What is an 'informed conscience'?

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adrift said:
Canon Law does not cover this subject. You miss understand double effect and there is not such thing as lesser of two evils. You may never choose evil.
If you have been told this by a canon lawyer, than you better get another one because he is not teaching you what the Church teaches. He will not be able to provide a canon law that backs him up.
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How do you know this? It is pretty important, because my spiritual director is an eminent canon lawyer, and he answered without hesitation my question about condom use during the AIDS pandemic in terms of the double principles of Church teaching (double effect) and the very private principle personal choice (lesser of two evils). I shall discuss your comments with him.

I am sure, having come out of North America to live in Africa, and then to travel internationally on my social development career, that there are different takes in on Church teaching in different parts of the world.

I am sure also, that some religious are far more liberal than others, even within the same diocese. If one of these becomes a bishop, then that may (or may not) influence the priests under his charge.

Where death and disadvantage are rife, perhaps it is possible to say there the informed conscience will be informed about different aspects of the Church’s teachings, or will give priority to certain elements over others.

Genesis 315 wrote
We can never use evil means to any end. What we can do is use good means to a good end, even if there is an unintended evil side-effect.
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I think this helpful, perhaps. Canon lawyer stressed we cannot use evil means to any end. But the difficulty is in defining

‘good means’ (for me a condom might be a good means, despite the teachings of the Church - does that make me apostate or heterodox?),

‘good end’ (saving lives rather than explicitly promoting procreation), and

‘unintended’ (if I gently overdose with morphine an elderly cancer patient in great pain - euthanasia by any other name, commonly practiced) where I know what the outcome is and I believe it will be good.

Why do I trust my own conscience to be informed enough to make decisions of life and death on a daily basis?

And why are they then applied so strictly in some identifiable cases that have caught congregants’ and public attention, where the Church is forced to take a very public stand (our belief in transubstantiation; the assertion that procreation takes precedence over all other concerns wrt human sexuality when women’s rights within marriage might actually be a more critical feature; our dedication to the Absolute Truth and supremacy of the Catholic Church).

I feel uncomfortable, in all conscience, in taking assertive stands which reflect all the finer points of Church teaching in every case, especially where it is a matter of life and death. Perhaps I think too much in grey, when you suggest I have to think in black and white.
 
Thank you so much for this.
Tomster said:
Carol,

Conscience is the practical dictate of reason [Old Laws/ Covenant?] concerning the morality of some act about to be performed. It may command, forbid, or permit.

In order to act with subjective moral rectitude, a [prudent?] man must obey his conscience when it is certain. Moral certitude is sufficient. Since conscience is, as it were, the herald of God, and is the only guide to right moral action that man possesses, God judges man on the basis of his obeying the dictates of conscience.

There are different kinds of consciences, namely, true, false, strict, lax, certain, doubtful, probable, scrupulous, perplexed.

The true conscience dictates what is, in fact, morally correct; the false conscience dictates what is, in fact, morally incorrect.

Thr strict conscience dictates according to the strictest interpretation of the law; it may be correct, but also it may err on the side of severity; the lax conscience minimizes or eliminates obligations without sufficient reasons.

The certain conscience is the conscience of one who is subjectively certain that the dictates of his conscience are correct. The doubtful conscience is that of one who doubts as to the correctness of his dictates. The certain conscience may be erroneous, for man is not infallible in his judgments, but he who acts with a certain conscience is not aware of any error and must obey the conscience which he has. On the contrary, one may not obey a doubtful conscience, for to act in doubt is to risk offending God.

A probable conscience is one that relies on probably valid reasons.

A scrupulous conscience is that of one who, without reason, is in trepidation as to the moral correctness of his action. It is always erroneous.

A perplexed conscience is the conscience of one who is confronted with alternatives each of which appears to be morally wrong.

Hope this helps! :tiphat:

Tomster
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So what I need is an informed moral conscience, as per your distinctions. CCC also refers to the strict old laws of OT, and the reason of the prudent man, and the less judgementally strict operation of the New Law (NT). The question remains how I get there, and how I know when I am there, and how I know when I make a correct decision.

Further I may be a complete nitwit, and make the wrong definition of moral certitude, etc. Or I may be an uneducated rural African Catholic of great faith who has never heard of moral rectitude. Or I could be a very angry and frustrated person - like the young man at Virginia Tech - who is convinced his moral stance is absolutely correct.

I know that I have difficulty with some of the laws, regulations, dictats of the Church I very much wish to join (I am doing RCIA, take spiritual direction, and attend mass 5-6 times a week plus reading). My informed moral conscience may never reflect that of any other Catholic. Perhaps that is part of the problem: do individual Catholics ever have the same informed moral conscience, based as it is on experience and perspective?
 
Verbum said:
Hi Carol,

This does not tell me when I *know *that it is informed, that it is correctly infused with acceptable perceptions of right and wrong. I may have done my best, but my best may not be good enough. And how do I know if it is good enough, when it is good enough?

Nobody can ask you more than your best. You know when you have done everything you could. You may be objectively wrong, but you are subjectively right. We are dealing here with a merciful God.

Verbum
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Thank you. God is merciful indeed.

Can I add to this that the process of becoming an informed Christian is a lifelong process, and that though we might not get it right all the time when we start on the journey, we can hope to develop an appropriately informed conscience as we move along our path of life, with Christ?
 
Tomster said:
Carol,

An examination of conscience is sometimes quite necessary. For those Catholics who have not confessed for a long time this examination is may be seriously necessary. For those who confess frequently a brief examination is sufficient. For the scrupulous a very brief examination is sufficient; indeed, protracted examination in their case may be harmful.

The examination of conscience must normally be a diligent one, suitable, however, to the penitent. Those exposed to many temptations, if not scrupulous, should examine their conscience with great care. Carelessness in this matter leads to a blunting of conscience. The sick who are too depressed to examine the conscience should be assisted by the confessor. The careless Catholic who neglects and stays away from the Sacraments all year sorely needs the help of the confessor to discover his sins.

A written list of sins is sometimes useful but not for the scrupulous. The list of sins in prayer books will help the lax Catholic.

When a penitent’s examination of conscience has obviously been insufficient, or the confession perfunctory, the confessor should ask questions. In rare cases, a careless penitent should be dismissed in order to examine his conscience carefully, but the procedure is not usually prudent for the penitent may not return; he may have done his best, so that on occassion the confessor may make the examination of conscience for him by asking questions.

Hope this helps, :tiphat:

Tomster
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Helpful again. Thanks.

But we have the difficult point also of the sin of omission. And also subjective ignorance of when our conscience *should *have been in operation but was not. We do things - overwork and stress out for example - that are in effect sins. Our informed conscience has not been at work here, but we have not been aware of its absence.
 
Carol_Coombe said:
Helpful again. Thanks.

But we have the difficult point also of the sin of omission. And also subjective ignorance of when our conscience *should *have been in operation but was not. We do things - overwork and stress out for example - that are in effect sins. Our informed conscience has not been at work here, but we have not been aware of its absence.
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Carol,

Perhaps this may help. As Fr. John Hardon S.J. states:

Catholic morality presumes there are objective norms of conduct. Certain actions are good and others bad, certain forms of behavior are virtuous and others sinful, always and everywhere and for everyone who knows what he is doing and does so with with sufficient reflection and freedom of assent.

The Church has had to defend this moral objectivity in modern times, whenever subjectivism threatened the foundations of Christian morality. Variously called situation ethics or the new morality, its basic premise is that the ultimate standard of human conduct is “not an objective norm found outside of man and independent of his subjective persuasion.” It is an “immediate internal illumination and judgment” of each person for himself. In a formal instruction from the Holy See, it was declared that this subjectivist theory “deviates far from the Catholic teaching handed down through the ages.” Right and wrong do not exist only subjectively in the mind.

The most practical implication of the Church’s historic teaching concerns the nature of grievous sin. God is the one who makes known, through reason and revelation, what constitutes grave sin. Those who with full deliberation and consent commit aduktery, murder, perjury and similar crimes estrnge themselves from God. He sets down the conditions for their estrangement, not they. It is not up to man to decide subjectively whether a deliberate serious sin, like direct abortion, is also a mortal sin which deprives him of God’s friendship. The sinner cannot excuse himself of mortal sin by the clever distinction that psychologically “I do not really want to reject God. I only intend to do what I know God forbids as a serious violation of his law.” God alone has the right to determine what separates a sinner from his Creator; a creature does not have the right to stand in judgment of God and tell Him what constitutes a mortal sin.

continued
 
The Church’s basic position on mortal sin, therefore, has not changed. Subjectively a person is guilty of mortal sin when he FULLY consents with his will to do what he realizes is a serious offense against God. Otherwise, although the matter is grave, if only partial consent was given then only venial sin was committed. But the object of this consent is what God, and not man, determines is gravely wrong.

Consequently a venial sin is committed either when the matter (misdeed) is not objectively serious, and the circumstances do not make it serious; or when the matter is serious but full consent is not given by the free will.

When Pope Paul VI approved the General Catechetical Directory, “confirmed it by his authority and ordered it published,” this matter of objectivity was identified as central to the Christian way of life. Indeed, the principles of Christian morality are objective several times over.

1.) They are objective in being independent of the subjective judgment of the human mind. “Accordingly, the conscience of the faithful, even when informed by the virtue of prudence, must be subject to the magisterium of the Church, whose duty it is to explain the whole moral law authoritatively, in order that it may rightly and correctly express the objective moral order.”

2.) They are also objective because their validity is not conditioned by changing circumstances or times. Consequently, “the conscience itself of Christians must be taught that there are norms which are absolute, that is, which bind in every case and on all people.”

3.) They are finally objective in their capacity to evoke great moral courage and generosity. The Church honors men and women of principle only because they have had objective principles to follow and, if need be, to die for. “That is why the saints confessed Christ through the practice of heroic virtues,” and “the martyrs suffered even torture and death rather than deny Christ.” They did not become saints in pursuing their own fancy nor die as martyrs for some product of their own minds. They responded to something real, in fact the Reality of God who became man to invite their self-sacrificing charity."

Hope this helps, :tiphat:

Tomster
 
Carol_Coombe said:
How do you know this? It is pretty important, because my spiritual director is an eminent canon lawyer, and he answered without hesitation my question about condom use during the AIDS pandemic in terms of the double principles of Church teaching (double effect) and the very private principle personal choice (lesser of two evils). I shall discuss your comments with him.

I know this because I study and before I posted I went through the Canon’s. I didn’t think I would find it because that is not what Canon laws do. It would be more common to be in the Catechism post 5 quotes the Catechism.
Genesis 315 wrote I think this helpful, perhaps. Canon lawyer stressed we cannot use evil means to any end. But the difficulty is in defining

‘good means’ (for me a condom might be a good means, despite the teachings of the Church - does that make me apostate or heterodox?),

‘good end’ (saving lives rather than explicitly promoting procreation), and

‘unintended’ (if I gently overdose with morphine an elderly cancer patient in great pain - euthanasia by any other name, commonly practiced) where I know what the outcome is and I believe it will be good.
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Carol_Coombe said:
I am sorry but my canon lawyer says you are wrong
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You have your own canon lawyer? How interesting! 🙂

If his or her advice to you comes from canon law, why not post for us the section he is basing his opinion on, as someone requested several posts ago? It seems pretty germane to this whole discussion, and could possibly prove your argument.
 
jack_hawkins said:
the primary effect of treatment in ectopic pregnancy is to destroy the pregnancy - that is not double effect at all
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Catholics do not treat ectopic pregnancy… rather, they treat the symptom caused by the pregnancy, which is the weakened falopian tube, which can rupture and cause the woman severe problems. In treating the falopian tube, the pregnancy is terminated. That is double effect.
 
mamanicky said:
Catholics do not treat ectopic pregnancy… rather, they treat the symptom caused by the pregnancy, which is the weakened falopian tube, which can rupture and cause the woman severe problems. In treating the falopian tube, the pregnancy is terminated. That is double effect.
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I’m sorry but you’re wrong and as a doctor I know this
so please don’t try and correct me:)
 
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