E
Chicago's Cupich on divorce: Pastor guides decisions, but person's conscience inviolable
- Status
L
LongingSoul
Guest
Eventually someones going to say it. ‘Hitler must be right because he followed his conscience’. It’s getting closer. I can feel it.
I wish everyone would just stop talking and read this article from Cardinal Ratzinger. It is really not this complicated. It is hard because we are trying to bend the principles to fit an assumed conclusion, so in effect we are discarding the principles, the teaching, the doctrine to fit our purposes. You simply can’t do that and end up with anything but chaos.
From my point of view, it looks like you are trying to suppress the sentence…
"It is never wrong to follow the convictions one has arrived at—in fact, one must do so."
… because it gives licence to abuse it with subjectivity. By not affirming that sentence strongly, even though there is the fact that conscience can be in error… makes people vulnerable to evil. Cults are renowned for suppressing the primacy of conscience so they can have control over people for example. I think it was Peter Kreeft who made the analogy that conscience is like the capacity to walk. A baby is not punished every time it attempts to walk and falls over. Those attempts are recognised as important steps in the formation of confident mobility. If you tell a baby you can’t make any attempts until you are fully proficient at walking… well it’s obvious.
L
LongingSoul
Guest
Could you explain what that means?
E
Ender
Guest
This is not accurate in that it overstates what has been imprinted on man. It is certainly not the law, if by that is meant the ability to know right from wrong in all cases. What we are imprinted with is a sense of right and wrong, that moral choices exist. *(St. Basil) **“We have received interiorly beforehand the capacity and disposition for observing all divine commandments … These are not something imposed from without.” Referring everything back to its simple core, Augustine adds: "We could never judge that one thing is better than another if a basic understanding of the good had not already been instilled in us.
"The love of God which is concrete in the commandments, is not imposed on us from without, the Church Father emphasizes, but has been implanted in us beforehand. **The sense for the good has been stamped upon us. ***(Cardinal Ratzinger)
{quote]We were taught as young schoolchildren that a person had the ability to discern right from wrong by approximately the age of six, and that was why we were permitted to receive First Communion at that age but not before. We were taught that by then a person knew right from wrong and could discern whether or not they were in the state of mortal sin. The good sisters taught us to listen to our conscience and we would know when we needed to go to Confession.
You believe our consciences are capable of discerning all moral truths, but the church has never taught this. If this was so she could not teach that the conscience can err, but she has unambiguously asserted the conscience is not inerrant. 1786 Faced with a moral choice, conscience can make either a right judgment in accordance with reason and the divine law or, on the contrary, an erroneous judgment that departs from them.
The church is not saying here that we may find ways to rationalize around our conscience, she is saying the conscience itself makes an “erroneous judgment.”
Ender
M
Michael1978
Guest
Amen.
G
graciew
Guest
Thanks for the laugh . As childish as it may sound I needed it ,my dad passed away in August and I have my ups and downs.Thanks for the link to the article. It looks good, so I think I’ll go and read it right now. :takeoff:
You are welcome ,Clem and Ender. I just ran across the article last night while reading about conscience and Ratzinger.
God bless you all
M
Michael1978
Guest
Bishop with a backbone? Just a guess.
L
LongingSoul
Guest
How weird. It looks and feels like a satanic symbol to me.
E
Ender
Guest
I’m just going to keep posting sections from the Ratzinger document since it seems so pertinent to everything being discussed.*What I was only dimly aware of in this conversation became glaringly clear a little later in a dispute among colleagues about the justifying power of the erroneous conscience. Objecting to this thesis, someone countered that if this were so then the Nazi SS would be justified and we should seek them in heaven since they carried out all their atrocities with fanatic conviction and complete certainty of conscience. Another responded with utmost assurance that of course this was indeed the case. There is no doubting the fact that Hitler and his accomplices who were deeply convinced of their cause, could not have acted otherwise. Therefore, the objective terribleness of their deeds notwithstanding, they acted morally, subjectively speaking. Since they followed their albeit mistaken consciences, one would have to recognize their conduct as moral and, as a result, should not doubt their eternal salvation. **Since that conversation, I knew with complete certainty that something was wrong with the theory of justifying power of the subjective conscience, that, in other words, a concept of conscience which leads to such conclusions must be false.
***Ender
C
clem456
Guest
Geez. A baby falling down is not a question of objective good/evil. It does not remotely compare with a moral question and how to handle it.
Of course conscience is to be respected.
A person’s freedom to think, to know, to choose, is to be respected, although not even that is absolute when it tramples the rights of another. But we respect a person’s right to form one’s own conscience. So? That formation does not change right/wrong.You confuse
respect for conscience,
punishment (culpability),
how to handle these pastorally,
and the components of morality.
And this is getting silly. My last post here, as the more posts are put out, the less reading is done. And some reading should be done by some posters here.
P
pnewton
Guest
I agree with everything here except the part where you say “some people” (in this case, an Archbishop) are trying to blur the lines or saying the rules governing marriage/divorce are merely discipline. This of course, is just begging the question.
P
pnewton
Guest
I guess that is what passes as bumper sticker theology. Since the article only contains two quotes, there is insufficient substance to know the point.
Conscience cannot contradict truth? In the literal sense, this would mean everyone’s conscience is true. I doubt that is what the Bishop meant.
L
LongingSoul
Guest
This reminds me of why I have you blocked. Ascribing false meaning to my argument is pretty dirty. I would never claim that subjective conscience has ‘justifying power’. That’s really very shameful of you.
Conscience is prime because it is the means by which we either accept **or reject God **from our very being. God gave everyone free will and allowed for people to reject Him and bring damnation on themselves. He doesn’t want automatons just mindlessly following the rules. In fact there’ll probably be loads of those in Hell because of how he condemned the pharisees.
We are specifically made aware that Gods law is written into each persons heart and is knowable. We know that conscience is something that develops with use and hears the call of God to do good. Wanting to do good is always good even if the conscience is not properly formed. I have never proposed that the conscience can make something good from some justifying power.
I’d rather you didn’t address me thanks.
J
Jesus_123
Guest
+Thought this really quite marvelous post from Bishop Conley referenced above by Elizium23 was right on target re this thread . . .
Some time back I took a great group . . . day by day . . . through the wonderful St. Benedict’s Holy Rule in the Benedictine Spirituality Forum here on CAF . . . below is the Blessed St. Benedict’s take re sinful mankind’s depending upon “self” . . .
Jesus_123:
‘Conscience cannot contradict truth’- Bishop Conley
Catholic World News - October 22, 2015
In an essay appearing on the First Things site,** Bishop James Conley of Lincoln, Nebraska,** does not directly mention recent public comments by Archbishop Blase Cupich, but his argument offers a sharp contrast to the Chicago prelate’s view that pastors should always respect the consciences of any Catholics who approach the sacraments.
Bishop Conley notes that Blessed John Henry Newman, the great champion of conscience, believed that** “a true sense of conscience had been ‘superseded by a counterfeit,’ in order to assert ‘the right of self-will.’”**
”The task of pastors,” Bishop Conley writes, “is to help the faithful understand that conscience can never contradict truth.”
Catholic World News - October 22, 2015
In an essay appearing on the First Things site,** Bishop James Conley of Lincoln, Nebraska,** does not directly mention recent public comments by Archbishop Blase Cupich, but his argument offers a sharp contrast to the Chicago prelate’s view that pastors should always respect the consciences of any Catholics who approach the sacraments.
Bishop Conley notes that Blessed John Henry Newman, the great champion of conscience, believed that** “a true sense of conscience had been ‘superseded by a counterfeit,’ in order to assert ‘the right of self-will.’”**
”The task of pastors,” Bishop Conley writes, “is to help the faithful understand that conscience can never contradict truth.”
+:compcoff:
The Holy Rule of Saint Benedict - Chapter 7
Of Humility
January 28 - May 29 - September 28
We are thus forbidden to do our own will, since the :bible1: **Scripture ** saith to us: **“And turn away from thy evil will” **(Sir 18:30). And thus, too, we ask God in prayer that **His **will may be done in us (cf Mt 6:10). We are, therefore, rightly taught not to do our own will, when we guard against what Scripture saith: “There are ways that to men seem right, the end whereof plungeth into the depths of hell” (Prov 16:25). And also when we are filled with dread at what is said of the negligent: **“They are corrupted and become abominable in their pleasure” **(Ps 13[14]:1).
But as regards desires of the flesh, let us believe that God is thus ever present to us, since the Prophet saith to the Lord: **“Before Thee is all my desire” **(Ps 37[38]:10).
Ora et Labora (Pray and Work)
*"Glory be to the Father . . .
and to the Son . . . and to the Holy Spirit . . .
as it was in the beginning . . . **is ***. . . now . . .
and ever shall be . . . world without end . . . Amen . . . "
:harp:
+
. . . all for Jesus+
. . . thank you Blessed St. Benedict+
. . . thank you Blessed Holy Mother Church+
. . . thank you Blessed St. Benedict+
. . . thank you Blessed Holy Mother Church+
L
LongingSoul
Guest
I hope you first explained to your spirituality group the difference between the ‘will’ and the ‘conscience’. You seem to be confusing the two by applying the rule to this discussion?
T
Thomas_White
Guest
My belief? The Church has always taught the primacy of reason. It is not God’s law inscribed on the conscience that could ever err. The judgment of conscience when made in accordance with (faulty) reason can err, but God’s law inscribed on the conscience cannot possibly, and what is necessary is the certain judgment of conscience. The Church does not say that the "conscience itself makes an ‘erroneous judgment’ " in accordance with divine law. Neither does Joseph Ratzinger. This is not possible.
The concept that an interior and inherent law is universal but not subjective is perhaps not so easily understood, or not in the perspective of the modern world of today. The teaching might seem to defy logic and is in ways mysterious. But it is spiritual, and in the absence of faith (and not reason) it could be lost. But I know that in a bygone error at least this teaching was very strongly emphasized as a guide to moral understanding.
T
Thomas_White
Guest
Edit: The first sentence of my comment # 349 above should have read as follows: “The Church as always taught the primacy of conscience.”
J
JimG
Guest
It is simply not true that the conscience can never make an error of judgment about a matter of right and wrong.
“The Catechism continues:
"Yet it can happen that moral conscience remains in ignorance and makes erroneous judgments about acts to be performed or already committed.”
catholic.com/blog/jimmy-akin/conscience-and-communion
The fact that God gives us an innate human ability to do good and avoid evil simply means that he made us in conformity to human nature and in conformity to the real world. In the same manner a human being is able to perceive the outside world as real and not subjective, because the human intellect is made to recognize reality.
But neither the intellect nor the conscience will be perfect in its perceptions, because, as humans, we are always learning, and learning to make distinctions.
If it were true that the human conscience could never err in choosing the right thing to do in any particular instance, we would never need to have any moral training past the first grade (or earlier), because our conscience would invariably select the right course of action in every future situation that might arise. But that is just absurd. If that were the case, then every wrong action could ONLY be attributed not to ignorance or a mistaken conscience, but only and invariably to an evil intent. But that is absurd as well.
A human conscience can make mistakes.
“The Catechism continues:
"Yet it can happen that moral conscience remains in ignorance and makes erroneous judgments about acts to be performed or already committed.”
catholic.com/blog/jimmy-akin/conscience-and-communion
The fact that God gives us an innate human ability to do good and avoid evil simply means that he made us in conformity to human nature and in conformity to the real world. In the same manner a human being is able to perceive the outside world as real and not subjective, because the human intellect is made to recognize reality.
But neither the intellect nor the conscience will be perfect in its perceptions, because, as humans, we are always learning, and learning to make distinctions.
If it were true that the human conscience could never err in choosing the right thing to do in any particular instance, we would never need to have any moral training past the first grade (or earlier), because our conscience would invariably select the right course of action in every future situation that might arise. But that is just absurd. If that were the case, then every wrong action could ONLY be attributed not to ignorance or a mistaken conscience, but only and invariably to an evil intent. But that is absurd as well.
A human conscience can make mistakes.
J
JimG
Guest
A quote from Cardinal Robert Sarah:
“There is now no mistake when one realizes that there exists a form of rejection of the dogmas of the Church, or a growing distance among men, the faithful and dogmas. On the question of marriage, there is a chasm between a certain world and the Church. The question is ultimately very simple: Is it the world that must change its attitude, or the Church its fidelity to God?”
Cardinal Sarah laments “the true scandal of confusion between good and evil…”
“There is now no mistake when one realizes that there exists a form of rejection of the dogmas of the Church, or a growing distance among men, the faithful and dogmas. On the question of marriage, there is a chasm between a certain world and the Church. The question is ultimately very simple: Is it the world that must change its attitude, or the Church its fidelity to God?”
Cardinal Sarah laments “the true scandal of confusion between good and evil…”
T
Thomas_White
Guest
“And God created man to his own image: to the image of God he created him…” (Genesis 1:27)
- Status