CONSCIENCE continues to be a hot
issue among theologians
and those who try to describe how our moral life should be. In the
blogosphere, there is now a lot of discussion, often raising dust and
emitting sparks that tend to darken and confuse people rather than
enlighten and clarify.
There is even now a group of theologians who, reacting to
recent scandals and other problems of the Church today, boldly propose
ecclesiastical structural reforms that more or less are inspired by
this so-called primacy of conscience.
Fine, but let's look at things more closely. Offhand, at
first reading, I already get the impression that what they are
proposing does not amount to a further homogeneous development of our
understanding of Church, faithful to the original, but rather a
mutation, a heterogeneous departure from the original, a different
banana, so to speak.
Appeals to understanding, compassion and charity are made
to sweeten the acceptability of these proposals. For sure, we all have
to be understanding, compassionate and charitable, but all these
should not depart from the truth, from faith, from Church teaching,
and from Christ himself.
Our quest for Church development and Christian maturity
should not abandon our duty to fidelity. To flow with the times, to
adapt to the current situations should never be understood as having
the right to transfer our anchor to another set of beliefs.
We have to be wary when we react to problems and issues
simply relying on gut feel or instincts or the Pavlovian way that take
in only the here and now and ignoring the eternal, the short-run and
forgetting the long-run, the literal while setting aside the other
deeper aspects and higher angles from which they should be viewed.
Sad to say, some of our local thinkers invoke this
so-called primacy of conscience to support the view that people should
be left on their own to decide what is good for them in terms of
reproductive rights and health. They should not be told they are wrong
when they opt to go into a contraceptive lifestyle. To them, that
would not be respecting their conscience.
It's obvious that our conscience plays an indispensable
part in our lives. We always have to follow it, because right or
wrong, it is the judgment we make whether the action we are going to
do, are doing or have already done, is good or bad.
From there, we can readily see that our conscience does
not operate in a vacuum. It is neither absolutely self-generated nor
self-contained. It has to be conformed to a law which it does not
invent, but rather only discovers. And it has the duty to uphold that
law, know and live it better each day, protect and defend it, etc.
The primacy of conscience or the freedom of conscience
should not be understood as the right for one to be absolutely left on
his own when he decides, without giving him support, advice,
clarification, and even correction from God through human instruments.
No one is free from God who is our Creator, and who
establishes the original divine law that governs all of us. From this
law springs the moral law that governs our human acts. No one is free
from the human instruments and institutions God has made available to
guide us.
Even in our political and social life, we immediately
acknowledge the need for offices and officials with power and
authority to help us live out our life as a nation. In our spiritual
and moral life, the same thing happens. We need offices, officials,
institutions, etc. with power and authority to guide us. We just
cannot fence our conscience from them.
In one blog, I read a twisted interpretation of how the
Catechism itself describes conscience. That it is “man's most secret
core and his sanctuary (where) he is alone with God whose voice echoes
in his depths (1776),” is now taken to mean that no one can tell
anything to anyone about what his conscience tells him, because
conscience is supposedly an affair strictly between God and man.
Even the Catechism point on the need for the formation of
conscience is understood as one undertaken strictly by oneself and his
view of God. No one can teach him anything. So now, all consciences
are correct. There can be no erroneous consciences!
This phenomenon reminds me of the scribes and Pharisees of
Christ's time. They were also intelligent and religious, but preferred
to have their own views instead of acknowledging Christ as Redeemer.
blogosphere, there is now a lot of discussion, often raising dust and
emitting sparks that tend to darken and confuse people rather than
enlighten and clarify.
There is even now a group of theologians who, reacting to
recent scandals and other problems of the Church today, boldly propose
ecclesiastical structural reforms that more or less are inspired by
this so-called primacy of conscience.
Fine, but let's look at things more closely. Offhand, at
first reading, I already get the impression that what they are
proposing does not amount to a further homogeneous development of our
understanding of Church, faithful to the original, but rather a
mutation, a heterogeneous departure from the original, a different
banana, so to speak.
Appeals to understanding, compassion and charity are made
to sweeten the acceptability of these proposals. For sure, we all have
to be understanding, compassionate and charitable, but all these
should not depart from the truth, from faith, from Church teaching,
and from Christ himself.
Our quest for Church development and Christian maturity
should not abandon our duty to fidelity. To flow with the times, to
adapt to the current situations should never be understood as having
the right to transfer our anchor to another set of beliefs.
We have to be wary when we react to problems and issues
simply relying on gut feel or instincts or the Pavlovian way that take
in only the here and now and ignoring the eternal, the short-run and
forgetting the long-run, the literal while setting aside the other
deeper aspects and higher angles from which they should be viewed.
Sad to say, some of our local thinkers invoke this
so-called primacy of conscience to support the view that people should
be left on their own to decide what is good for them in terms of
reproductive rights and health. They should not be told they are wrong
when they opt to go into a contraceptive lifestyle. To them, that
would not be respecting their conscience.
It's obvious that our conscience plays an indispensable
part in our lives. We always have to follow it, because right or
wrong, it is the judgment we make whether the action we are going to
do, are doing or have already done, is good or bad.
From there, we can readily see that our conscience does
not operate in a vacuum. It is neither absolutely self-generated nor
self-contained. It has to be conformed to a law which it does not
invent, but rather only discovers. And it has the duty to uphold that
law, know and live it better each day, protect and defend it, etc.
The primacy of conscience or the freedom of conscience
should not be understood as the right for one to be absolutely left on
his own when he decides, without giving him support, advice,
clarification, and even correction from God through human instruments.
No one is free from God who is our Creator, and who
establishes the original divine law that governs all of us. From this
law springs the moral law that governs our human acts. No one is free
from the human instruments and institutions God has made available to
guide us.
Even in our political and social life, we immediately
acknowledge the need for offices and officials with power and
authority to help us live out our life as a nation. In our spiritual
and moral life, the same thing happens. We need offices, officials,
institutions, etc. with power and authority to guide us. We just
cannot fence our conscience from them.
In one blog, I read a twisted interpretation of how the
Catechism itself describes conscience. That it is “man's most secret
core and his sanctuary (where) he is alone with God whose voice echoes
in his depths (1776),” is now taken to mean that no one can tell
anything to anyone about what his conscience tells him, because
conscience is supposedly an affair strictly between God and man.
Even the Catechism point on the need for the formation of
conscience is understood as one undertaken strictly by oneself and his
view of God. No one can teach him anything. So now, all consciences
are correct. There can be no erroneous consciences!
This phenomenon reminds me of the scribes and Pharisees of
Christ's time. They were also intelligent and religious, but preferred
to have their own views instead of acknowledging Christ as Redeemer.
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