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, 59.
Saint John Paul II (+2005) when considering the “judgment of conscience” and citing Romans 2:15 explains that “the term ‘conflicting thoughts’ clarifies the precise nature of conscience: it is a moral judgment about man and his actions, a judgment either or acquittal or of condemnation, according as human acts are in conformity or not with the law of God written on the heart.” Two passages here set off bells: “man and his actions” and “human acts.”
Anyone who is familiar with the writings of the Holy Father will recognize in this passage of Veritatis splendor another work of his. In his pre-pontifical volume Person and Act (Grzegorz Ignaik, trans. Wahsington, DC: CUA, 2021), there are some eighteen different approaches to conscience (attitudes; and common good; as condition of efficacy; creative character of; dependence on truth; duty and; emotional stirring and; fulfillment conditioned by; as interpersonal source of duty; normative character of; as normative reality inside person; objective character of; and responsibility; responsibility to self in; self-fulfillment and; threshold of; and transcendence; truthfulness of). The older edition, The Acting Person (Andrzej Potocki, trans. and Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka, ed. Boston, MA: D. Reidel, 1979), only highlights six different aspects of conscience (action, moral goodness and; as inner normative reality; creative role of; fulfillment of person conditioned by; man’s self-responsibility).
The overlap of these two editions, as well as their divergences, can help us to appreciate the richness of the reality of conscience. Our actions matter, what we do or fail to do. We are the authors of our actions, efficacious actors, if you will. Our destiny (fulfillment) is determined not only by the goodness and mercy of God but also by our acting in accord with a well-formed conscience. A well-formed conscience is in conformity with the law of God written upon our hearts. We have a duty to not only form our conscience well, but also to follow our well-formed conscience. Our conscience is well-formed when it corresponds with the truth about God and ourselves, made in His image, redeemed by His Blood (cf. Gaudium et spes, 22). “Conscience” is treated twenty-eight times in the Pastoral Constitution of the Church in the Modern World.
The study of “man and his actions” and “human acts” did not begin (or end) with the Holy Father. Saint Thomas Aquinas, OP (+1274) addressed human acts and man himself in his Summa Theologiae I-II Q. 7-21; I Q. 75-102, respectively. The Angelic Doctor for his part cites the ancient philosopher Aristotle (+322 BC) and St. Augustine (+430).
God bless you!
Father John Arthur Orr