Conscience

Conscience

To listen to this in mp3 format click here

As Catholics, we often hear about the importance of our conscience. To be sure, this is one of the most important concepts of Catholic moral theology. It is also, unfortunately, one of the most misunderstood. For many theologians, obeying your conscience is simply the bottom line, so that all it means to be a morally good person is to be “true to yourself” or to exhibit “personal authenticity.” In other words, so long as you’re acting in accordance with your own “deeply held personal beliefs,” you are, morally speaking, beyond reproach.

Now obviously, authenticity is important, but this should not mean that obedience to one’s conscience is the only qualification for moral goodness. What some theologians forget to mention is the possibility that a person’s conscience may be severely mistaken. Even if my “deeply held belief” is that I should commit adultery, that does not excuse such a severely sinful action.

At least equally important to the requirement of authenticity is the requirement that our actions be in conformity with the objective and universal moral law, made known to us by a properly formed conscience as well as the moral teaching of the Church without which we would be quite lost, and with which are false beliefs about morality are completely without excuse.