Archbishop Chaput on Conscience

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This is from an article by Archbishop Chaput entitled, “10 points for Catholic Citizens to Remember.” (All italics belong to the Archbishop.)
  1. Each of us needs to follow his or her own properly formed conscience. But conscience doesn’t emerge from a vacuum. It’s not a matter of personal opinion or preference. If our conscience has the habit of telling us what we want to hear on difficult issues, then it’s probably badly formed. A healthy conscience is the voice of God’s truth in our hearts, and it should usually make us uncomfortable, because none of us is yet a saint. The way we get a healthy conscience is by submitting it and shaping it to the will of God; and the way we find God’s will is by opening our hearts to the counsel and guidance of the Church that Jesus left us. If we find ourselves disagreeing as Catholics with the Catholic teaching of our Church on a serious matter, it’s probably not the Church that’s wrong. The problem is much more likely with us.
 
Archbishop Chaput is such a wise and articulate man. The people of Denver are truly blessed to have him as their shepherd. Here is another gem from his column:
  1. Being a Catholic is a bit like being married. We have a relationship with the Church and with Jesus Christ that’s very similar to being a spouse.
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OMG! Yes, there have been times I really struggled with what the Church has said. Oh, who am I kidding… I still struggle with some of the teachings. But we have to love and value our spouse and what s/he says. Love can be difficult thing, but it would be a much darker world without it.

Here is a link to the column so you can read it all:
archden.org/dcr//news.php?e=454&s=2&a=9553
 
bjmiller100753 said:
This is from an article by Archbishop Chaput entitled, “10 points for Catholic Citizens to Remember.” (All italics belong to the Archbishop.)
  1. Each of us needs to follow his or her own properly formed conscience. But conscience doesn’t emerge from a vacuum. It’s not a matter of personal opinion or preference. If our conscience has the habit of telling us what we want to hear on difficult issues, then it’s probably badly formed. A healthy conscience is the voice of God’s truth in our hearts, and it should usually make us uncomfortable, because none of us is yet a saint. The way we get a healthy conscience is by submitting it and shaping it to the will of God; and the way we find God’s will is by opening our hearts to the counsel and guidance of the Church that Jesus left us. If we find ourselves disagreeing as Catholics with the Catholic teaching of our Church on a serious matter, it’s probably not the Church that’s wrong. The problem is much more likely with us.
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I would like to also provide these writings from the late Bishop Lucker for meditation on.
Somehow it is easier for people to accept the divinity of the Church than to acknowledge its human side. It is accepted as proof that the Church must be divine and that the Catholic Church is the true church of Jesus Christ, because in spite of many failures, controversies, and mistakes it has survived for so long.
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Yes, we believe that the church is one, holy, Catholic, and apostolic. What is hard to accept is that the church is also made up of sinners, human beings, fraught with human weakness and always in need of reformation and renewal.
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September, 1994
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We believe that God, through the Holy Spirit, guides the Church, keeps it from error, and calls it to holiness. However, through its history all members of the Church, including its leaders, are sinners — weak, fallible human beings. Church leaders especially have to continually listen to the voice of Jesus who calls us to serve one another, to wash one another’s feet, and not behave as the mighty of this world. The misuse of power, control, and authority is a frequent temptation.
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September, 1994
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dnu.org/news/lucker/bishopoverview.html#112
 
NewUlm1976_2000 said:
I would like to also provide these writings from the late Bishop Lucker for meditation on.

dnu.org/news/lucker/bishopoverview.html#112
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You’ll have to excuse me if I’m missing your point. And I don’t want to make any assumptions. Are you just adding some of your favorite quotes from a bishop or do you see some kind of thread or connection here? Thanks for the clarification and my apologies if I’m being overly obtuse! 🙂
 
bjmiller100753 said:
You’ll have to excuse me if I’m missing your point. And I don’t want to make any assumptions. Are you just adding some of your favorite quotes from a bishop or do you see some kind of thread or connection here? Thanks for the clarification and my apologies if I’m being overly obtuse! 🙂
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It is related to the last part of Chaput’s writing.
If we find ourselves disagreeing as Catholics with the Catholic teaching of our Church on a serious matter, it’s probably not the Church that’s wrong. The problem is much more likely with us.
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Because disagreement towards the Church often comes from the human fallibility in it, which makes disagreement, discussion, which leads to renewal possible.
 
NewUlm1976_2000 said:
It is related to the last part of Chaput’s writing.

Because disagreement towards the Church often comes from the human fallibility in it, which makes disagreement, discussion, which leads to renewal possible.
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The Church is protected on matters of dogma. Human fallibility can lead to a sinful act by a member of the clergy, but not to error in magisterial or papal dogmatic teaching. As Archbishop Chaput said, “it is probably not the Church that’s wrong.” More than likely, it is your own sinful nature that desires to “have it your way.” You can only get from a properly formed conscience, where “your way” is in line with Church teaching because you are listening to God’s voice instead of Satan.

…oh…and at Burger King…Whopper w/cheese, lettuce, tomato and mustard only…please. 🙂
 
As a matter of interest, the website you linked has the Bishop also commenting on this:
A few weeks ago I spoke at the Call to Action Conference in Milwaukee.
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This group has been excommunicated due to their heretical beliefs.

One wonders if this is why our brother NewUlm seems to be so confused on matters of Catholic teaching??? Perhaps you should try reading more of the Orthodox Catholic Bishops and theologians.
 
And the Bishop’s personal opinion of female “priests”?
We have come to recognize that there is sexism within the church, that we have not treated women equally and have not applied our own teaching to the internal life of the church. The most critical issue then is the participation of women in ministry in the church and especially the discussion on the ordination of women.
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NewUlm, you are a relatively new member here. Might I suggest you read some of the awesome tracts and documents on the Catholic Answers home page? There you will find the ACTUAL Catholic teachings.
 
blessedtoo said:
This group has been excommunicated due to their heretical beliefs.
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It is true that Bishop Bruskewitz of the Diocese of Lincoln (Nebraska, USA) has excommunicated members of Call to Action, but it only applies to those within his diocese.

Archbishop Chaput gives some support to NewUlm’s statements when he discusses persons who vote for a pro-choice candidate. He states that he disagrees with their reasoning but notes: "[A]t the very least they do sincerely struggle with the abortion issue, and it causes them real pain.

Disagreeing with a Church teaching shouldn’t come easily to a Catholic. It should be painful to them as they wrestle with a deep conflict between their faith and their conscience. As others have already quoted the Archbishop: “If we find ourselves disagreeing as Catholics with the Catholic teaching of our Church on a serious matter, it’s probably not the Church that’s wrong. The problem is much more likely with us.”
 
blessedtoo said:
As a matter of interest, the website you linked has the Bishop also commenting on this:

This group has been excommunicated due to their heretical beliefs.

One wonders if this is why our brother NewUlm seems to be so confused on matters of Catholic teaching??? Perhaps you should try reading more of the Orthodox Catholic Bishops and theologians.
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Actually they have not been universally excommunicated. Only some in a single diocese.

The Church is not solely “Orthodox”, it is diverse as humanity is diverse. Are our gifts to be used for following or leading? To build bridges or build walls?
 
blessedtoo said:
And the Bishop’s personal opinion of female “priests”?

NewUlm, you are a relatively new member here. Might I suggest you read some of the awesome tracts and documents on the Catholic Answers home page? There you will find the ACTUAL Catholic teachings.
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Actually, “actual” Catholic teachings go beyond what is at CA. CA is only one subset of the entire Church. Rome realizes this, and San Diego is not Rome.
 
bjmiller100753 said:
You’ll have to excuse me if I’m missing your point. And I don’t want to make any assumptions. Are you just adding some of your favorite quotes from a bishop or do you see some kind of thread or connection here? Thanks for the clarification and my apologies if I’m being overly obtuse! 🙂
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what I think he was referring to is this. Your statement is essentially true. In the vast majority, in fact in most all times, a thorough understanding with what the Church actually teaches and why will convince the average person that the Church’s position is the correct one. What it cannot mean is that one is thereby absolved from doing the search and making the determination for oneself when one feels uneasy about what the Church ostensibly teaches. If at the end of a laborious, serious, and long investigation, one is still left with the unalteralble belief that the Church is wrong, one must follow the dictates of one’s conscience. One cannot hide behind the Church’s apparent inability to err. It does and has in the past. We trust that the Holy Spirit keeps the Church free from error, we just aren;t sure if IT prevents error or corrects it through her members later on down the line. Such might be argued to be the case with limbo, which has been essentially abandoned by the Church, as “erroneous” though of course not stated as such.
 
blessedtoo said:
As a matter of interest, the website you linked has the Bishop also commenting on this:

This group has been excommunicated due to their heretical beliefs.

One wonders if this is why our brother NewUlm seems to be so confused on matters of Catholic teaching??? Perhaps you should try reading more of the Orthodox Catholic Bishops and theologians.
Click to expand...
Has CTA been excommunicated by the USCCB or by an individual bishop who has excommunicated a organization rather than any individual?
 
SpiritMeadow said:
Has CTA been excommunicated by the USCCB or by an individual bishop who has excommunicated a organization rather than any individual?
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Excommunications apply to individuals (by definition). In this case, Bishop Bruskewitz excommunicated any individual in his diocese who did not resign membership in CTA.

That applies strictly to his diocese, but does apply to individuals.

The Vatican upheld the decision as just and warranted.

The USSCB as a org does not have the authority to excommunicate, only individual bishops in their diocese, or the Pope as a whole.
 
Brendan said:
Excommunications apply to individuals (by definition). In this case, Bishop Bruskewitz excommunicated any individual in his diocese who did not resign membership in CTA.

That applies strictly to his diocese, but does apply to individuals.

The Vatican upheld the decision as just and warranted.

The USSCB as a org does not have the authority to excommunicate, only individual bishops in their diocese, or the Pope as a whole.
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It all amounts to nothing for obvious reasons. I recall discussing it in a pastoral ministry class oh in 1995 that he was going to do it. Nothing has changed because he didn’t excommunicate “anyone” just a lot of anonymous “anyone’s”.
 
blessedtoo said:
And the Bishop’s personal opinion of female “priests”?

NewUlm, you are a relatively new member here. Might I suggest you read some of the awesome tracts and documents on the Catholic Answers home page? There you will find the ACTUAL Catholic teachings.
Click to expand...
CA is a lay ministry and has no claim to “correct” church teaching. It has an opinion which in some cases I share. The most reliable location of Church teachings remains the Church herself.
 
bjmiller100753 said:
This is from an article by Archbishop Chaput entitled, “10 points for Catholic Citizens to Remember.” (All italics belong to the Archbishop.)
  1. Each of us needs to follow his or her own properly formed conscience. But conscience doesn’t emerge from a vacuum. It’s not a matter of personal opinion or preference. If our conscience has the habit of telling us what we want to hear on difficult issues, then it’s probably badly formed. A healthy conscience is the voice of God’s truth in our hearts, and it should usually make us uncomfortable, because none of us is yet a saint. The way we get a healthy conscience is by submitting it and shaping it to the will of God; and the way we find God’s will is by opening our hearts to the counsel and guidance of the Church that Jesus left us. If we find ourselves disagreeing as Catholics with the Catholic teaching of our Church on a serious matter, it’s probably not the Church that’s wrong. The problem is much more likely with us.
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He’s right on with this statement.

“Conscience” as understood by a number of Catholics today, is an excuse to dissent from Church teachings. This false idea of conscience can be traced back to the 1960’s when so many theologians disagreed with the Pope about Humanae Vitae and devised a reason to do it. Before this time, you won’t find any Catholics who used the noble idea of conscience as an excuse to dissent from Church teachings or as a rationale to explain away their sins.

The false idea of conscience, embraced by some Catholics in the modern world, is a very wimpy, anemic force. It doesn’t make any hard demands and urges them to just go with the flow. It saves them from the hard work of conversion and renewing their minds in truth.

The classic, noble idea of conscience is a very different thing. It makes demands on the faithful. Real conscience is what leads one to become a martyr and/or a saint.
 
This is a great talk on conscience by Dr. Wm. A. Marra:

**How Absolute is Conscience?
The liberal mind, with its rationalistic approach to doctrine, has lost sight of the supernatural nature of the Church’s teaching. **

proecclesia.com/page_free%20talks.htm
 
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