IT’S a question whose answer I really
do not know. I guess
one has to plumb deep into the hearts of the people concerned to get a
glimpse of the reason.
I’m referring to why, in spite of all the explanations on
the subject given by the Church magisterium, even highly placed
priest-professors in seminaries and other ecclesiastical centers of
learning do not understand the true nature and role of conscience in
our life.
It would be very easy to brand them as incorrigible
modernists and relativists whose congenital defect is their
overpowering self-confidence that they hold the ultimate key to the
answers of our faith’s mysteries and moral questions. But that, I’m
afraid, would still be off the mark.
By the way, they seem to be quite a number of them
dangerously lodged in these formation centers, giving rise to fears
that the training of our future priests and other religious men and
women could be seriously compromised.
In many published papers and commentaries, posted even in
the Internet, they affirm that conscience is our ultimate arbiter to
know what is right and wrong in our actions.
They can go so far as to admit that we can consider and
make inputs from other sources, even from the Church teaching, but in
the end, it’s our conscience that makes our actions moral or immoral.
They understand conscience not only as the ultimate judge
of the moral quality of our actions. It is also an independent and
supreme judge who makes its judgments alone and no authority can
question it. That’s how they understand the freedom of conscience.
In this set-up, it would seem that even God has to defer
to the judgment of one’s conscience. As to the Church authority over
it, one better has to forget it. In their mind, our conscience is
supreme and infallible.
Thus, they tend to flaunt the reasoning that in spite of
how wrong their action is if judged according to Church-taught moral
principles, they still would feel it was right, if it’s their
conscience that said so. No question can be asked, period. You have
reached the end of the line!
This is really strange, because ever since I became aware
of the existence of conscience, I always understood it as a judgment I
make about the morality of my actions according to a law that is not
mine. It’s a law written in my heart, definitely not by me, but by
someone else.
Later, I was convinced that this law must have come from
my creator, God. I understood conscience as a judgment I make always
with God, no matter how poorly I perceive him. It can never be a
judgment arrived at by my lonesome self.
Everything tells me I do not and cannot live alone, by
myself, though I can foolishly think that I am alone, which sadly
happens from time to time. Objectively, and irrespective of whether we
are aware of it or not, we are always into some relationship. That’s
how I understand my life or anybody’s life to be.
Thus, I was happy to learn years later on that the
Catechism, for example, upholds this childhood insight of mine just as
it is the insight of many others. Some relevant points could be the
following:
* 1776 – “Deep within his conscience man discovers a law
which he has not laid upon himself but which he must obey. Its
voice…sounds in his heart at the right moment… For man has in his
heart a law inscribed by God.”
* 1779 – “Return to your conscience, question it… Turn
inward, brethren, and in everything you do, see God as your witness.”
(St. Augustine)
* 1795 – “Conscience is man’s most secret core, and his sanctuary.
There he is alone with God whose voice echoes in his depths.” (Gaudium
et spes 16)
I suppose with this understanding of conscience, what we
have to do is to improve our sensitivity to discern God’s presence,
praying, developing the virtues, mastering Christian doctrine taught
by the Church, etc.
These will improve our most important, basic and
pattern-forming relationship with God and our skill to apply his law
to our actions. We have to do everything to insure that we always
pursue this ideal.
We have to be wary with our tendency to just
intellectualize our understanding of conscience, which can give us
impressive but not life-transforming lights, since it is detached from
the true and ultimate Light.
This is the usual Achilles’ heel of our bright boys.
one has to plumb deep into the hearts of the people concerned to get a
glimpse of the reason.
I’m referring to why, in spite of all the explanations on
the subject given by the Church magisterium, even highly placed
priest-professors in seminaries and other ecclesiastical centers of
learning do not understand the true nature and role of conscience in
our life.
It would be very easy to brand them as incorrigible
modernists and relativists whose congenital defect is their
overpowering self-confidence that they hold the ultimate key to the
answers of our faith’s mysteries and moral questions. But that, I’m
afraid, would still be off the mark.
By the way, they seem to be quite a number of them
dangerously lodged in these formation centers, giving rise to fears
that the training of our future priests and other religious men and
women could be seriously compromised.
In many published papers and commentaries, posted even in
the Internet, they affirm that conscience is our ultimate arbiter to
know what is right and wrong in our actions.
They can go so far as to admit that we can consider and
make inputs from other sources, even from the Church teaching, but in
the end, it’s our conscience that makes our actions moral or immoral.
They understand conscience not only as the ultimate judge
of the moral quality of our actions. It is also an independent and
supreme judge who makes its judgments alone and no authority can
question it. That’s how they understand the freedom of conscience.
In this set-up, it would seem that even God has to defer
to the judgment of one’s conscience. As to the Church authority over
it, one better has to forget it. In their mind, our conscience is
supreme and infallible.
Thus, they tend to flaunt the reasoning that in spite of
how wrong their action is if judged according to Church-taught moral
principles, they still would feel it was right, if it’s their
conscience that said so. No question can be asked, period. You have
reached the end of the line!
This is really strange, because ever since I became aware
of the existence of conscience, I always understood it as a judgment I
make about the morality of my actions according to a law that is not
mine. It’s a law written in my heart, definitely not by me, but by
someone else.
Later, I was convinced that this law must have come from
my creator, God. I understood conscience as a judgment I make always
with God, no matter how poorly I perceive him. It can never be a
judgment arrived at by my lonesome self.
Everything tells me I do not and cannot live alone, by
myself, though I can foolishly think that I am alone, which sadly
happens from time to time. Objectively, and irrespective of whether we
are aware of it or not, we are always into some relationship. That’s
how I understand my life or anybody’s life to be.
Thus, I was happy to learn years later on that the
Catechism, for example, upholds this childhood insight of mine just as
it is the insight of many others. Some relevant points could be the
following:
* 1776 – “Deep within his conscience man discovers a law
which he has not laid upon himself but which he must obey. Its
voice…sounds in his heart at the right moment… For man has in his
heart a law inscribed by God.”
* 1779 – “Return to your conscience, question it… Turn
inward, brethren, and in everything you do, see God as your witness.”
(St. Augustine)
* 1795 – “Conscience is man’s most secret core, and his sanctuary.
There he is alone with God whose voice echoes in his depths.” (Gaudium
et spes 16)
I suppose with this understanding of conscience, what we
have to do is to improve our sensitivity to discern God’s presence,
praying, developing the virtues, mastering Christian doctrine taught
by the Church, etc.
These will improve our most important, basic and
pattern-forming relationship with God and our skill to apply his law
to our actions. We have to do everything to insure that we always
pursue this ideal.
We have to be wary with our tendency to just
intellectualize our understanding of conscience, which can give us
impressive but not life-transforming lights, since it is detached from
the true and ultimate Light.
This is the usual Achilles’ heel of our bright boys.
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