Pope reaffirms conscience as heresy debate divides Church -- How big of a deal is this?

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The idea of human conscience being the ultimate arberter of man’s moral decision making is in line with conventional, orthodox Catholic moral theology, as far as I can recall, from what I have come to understand in moral theology teaching of the Church. I’m not an academic, so perhaps more careful students of this aspect of the Faith can chime in on the validity of such a claim.
 
You are correct, mostly. The problem is that conscience must be informed in the faith. You can’t say “my conscience tells me I’m alright” unless you actually attempt to form it in some way.
 
Human conscience as informed by conventional, orthodox Catholic moral theology. This is the by now very familiar ‘grey area’ where the Pope offers up the centrality of conscience on morality in a casual comment and then anyone and everyone hears what they want. The Pope’s defenders scramble to limit, clarify the expanse of the freedom of the conscience on moral issues, some sincerely, some with a little wink. And then Catholics spend weeks debating on CAF (and elsewhere) which side of that the Pope is on. And we never find out. If you have an ounce of sense in your head you’ve figured out that the grey area IS what it is all about. That is where the action is. How you inform your conscience is a matter of conscience.
 
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Duesenberg said:
How big of an impact is this matter really having on the Church?
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I guess it seems to depend on how you define “the Church”.

I’m willing to lay down money that most of the people at Mass with me on any given Sunday, assuming I am at the normal old parish OF Mass and haven’t gone to the TLM Mass at the church that has it weekly, have never heard of this entire issue.
 
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One’s conscience is where God reveals himself. Pope Francis says this is opposed to the ego, which says that you can do what you want.
I really don’t see the problem with him saying this. It seems orthodox to me.
 
whyeyeman said:
One’s conscience is where God reveals himself. Pope Francis says this is opposed to the ego, which says that you can do what you want.

I really don’t see the problem with him saying this. It seems orthodox to me.
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Indeed, but the problem I see is that that many with unformed or malformed consciences will confuse or conflate the two – sometimes on purpose.
 
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Isn’t that a problem of formation, rather than teaching?
People who want to find a reason to make excuses for themselves will always do so…
 
I really have not waded into this divisive quagmire of contention, but I suppose what I would like to know concerns real life hypothetical scenarios where things actually may seem to be something other than a black and white matter. Because I have no pastoral experience in discerning the clear decision to be arrived at in complex case by case situations, I am hesitant to rule all such cases as always black and white.

I think it would be interesting to hear parish priests from both perspectives dispute on this matter. So, yes, I’m just curious, for example, of knowing a hypothetical case. (Hope that makes sense.)

Im sure @FrDavid96 could provide a little light on what I myself would like to know more about.
 
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Tis_Bearself said:
People who want to find a reason to make excuses for themselves will always do so…
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Exactly. I think this is why people get upset about the ambiguity of these kinds of statements - an informed conscience is the teaching of the Church. You leave out the word informed and you have opened a really big door for making excuses.

Let’s open that door for the rich too, ok? The other thing that always gets me is why conscience is so highly prized with moral issues, but absolutely never and I mean never with social issues. Ditto immigration.
 
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I could see more the worry about making gray areas out of black and white rules, if we weren’t already in a world where there are dozens of people in irregular personal situations struggling to balance that with being a Catholic. And I’m not talking about gay people, I’m talking about the standard heterosexual married or living-together couples who have some situation that is keeping them from a standard Catholic marriage. This has been going on for decades, and from my personal experience a lot of them have maintained some relationship with the Church while their weird situation was ongoing.
 
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I agree. That is what is striking me more and more about the Church - I don’t know why. The teachings of the Church have so little to do with what Catholics do or believe or even understand. It is a little surreal.
 
So, the above AP article says:

“Francis told the conference that priests must inform Catholic consciences “but not replace them.” And he stressed the distinction between one’s conscience — where God reveals himself — and one’s ego that thinks it can do as it pleases.”

So he is saying, according to AP article above, that the onus of an informed conscience must rest on the priest. Is that correct? If that is true, it seems like this is the assertion that needs to be examined.

Would do you think?
 
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Indeed. My response would be concern at that. Serious concern. A yikes moment.
 
JamalChristophr said:
So he is saying, according to AP article above, that the onus of an informed conscience must rest on the priest. Is that correct? If that is true, it seems like this is the assertion that needs to be examined.
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To a certain extent, it does, as the priest is supposed to shepherd the flock. But that only goes so far, we are each responsible for conforming our conscience to Christ.
 
The priests just say what the Pope says. He shepherds them. I am not sure they know what to say these days.
 
I will add that I believe a great deal gets lost in translation and much of the rancor is a product of not the content, but the manner in which Pope Francis pops-off. Things appear to be improving but there’s most certainly a difficult history…
 
JamalChristophr said:
The idea of human conscience being the ultimate arberter of man’s moral decision making is in line with conventional, orthodox Catholic moral theology, as far as I can recall, from what I have come to understand in moral theology teaching of the Church. I’m not an academic, so perhaps more careful students of this aspect of the Faith can chime in on the validity of such a claim.
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The ultimate arbiter of man’s moral decision making is God and the eternal law. Human beings are not God but creatures of God. The mistake of Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden was setting themselves up as the ultimate arbiters of their actions as if making themselves equal to God their maker and the consequence of this sort of thinking is death. We are called not to do our own will but that of God as Jesus taught us in the Our Father prayer ‘thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.’ The will of God for us is expressed in the natural law and the ten commandments and the teaching of the Church.
 
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It is difficult for me to articulate my understanding of Pope Francis’ comment regarding conscience, but it has to do with each person’s nearness to God; each person’s acceptance of God’s Will; each person’s recognition of the ways in which God’s expectations of him or her have not been met. By this measure, it is the duty of each of us to use what we have learned through our faith to examine our life’s approximation to the example set by Jesus. Personally, it causes me significant distress to do this - or even to write about doing this… because I fall so short. I think the Holy Father’s point is that no one can look into another’s heart and examine another’s soul. The best that another person can do is to inform and to nurture conscience.
 
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