The Catholic Conscience

As we approach the penitential season of Lent, we are called to purify ourselves in anticipation of the Resurrection. To prepare for this, we ought to reflect on our sins, big and small, and conquer them.

This requires of us rigorous introspection an interrogation of our conscience. In doing so, we must address ourselves with honesty, but also need to beware of being overly scrupulous in ways by which we might burden ourselves with an excess of guilt.

As we read in this week’s Hope&Joy article, the Church holds that our conscience is supreme. While it is possible that Catholics struggle to harmonise their conscience with all the teachings of the Church, be it on issues such as contraception or war or the preferential option for the poor the theology of the conscience does not represent a loophole by which the magisterium may be arbitrarily ignored.

When it is in conflict with Church teachings, the conscience must be fully informed. In this way, far from being the easy option, invoking the conscience in divergence from Church teachings can be a most difficult choice.

The informed conscience must be knowledgeable about Church teachings and treat these respectfully. Ideally, it must incorporate advice from a confessor or spiritual director. The role of parents in forming their children’s conscience is crucial.

The Vatican II constitution Gaudium et Spes quotes Pope Pius XII, who in 1952 said: Conscience is the most secret core and sanctuary of a man. There he is alone with God, whose voice echoes in his depths.

In his Lenten message, Pope Benedict describes the act of shaping the conscience of others in accordance with Church teachings what he calls fraternal correction as an act of spiritual mercy. Therefore, when we observe others individually or collectively engaging in behaviours that are sinful, we are called to admonish them.

This does not, however, give us licence to act harshly or judgmentally, and it demands much discretion. Christian admonishment, for its part, is never motivated by a spirit of accusation or recrimination. It is always moved by love and mercy, and springs from genuine concern for the good of the other, Pope Benedict says.

The conscience cannot be coerced. It requires reason. So it is not good enough to simply say a conduct is sinful because the Church says so. The Church teaching must be explained, from a position of proper knowledge, and applied within that particular context.

As Catholics we must be able to defend our point of view, using not only theology based on faith but also the natural law whose dictates are innate to humans and based on our reason and intelligence.

In the secular arena, there is an absurd conflict between a view which links the supremacy of the individual conscience to the freedom of choice in making personal decisions (restricted only by the framework of the law), and an increasing sense that the conscience of the religious believer is violable.

In South Africa we witnessed this in 1996, when the African National Congress forced its parliamentarians to vote for the legalisation of abortion, even when their conscience instructed them to oppose the law.

This year, US President Barack Obama incurred the objection of Catholics, moderate and conservative alike, when his administration decided that religious organisations must provide mandatory health insurance to their employees that covers contraceptives including abortifacients such as the morning-after pill and sterilisation.

The objection resides not just in the question of access to contraceptives, but in the government’s violation of the autonomous conscience of Catholics who regard being party to providing such access as discordant with the teachings of their faith.

It is encouraging that the Obama administration has declared its willingness to revisit this issue. Nonetheless, the decision in itself points to a selective secular application of the primacy of the conscience when this requires consistency.

Catholics are right to object to it, but when we do, we must also respect the freedom of the conscience of those who don’t accept what our conscience dictates.