Conscience is a
complex subject which requires some time and study to fully grasp. To that end,
I recommend a few resources: First, the audio presentation by Mark Miller, CSSR
on Fundamental Moral Theology now available on our website at this link: www.ctredeemer.org/we-form/education/adults. Great
for your commute to work. Long, but totally worth it. Next, Pope Francis’
apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia (The Joy of Love) is a very nuanced and
helpful guide in our pursuit of understanding the role of conscience. Lastly, Darlene Fozard Weaver’s piece entitled
Conscience: Rightly Formed & Otherwise, which I would like to paraphrase
a bit below.
According to one
of our most authoritative documents from Vatican II, Gaudium et spes, “Conscience is the most secret core and
sanctuary of a person - where one is alone with God, whose voice echoes in
one’s depths.” Deep within our conscience, we have something that moves us towards
what is right and just; the echo of God ever calling us to love, to do what is
good, and to avoid evil. When we are in the thick of it and have to make a
decision (such as when we find ourselves in a voting booth this week), it is our
conscience that is operative and tells us to do this, and shun that.
So conscience
does not create right and wrong (relativism) – it discerns and recognizes an
objective moral law AND yet also is the “secret sanctuary - the innermost and
inviolable part of us that ensures our dignity as a free and responsible agent;
therefore coercing the conscience of another or acting against one’s own
conscience (even if it goes against church teaching) violates the person. Love
is impossible without freedom.
Since there are
so many types of issues that fall across the moral spectrum, a conscience that
dissents from church teaching on a particular question is not necessarily
wrong. We need to recognize that Catholic moral teachings are not equally
settled, specific, or authoritative, and teachings often change and grow. It’s
not that truth is relative, it’s just that we don’t know all of it quite yet.
To form
conscience well, we first need to desire the true and the good – while
avoiding both moral subjectivism and a blind objectivism that cheats conscience
of its dignity. This formation is a lifelong process involving the total
person—one’s reason, emotions, embodied and social experience, imagination, and
intuition.
Second,
conscience formation requires that we promote the goods of kindness and
mutuality – giving our children a vision of the world where others matter, and
where our own happiness and well-being are tied to theirs.
Finally, and most
importantly, a well-formed conscience requires faith; not simply assent to particular
dogmas, but rather a living faith, the committed cultivation of an intimate
relationship with God. By steadfastly placing ourselves before God’s loving gaze,
by accepting God’s saving self-offer, we come to know ourselves and the world
truthfully. As we share more deeply in the life of God, our experience of moral
confusion elicits less fear, less judgement and more love. How? Faith answers
the problem of conscience’s unreliability, not because faith guarantees the
impeccable uprightness of conscience, but because faith tells us such
perfection is neither possible nor necessary. Faith keeps us from scrupulosity
as well as complacency. Faith keeps conscience from evading the burden of freedom
through blind obedience and from abusing the gift of freedom by presuming it
has no conditions. Faith may keep conscience from dissent or lead conscience to
it. Faith keeps conscience from mistaking obedience, or freedom, or personal
authenticity as its aim. That is, faith keeps us from mistaking our own
goodness (however we understand it) as the direct goal of the moral life rather
than an indirect outcome of it.
Send your Crazy
Catholic Question to Lisa Brown at dre@ctredeemer.org or read past columns at www.crazycatholicquestions.blogspot.com.
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