Chicago's Cupich on divorce: Pastor guides decisions, but person's conscience inviolable

  • Thread starter Thread starter DaveBj
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
Brendan said:
If one’s conscience is directing one to that which is evil, by definition, it is malformed.
Click to expand...
The problem is you can’t assume that on a person is aware that their conscience is malformed or that one even has the awareness necessary for proper discernment. My problem with the good AB is that he assumes a pastor will ever guide a penitent to improve their conscience.
 
George Weigel regarding conscience:
(3) Then there is narrative about “conscience,” according to which conscience is inviolable. Here is a partial truth masquerading as the fullness of Catholic truth. As yesterday’s Special Edition of Letters from the Synod suggested, the modern Catholic understanding of conscience was given its classic articulation by Blessed John Henry Newman in his Letter to the Duke of Norfolk. There, Newman closely linked conscience to revealed truth and the truths we can know by reason, warned against confusing “conscience” with personal willfulness, and rejected the claim that the proper judgment of “conscience,” rightly understood, means whatever-I-believe.
Click to expand...
No one denies that coercive state power should be kept out of the inviolable sanctuary of conscience in matters of religious belief, but that is not the issue being contested at Synod-2015. Neither is the question of whether one is obliged to follow one’s conscience, which is clear from the Catechism of the Catholic Church, #1790. The question is whether any claim of “conscience” constitutes a kind of open admission ticket to the sacramental life of the Church. An affirmative answer to that question seems very, very difficult to square with the Church’s teaching – as was made clear to the segregationists who “in conscience” defied the archbishop of New Orleans on the issue of school desegregation and were informed that they were no longer in full communion with the Church because of their recalcitrance, “conscientious” or otherwise. The segregationists were employing what Newman called, in another context, “private judgment”: an individualistic notion in serious tension with the Catholic understanding of the claims of Revelation and the nature of the Church.
Click to expand...
catholicherald.co.uk/commentandblogs/2015/10/19/letters-from-the-synod-october-19/?utm_content=buffer9ded9&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer
 
Check out what Archbishop Chaput said about conscience in this interview:
First C: Some think that the Church should leave more space for personal conscience. That would help the faithful to overcome the “obstacles” –– so they say –– which the Church creates for them on the question of birth-control or the sacraments (Reconciliation and Communion) for divorced and remarried couples. What is your opinion?
Click to expand...
Each of us has the duty to follow his or her conscience. But conscience doesn’t exist in a vacuum, and it’s more than a matter of personal opinion or preference. The Church is not a collection of sovereign individuals. We’re a community, a family, organized around the person of Jesus Christ and his Gospel. We have an obligation to form our consciences in the truth. That means we need to allow ourselves to be guided by the wisdom and teaching of the Church that Jesus founded.
Click to expand...
If my conscience disagrees with the guidance of the Church on a matter of moral substance, it’s probably not the Church that is wrong. Human beings – all of us – are very adroit at making excuses for what we want to do, whether it’s sinful or not.
Click to expand...
catholicphilly.com/2015/10/think-tank/homilies-speeches/we-can-only-begin-to-hope-when-we-believe-in-jesus-christ/
 
Thomas_White said:
Here is the teaching of the Church concerning this question:

“Over the pope as expressing the binding claim of ecclesiastical authority there stands one’s own conscience which must be obeyed before all else, even if necessary against the requirement of ecclesiastical authority” (Commentary of the Documents of Vatican II, Joseph Ratzinger).

“Deep within his conscience man discovers a law which he has not laid upon himself, but which he must obey. Its voice, ever calling him to love and to do what is good and to avoid evil, sounds in his heart at the right moment… For man has in his heart a law inscribed by God…His conscience is man’s most secret core and his sanctuary. There he is alone with God whose voice echos in his depth” (CCC 1776). (emphasis added)
Click to expand...
Having said all that, we also know the conscience can lead us astray. It is therefore not sufficient to say that because God inscribed a law in his heart, whatever a man in good conscience decides to do is acceptable. Clearly this is not so. I think the apparent contradiction here comes from our understanding of what the conscience is. And it appears to be different from what that understanding used to be.*Conscience is a stern monitor, but in this century it has been superseded by a counterfeit, which the eighteen centuries prior to it never heard of, and could not have mistaken for it, if they had. It is the right of self will. . . .the right of thinking, speaking, writing, and acting, according to [one’s] judgment or [one’s] humour, without any thought of God at all . . .[such that it is the] very right and freedom of conscience to dispense with conscience. *(Cardinal Newman)
Ender
 
AndyP2014 said:
The problem is you can’t assume that on a person is aware that their conscience is malformed or that one even has the awareness necessary for proper discernment. My problem with the good AB is that he assumes a pastor will ever guide a penitent to improve their conscience.
Click to expand...
“For man has in his heart a law inscribed by God…” (CCC 1776).

The capacity to know right from wrong and to have a concern for others is inherent in a person’s God-given nature. To lack this capacity is a serious problem and is described as sociopathy (i.e., the behavior of a sociopath), and it is an anomaly. Most people do not require an intermediary between themselves and God to inform them of what is right from wrong. To insist that a person must follow Church teaching in every instance is to place something between a person and the law in their heart “inscribed by God”.

The insistence that what is objective is determinative in every instance for every person is legalism and could present an impediment to spirituality in some instances. It would be as though when in doubt prayer and reflection have no role and are meaningless.
 
Thomas_White said:
“For man has in his heart a law inscribed by God…” (CCC 1776).

The capacity to know right from wrong and to have a concern for others is inherent in a person’s God-given nature. To lack this capacity is a serious problem and is described as sociopathy (i.e., the behavior of a sociopath), and it is an anomaly. Most people do not require an intermediary between themselves and God to inform them of what is right from wrong. To insist that a person must follow Church teaching in every instance is to place something between a person and the law in their heart “inscribed by God”.

The insistence that what is objective is determinative in every instance for every person is legalism and could present an impediment to spirituality in some instances. It would be as though when in doubt prayer and reflection have no role and are meaningless.
Click to expand...
At it’s core, if conscience is always king, what makes Catholics different than Protestants? Serious question.
 
Ender said:
Having said all that, we also know the conscience can lead us astray. It is therefore not sufficient to say that because God inscribed a law in his heart, whatever a man in good conscience decides to do is acceptable. Clearly this is not so.
Click to expand...
On what grounds is it that conscience has led a person astray when, as Cardinal Newman says, conscience was dispensed? If conscience is “dispensed”, it would seem this is the difficulty.
 
SWolf said:
At it’s core, if conscience is always king, what makes Catholics different than Protestants? Serious question.
Click to expand...
As has been noted, it is perhaps difficult to convey that the role of conscience is the teaching of the Church..
 
Thomas_White said:
“For man has in his heart a law inscribed by God…” (CCC 1776).

The capacity to know right from wrong and to have a concern for others is inherent in a person’s God-given nature. To lack this capacity is a serious problem and is described as sociopathy (i.e., the behavior of a sociopath), and it is an anomaly. .
Click to expand...
I don’t think we are talking about a LACK of this ability, but rather that for all the faithful, the ability is universally impaired due to concupiscence. In addition, for a large subset of the population the impairment is great.

This is compounded by the fact that most people confuse ‘conscience’ with personal preferences.
 
Thomas_White said:
As has been noted, it is perhaps difficult to convey that the role of conscience is the teaching of the Church..
Click to expand...
So, in other words, there’s really no difference between Catholics and Protestants. Catholics can use birth control if their conscience says it’s okay. Catholics are allowed to disbelieve in the Immaculate Conception if their conscience says it did not happen. Catholics can have abortions if their conscience says it’s okay. Catholics can bomb innocent civilians if they believe it’s okay.

This is fundamentally absurd. It becomes no religion at all. Perhaps, instead of coming to this logical conclusion, there’s a fundamental misunderstanding of what primacy of conscience really means.
 
Brendan said:
I don’t think we are talking about a LACK of this ability, but rather that for all the faithful, the ability is universally impaired due to concupiscence. In addition, for a large subset of the population the impairment is great.

This is compounded by the fact that most people confuse ‘conscience’ with personal preferences.
Click to expand...
Free will and not conscience is universally impaired by Original Sin. With respect to sins of the flesh, God’s grace is necessary for discernment. This comes from the Holy Spirit. This is the teaching.
 
SWolf said:
So, in other words, there’s really no difference between Catholics and Protestants. Catholics can use birth control if their conscience says it’s okay. Catholics are allowed to disbelieve in the Immaculate Conception if their conscience says it did not happen. Catholics can have abortions if their conscience says it’s okay. Catholics can bomb innocent civilians if they believe it’s okay.

This is fundamentally absurd. It becomes no religion at all. Perhaps, instead of coming to this logical conclusion, there’s a fundamental misunderstanding of what primacy of conscience really means.
Click to expand...
No one has said anything like this, or at least I haven’t.
 
SWolf said:
I never said you did. What then what is the limitation to the primacy of conscience? That is what I am looking for.
Click to expand...
As I understand the teaching, there is none. However, it is essential to realize this primacy is of God, as CCC 1776 describes. The difficulty here is in placing an ultimate intermediary between God and man.
 
SWolf said:
I never said you did. What then what is the limitation to the primacy of conscience? That is what I am looking for.
Click to expand...
It’s a circular argument. If your conscience leads to believe something against Church doctrine, it is wrong.

I’ve always thought, as I said previously, that primacy of the conscience meant that the Church says something is okay but I don’t feel comfortable doing it. Not the other way around.
 
PaulinVA said:
It’s a circular argument. If your conscience leads to believe something against Church doctrine, it is wrong.

I’ve always thought, as I said previously, that primacy of the conscience meant that the Church says something is okay but I don’t feel comfortable doing it. Not the other way around.
Click to expand...
An example would be the argument that the Church permits capital punishment. A person’s certain conscience might reveal to him that it would be wrong for him to participate in a particular execution.
 
Thomas_White said:
An example would be the argument that the Church permits capital punishment. A person’s certain conscience might reveal to him that it would be wrong for him to participate in a particular execution.
Click to expand...
Exactly! Not that he can receive the Eucharist because he feels that his first marriage was invalid, even though the tribunal said it *was *valid or the tribunal wasn’t asked.
 
PaulinVA said:
I’ve always thought, as I said previously, that primacy of the conscience meant that the Church says something is okay but I don’t feel comfortable doing it. Not the other way around.
Click to expand...
On first glance, I’m okay with this definition. I’ll have to ponder it some more though.
 
PaulinVA said:
Exactly! Not that he can receive the Eucharist because he feels that his first marriage was invalid, even though the tribunal said it *was *valid or the tribunal wasn’t asked.
Click to expand...
Also exactly, and a good example. Ought the person then to follow his conscience or the judgment of a marriage tribunal when it is his soul that will ultimately be judged?
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top