Properly Formed Conscience?

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HolySpirit08

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I was reading (under Apologetics) that a Catholic with an improperly formed conscience is not committing a serious sin by voting for a candidate who is pro abortion. Does this mean that if a person has not been properly educated about the Commandments that they are not responsible for their choices? If so, is it not our responsibility to get educated? Perhaps some simply do not have the capacity to comprehend. Please explain. Thank you.
 
A grave sin is always a grave sin, but the person’s cupability may mitigate his personal responsibility. It is the duty of all Catholics to be informed about Church teaching no matter how well they were catechized as children/young adults. There’s plenty of good information available for all, so really, unless a person is illiterate or simply unable to grasp information, no one really has a good excuse for violating Church teachings.

I’ve debated with fellow Catholics on this forum who refuse to be corrected even when presented with proper Church teaching simply because they don’t want to accept it, but want to go with what they want to think. Why they do that is between them and God, so I cannot judge their motives, but I do fear for them when they have to stand before God if their motives were to willfully defy what they knew the Church taught.

In the end, only God can decide between the heart, mind, soul, and spirit for he knows us inside and out, and better than we know ourselves. People can so easily deceive themselves and make excuses that going against what they know to be true only adds to their cupability.
 
Yes, good answer.

To some extent, “ignorance of the law” is a sort of excuse i.e. decreases one’s culpability or blameworthyness for sin. But that is up to the Almighty.

We of course have an obligation to form and continue to form our consciences…it’s an ongoing process, and to realize that it’s OK to struggle with Church teachings.

It’s a far different thing to say “I don’t agree with this teaching” than “Lord, I don’t understand this teaching, help me to understand and accept it”.

We must always be on guard for the temptation to exonerate ourselves or others based upon the lack of formation of our consciences.
 
Just happened to lead a discussion on that very topic in RCIA the night before. 😉
 
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