CONSCIENCE AND MAGISTERIUM

The Catholic Church firmly teaches that we have a duty to obey our informed consciences, and also a duty to accept and live by the moral teaching God gives us in his Church. The moral teachings of Catholic faith are rooted in the Scriptures (in which the basic teachings of natural law are also confirmed by Revelation), and Christ himself is our foremost moral teacher (cf. Pope John Paul II, The Splendor of Truth, Veritatis Splendor, 84-89). Moreover, Christ guards the proclamation of moral teaching in the family of faith (cf. Mt 28:20) through the teaching office of his Church.

In our time there have been many harmful misunderstandings of the ways in which conscience and the objective teaching of the Church are related. One often hears confused claims like these: “I know the Church teaches that abortion is always wrong, but my conscience tells me it would not be wrong for me to have one. And surely we should always follow our consciences”; or again: “The Church teaches that premarital sex is wrong [or that racist practices are wrong], but you have a right to follow your own conscience.”

The Church teaches, however, that “personal conscience and reason should not be set in opposition to the moral law or the Magisterium of the Church” (CCC 2039). For when each is properly understood, conscience and the Magisterium are in no way opposed to each other.
True Rights of Conscience • It is indeed true that the firm judgments of a sincere conscience must be honored. We have a right and a duty to act in accord with the dictates of our conscience, and no one must be “forced to act contrary to his conscience” (Vatican Council II, Declaration on Religious Freedom, Dignitatis Humanae, 3). But this is said about the sincere judgments of a moral conscience, about honest efforts to know what is morally right and in accord with God’s saving will, not about the counterfeits of conscience that we will treat below.

The Church has excellent reasons for teaching that we should act in accord with the dictates of sincere conscience. In all we say and do, we have a duty to follow faithfully what we earnestly believe to be right. God himself wishes this of us, for it is in conscience that we perceive and recognize the prescriptions of his law. The Second Vatican Council reminded us: “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, tells him inwardly at the right moment: do this, shun that. For man has in his heart a law inscribed by God. His dignity lies in observing this law, and by it he will be judged” (Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, Gaudium et Spes, 16).

A well-formed conscience can well be said to be a voice of God resounding in the depths of our being (Gaudium et Spes, 16). This is not because conscience is a mysterious voice that automatically provides easy answers to every moral question. In point of fact, as the Catechism of the Catholic Church points out (2038-2039), conscience will not speak to us faithfully as the voice of God unless we have acquired the practice of heeding it reverently and have been concerned to form our judgments of conscience responsibly in the light of God’s word.

God indeed speaks in the upright conscience. This does not mean he whispers correct answers to all our moral questions so that the explicit moral teaching of Christ in the Gospel may be ignored as we consider how we should live. Nor does it mean upright people never make errors in their judgments of conscience, for consciences do frequently make mistakes. But God enables those who seek truth to come often to true and certain judgments, which they know to be right and good, the very will of God.

Even when sincere and conscientious people make material errors in difficult cases, they have not gone entirely astray. Since they sought truth with all their hearts, and remained open to all God enabled them to know, their judgments were upright and sincere. These judgments express what they earnestly believe to be God’s will, for they have been attentive to the God of truth. As Vatican II observes, they have in no way lost their dignity. For what the conscientious person seeks is certainly not some excuse to do what he deeply wishes to do (even if it is wrong); rather, he longs for the truly good.

Of course it is far from altogether good to be guided by a mistaken conscience. One might be subjectively innocent in doing unchaste or unjust deeds under the influence of a mistaken conscience, but these remain evil kinds of deeds. They can cause great harm to others and to the one who does them. The ideal is not simply a sincere conscience, but, as Pope John Paul II says, a sincere and correct conscience.
Conscience and the Teachings of Faith • In a revealed religion, the word of God is the supreme source of truth. We are more certain of the truth of God’s word than of the truth of anything else we know. But the gift of faith brings with it certain duties. When Divine Revelation and faith enable us to know that God himself is teaching us, we have a duty to believe his saving word.

Now the moral teaching of Christ and his Church is a strong support to conscientious people. His word gives light to the consciences of men. He teaches sublime moral truths in the light of which we can come to entirely secure answers about how we should live. His word removes anxieties and doubts about what is really good.
Suppose a disciple of Christ, who had come to know that Christ was the very Son of God, heard from his lips the teaching that divorce and remarriage are wrong and contrary to God’s original plan, and involve even adultery. If, before Christ spoke, he had believed that divorce must be an acceptable practice, he might be deeply disturbed. Yet it would hardly be coherent for such a person to ask: Should I accept what Christ says or follow my own conscience? If he believes in Christ, and knows that Christ (since he is the Son of God) most certainly speaks the truth, he would know that his conscience (i.e., the sincere moral judgment that, up until this occasion when he heard the teaching of Christ, he had considered quite true) had been in fact a mistaken conscience. Because he now knew that his earlier judgment of conscience had been mistaken, he would no longer say his conscience even now approved divorce or that he remained entirely convinced that divorce and remarriage are permissible. A believer must acknowledge: My conscience does not correct God; the word of God corrects, enlightens, heals my conscience.

Even today, Christ teaches in his Church (cf. Mt 28:20; CCC 888-892, 2030-2040), and those who recognize the teachings of Catholic faith as his, allow his word even today to enlighten and heal their consciences.
The moral teaching of the Catholic Church is deeply rooted in the Gospel and in all of Scripture. What the Church draws from the Gospels, and in all centuries and all places and circumstances bears witness to as God’s certain word in moral matters, ought to be accepted by the faith with complete certainty as God’s own saving message (cf. Vatican Council II, Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium, 25). For the Church bears witness to the moral teaching of Christ with that utter certainty that Christ wished his Church to have so that we would have a secure guide for our lives.

The Ten Commandments are a certain, central, and basic framework for Catholic moral teaching. Christ bore witness that keeping these commandments is required of those who seek eternal life (cf. Lk 10:25-28). Moreover, he taught that these commandments flow from the requirements of love (cf. Mt 22:40), so that one who does not keep them does not truly love God or neighbor. Through the centuries, the Church has taught the central message of the Ten Commandments with consistent firmness, so that the teaching of faith in these matters is definitive and clearly binding on all.

Hence the Church does teach specific moral truths like the Ten Commandments with that entire certainty and that infallibility which Christ gives to his Church to strengthen his people in knowing and doing what he requires of them to attain everlasting life. Ordinarily, the Church does not solemnly define moral teachings, but she teaches them with the infallibility that even her ordinary teaching office can have. For, as Vatican II says, the bishops “proclaim infallibly the doctrine of Christ on the following conditions: namely, when, even though dispersed throughout the world but preserving for all that amongst themselves and with Peter’s successor the bond of communion, in their authoritative teaching concerning matters of faith and morals, they are in agreement that a particular teaching is to be held definitively and absolutely” (Lumen Gentium, 25).

Not all the moral teachings of the Church are proposed infallibly, however. For the Pope and the bishops, as faithful teachers of Christ’s ways, have the duty of applying his teaching to the changing circumstances of varying times. The Church does not do this lightly, nor does she impose burdens unless certain these correspond to Christ’s word and are important for the flourishing of the faithful in his ways.
Thus the measure of certainty of Church teaching is not always that of infallibility. When the Church proposes her teachings on matters of peace and justice, and on new issues in medical ethics, she is not always proposing them as entirely infallible. She acknowledges that it may be necessary in such new questions at times to refine and make more perfect the teaching as time gives greater clarity (cf. Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Instruction on the Ecclesial Vocation of the Theologian [1990]).

But even when the Church is teaching only authoritatively, not infallibly, her teaching is most secure. Christ’s saying that he would be with the Church as she teaches the faithful his ways applies to this teaching also (Instruction on the Ecclesial Vocation of the Theologian). Though the teaching is not infallible, and may need further development, the faithful may always be secure in following it in their lives.
Some, however, argue that if authoritative teaching is not infallible, it might be wrong; and if we know that it is wrong, we need not observe it. Now, it is true that if someone were entirely sure that the teaching of some magisterial leader were wrong, that person would of course not be obliged to accept the teaching in question. This is possible in some rare kinds of cases. For example, if an individual bishop were inadvertently to propose a teaching in conflict with what the Church has infallibly taught, and if one knew the infallible teaching, one would not be required to accept the erroneous teaching. But it is not true that one may reject authoritative teaching simply because one does not like it or because, moved by the pressures of the world, one “feels” it to be wrong or finds it wrong in the light of commitments or philosophies that one recognizes may themselves be wrong.

One could of course say that the Church may be wrong in certain details caught up in her authoritative teaching; but it would be wrong to pretend that I am more secure and safe than the Church, and I clearly see just where every imperfection lies. Surely, too, it would be wrong to suggest that the Church is often and flatly wrong in her insistent moral teaching. That would amount to saying Christ does not give sound moral guidance in his Church, as faith has always most firmly, even definitively, taught that he does.

Moreover, since we believe that Christ is near to us in countless ways in the Church – touching us in his sacraments, teaching us in all the teachers of faith, present as a guide concerning how we are to live and please God – we have far better reasons to accept the simply authoritative teaching of the Church than we have to accept the moral opinions of those not appointed by Christ as teachers and shepherds of his people. That in minor respects some authoritative teaching may prove to need correction does not justify saying we have no duty to follow it. Our consciences can err also, and they at times err very gravely; yet one has a duty to follow the sincere judgment of conscience. Nor are moral teachers who reject the moral teaching of the Church secure guides for the faithful. They are not infallible, and they do not have the charism of truth that Christ gives his Church to make it a secure guide for moral life in Christ.

Following a Well-Formed Conscience • Hence the Church teaches that we should follow our consciences and should shape them by the secure teaching of Christ’s Church. “In forming their consciences the faithful must pay careful attention to the sacred and certain teaching of the Church. For the Catholic Church is by the will of Christ the teacher of truth. It is her duty to proclaim and teach with authority the truth which is Christ and, at the same time, to declare and confirm by her authority the principles of the moral order which spring from human nature itself” (Declaration on Religious Freedom, 14).

Moral conscience is concerned with the truth, with what is really right or wrong. It is not to be confused with the merely psychological dimensions of our life sometimes called “conscience.” Some, for example, mistakenly suppose that, if they do not “feel guilty” upon doing something faith forbids, their consciences are telling them such behavior is permissible. Others fancy that if they really want to do something, then their consciences clearly approve it. Still others imagine that, if their friends commonly insist it is all right to do something Catholic teaching forbids, and if they themselves feel comfortable going along with their friends’ judgment, then their consciences are expressing approval. But none of these strange kinds of “conscience” reflects the conscience that faith calls us to honor. These are not judgments of what is truly good and pleasing to God, but expressions of feelings people often have in the face of the world’s pressures. We have no right or duty to do simply as we feel like doing, when that is opposed to the teachings of faith.

Suggested Readings: CCC 888-892, 1776-1794, 2030-2040. Vatican Council II, Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, Gaudium et Spes, 15-16; Declaration on Religious Freedom, Dignitatis Humanae, 3, 14. John Paul II, The Splendor of Truth, Veritatis Splendor, 54-64. Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Instruction on the Ecclesial Vocation of the Theologian. G. Grisez, The Way of the Lord Jesus, Vol. 1, Christian Moral Principles, Chs. 3, 34-35.

Ronald D. Lawler, O.F.M. Cap.




Russell Shaw. Our Sunday Visitor's Encyclopedia of Catholic Doctrine. Copyright © 1997, Our Sunday Visitor.

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Last Updated: Sunday, April 01, 2001 03:24:19 PM