My dear parishioners,
Peace! In other bulletins (4 December, 2016-11 June, 2017) we have considered the teaching of the Catechism of the Catholic Church on “conscience.” We then turned to Saint John Paul II’s encyclical letter Veritatis splendor (6 August, 1993) which addresses fundamental moral issues, including “conscience” more than one hundred times. These reflections were begun earlier (6 April, 2018-30 May, 2018). Here we now consider a passage from Veritatis splendor, 62.4.
Saint John Paul II (+2005) when considering the “seeking what is true and good” reminds us that “conscience does not lose its dignity” “even when it directs us to act in a way not in conformity with the objective moral order” because “it continues to speak in the name of that truth about the good which” we are each “called to seek sincerely.” The uncited source here is the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, Gaudium et spes (7 December, 1965), 16, of the Second Vatican Council. As Archbishop of Krakow (1964-1978), the Holy Father had been instrumental in the formation of the text. There are nearly thirty references to “conscience” in Gaudium et spes, including “right conscience” (GS, 16), the “obligations” of conscience (GS, 31), the “dignity of conscience” (GS, 41), the “well-formed Christian conscience” (GS, 43), and “a conscience dutifully conformed to the divine law itself” (GS, 50).
“The dignity of human nature” and “personal dignity” and the “dignity of conscience” are all addressed by the Council Fathers in Gaudium et spes, 41. Our friends at Merriam-Webster remind us that dignity “suggests seriousness, and the quality of being worthy of honor or respect.” The Council Fathers address both “conscience” and “dignity” in the Declaration on Religious Freedom, Dignitatis Humanae (7 December, 1965) ten times each throughout the fifteen articles. Harvard professor Donna Hicks has included “ten essential elements of dignity” as well as “ten temptations to violate dignity” in her 2011 volume Dignity: Its Essential Role in Resolving Conflict, but only one reference to “conscience” (New Haven, CT: Yale, 2011, 110). Birth defects or accidental dismemberment do not lessen our human dignity as adopted children of God, made in His image and likeness (cf. Genesis 1:26-27).
The objective moral order which the Holy Father mentions here in relation to “conscience” is significant in that the objective moral order has its very origin in God, the Author of the Eternal, Natural Law. Even should the objective moral order NOT be followed it does not loose it’s dignity, rather those who disregard it belittle their own dignity to the extent they disregard what comes from God. Sincerity in the search for the truth, as difficult as it is, manifests our human dignity all the same. The great Italian sculptor Michelangelo (+1564) is said to ask the quarrymen when buying marble if it was “without wax” (senza cera) as wax would be used to fill in cracks or hold pieces together. May we always sincerely seek the truth.
God bless you!
Father John Arthur Orr