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, 61.2.
Saint John Paul II (+2005) when considering the “judgment of conscience” reminds us that the “insistent search for truth” and allowing ourselves “to be guided by that truth” in our actions shows forth the “maturity and responsibility” of the judgments of our conscience, not any so called “liberation of conscience from objective truth” or “alleged autonomy in personal decisions.”
The Holy Father is anything but a relativist and he calls us to be realists too.
How insistent is our search for truth? Are we skeptics, like Pontius Pilate who famously asked “What is truth?” (John 18:38)? The Lord Jesus Christ assures us that “the truth shall make you free” (John 8:32) and that He Himself is the “way, the truth, and the life” (John 13:6). The truth we are to seek includes the truth about God, about ourselves, about the world, about right and wrong, good and evil. While these truths are sometimes mysterious that does not remove the burden of the search or quest. Gaudium et spes, 22, reminds us of the truth that it “is only in the mystery of the incarnate Word” that “the mystery of man take(s) on light.”
Do we allow ourselves to be guided by the truth which sets us free? This question helps us when considering the evaluation of moral culpability regarding mortal sin (something serious, we know it is serious, and we willfully do the sinful deed (or omit doing the good). When we allow ourselves to be guided by the truth which sets us free we do the good and reject the sin. Normally we are able to tell right from wrong, good from evil as early as seven years of age, the age of reason.
How mature and responsible are our judgments of conscience? To the extent that they conform with the Commandments of God, the Beatitudes, the Cardinal and Moral Virtues, our judgments of conscience are more mature and responsible not tossed or blown around by every strange wind of fashion or error (cf. Ephesians 4:14).
Do we claim to be liberated from objective truth? To the extent we do, sadly, we abandon Christ.
Do we claim radical autonomy in our personal decisions apart from the Creator? Gaudium et spes, 36, reminds us that “without the Creator the creature would disappear.” The Council Fathers, the future Holy Father explicitly reject any false sense of autonomy as if things within time and space do not depend upon the Almighty. Creation is only to be used with reference to the Creator.
God bless you!
Father John Arthur Orr