however, the final word."
This quote is from Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, given at the 10th workshop for US Bishops, in February 1991 in Dallas, Texas. It is too bad that many of the current Bishops were not yet appointed at that time, to hear this lecture.
David and friends at Santa
David and friends at Santa Clara, a fantastic and courageous article! Thank you very much for sharing this analysis. I know how hard you worked on it.
My only comment is about an inherent tension in both the personalist and ecclesial views of conscience and a related structural issue.
My reflection comes from my brief experience with the law and the legislative process in this country. In the law and in the legislative process, competing views are set against one another in a forum that encourages compromise to make progress. Therefore, we encourage each side to represent itself with vigor so that the most authentic compromise and progress can be achieved.
What we seem to have in the Church today is plenty of vigor on both sides. However, where is the forum in our Church where such views as the personalist and ecclesial can be debated using the means of compromise to achieve progress, even unity?
Really appreciated this
Really appreciated this thought-provoking "examination of conscience." I am deeply tired of the shrill tirades and threats accompanying such discussion and really value what you have done here. My sixteen years of Catholic education and faith formation have led me to believe that in the end, I am responsible for formation of my conscience--with the help and guidance of the church--and for prayerfully examining it AS WELL AS examining the "help and guidance" that appears to be on offer. Not all guidance is godly or appropriate, no matter what it calls itself.
What if my consciense told me
What if my consciense told me to tell the average NCR reader to repent, accept the Churches teachings or else you are going to Hell? Would you accept that, since it was my conscience that told me and according to you, all I have to do to get to heaven is follow my conscience. That Muslim Major at Ft Hood followed his.
No, a conscience must be properly formed and aligned with the Magisterium, else error slips in. And before you call me whatever names you want to call me, remember, I too am working on forming mine just like you.
"What if my consciense [sic]
"What if my consciense [sic] told me to tell the average NCR reader to repent, accept the Churches teachings or else you are going to Hell?" Well, Tom A., this appears to be the conscience of most of the (particularly) anonymous writers on this site. The level of conscience is to tell your neighbor what their conscience should be. Big deal. It draws from the same source as judgmentalism, which is the subject of much of Jesus' teaching.
Annie O, the problem with all
Annie O, the problem with all this talk is that it is too confusing? What is right and what is wrong? I want to know and I don't want to hear all sorts of gray areas. Is it ok to do A but not B, yet for you it is ok to do B and not A. That makes no sense and there must be an ultimate source where we can authoritively find the truth on grave public matters. What can we disagree on and what must we agree on to be Catholic or better yet a decent human being?
On one side of this agruement you find folks like me who say that source is the Magisterium of the Church. One the other side (I presume you, but do not really know), there are folks who seem to say that the individual's conscience is the ultimate source. Still others believe it lies in some sort of collective thought.
If one is "not in union" with
If one is "not in union" with the Church, but is following one's own conscience, and truly believes the Church is wrong, then why shouldnt' one take the sacraments? It is possible, you know, for the Church to be wrong... I'm not giving up my communion just because a bunch of bullies have hijacked my Church.
The Church CANNOT be wrong on
The Church CANNOT be wrong on faith and morals. If you conscience goes against Church teachings then it is you who are wrong. The Church is protected by the Holy Spirit in all it teaches on faith and morals. That does not mean it is protected in all it does. The Church often screws up in the administration and organizational aspects of running such a large institution.
Remember what Paul said about receiving unworthily.
Remember what Jesus said
Remember what Jesus said about not putting yourself in the Father's seat. Even he did not do that; he chose to join us in our humanity and not make himself equal to the Father.
"Faithful Citizenship" is a
"Faithful Citizenship" is a nicer way of saying "Cafeteria Catholicism". Liberals are against war, death penalty, and want social justice. Conservatives are anti-abortion. There is no middle ground and yes, we are in a one issue church. Health care legislation in this country is a dead issue. Conservatives kick up a fuss over abortion and liberals are angry that conservatives, like bishop Tobin in Rhode island, are giving Catholic politicians grief over it. I also see NARAL is peeved over abortion being left out (I can't understand why as this is a great opportunity to raise money). What's going to happen? NOTHING--the bill dies in the Senate. Conservatives claim triumph over abortion, liberals, who love a 'noble failure', get their usual opportunity to whine about conservatives and of course, the stock prices of medical insurers goes up. Now ask yourself, who are going to be the real winners?
Tom, A conscience must be
Tom,
A conscience must be properly formed, yes, but not necessarily "aligned with the Magisterium". Saying that it must be so is to say that the definition of a properly formed conscience is one that agrees with everything promulgated by Rome. Uh, no. I spotted that notion 'way back when I first heard of the idea in about second grade. I thought the idea stunk then, and it hasn't gotten any better in the intervening 40+ years.
"Properly formed" for most folks would be a conscience that is the result of prayer, study, and reflection. The Church teachings must be studied, prayed about, and reflection on, absolutely. But there are other points of view, as well, that may have something to offer us; and we are given a capacity to reason on top of that. It's entirely possible that a well-formed conscience might come to a different conclusion than the fine fellows in Rome. Most especially is this true when the topic pertains to areas of life that fall outside the experience of those fine fellows.
Note that I don't assume that the guys in the long robes are automatically wrong, or less intelligent than I am. I just don't assume from the start that they're right, or smarter.
Who defines properly formed?
Who defines properly formed? You, me, your priest, a bishop, or the Pope? Or is it the Holy Spirit speaking through the teaching Magesterium of the Church?
I don't know how I missed
I don't know how I missed this essay as conscience has been my favorite issue in many other discussions. People seem to think that "personalist conscience" is a term that came out of Vatican II and is therefore somehow suspect. As I've mentioned elsewhere, the moral theology text used in my seminary included a footnote (in latin) saying that a WELL FORMED conscience is the ultimate criterion of morality. Seems to me that this definition includes both ecclesial and personalist aspects, not just one or the other.
The intrusion of American bishops into the House debate on health care reform is not only limited in vision in that it looks only at the last couple of decades of doctrinal orientation, but it is embarassingly lacking in compassion for those who either through ignorance or sophistication disagree with the ecclesial conscience view.
Seems to me the much vaunted
Seems to me the much vaunted (by tradition) "natural law" deserves at least honorable mention in this discussion.
Translation: the word
Translation: the word "Magisterium" really means the "Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University." For these academics, the Roman Catholic bishops are an anachronism, unfit to teach, sanctify or govern and completely lacking academic standing. Or have I missed something?
Apply this essay fully and you end up as a delegate to the triennial Convention of The Episcopal Church. There the bishops, such as they are, are kept on a very, very, very short leash. Is this the future of Roman Catholicism in the United States?
Post new comment