State of the Catholic Church in America

[estesbob]

josephdavid:

This is the most recent respone I received from these people:

Joseph…Thomas Aquinas, a very respected doctor of the church and saint said that if one does not follow one’s conscience, one is sinning, even if one’s conscience tells him to go against the teachings of the church. So if I were to follow Church teachings, some of which go against my conscience I would be sinning!

I am trying to find this comment and read more into it. I am sure there is more to this than what they are quoting.

A couple of things:

One Aquinas does not speak for the Chrurch. Church dorctirne is very directly and very concisely laid out in the Cathecism of the Church

What Aquinas said (and that what these people are distoring) is that an erring conscience is NOT blameworthy if the result of invincible ingnorance-that is you didnt know better.He did state that in that case it might be considered sinful to go against you conscience. However his defninition of invincible ignorance presumed that one did not know the Teachings of the Church and that as Catholics we had a duty to edcuate oursleves as to what those teachings are. Those who know the teachings and reject them do indeed sin regardelss of what their “conscience” tells them as they have been told the truth and rejecterd it.