Living Catholicism

Jay,

I wonder if the argument is, at least from what you term the Sola Conscientia folks, more having to do with what the Church deems "gravely disordered" sin as opposed to "venial" sin. For instance, more often than not, I don't find people going around saying my conscience tells me such and such isn't a sin, rather what I do hear is people wondering how the God that loves them, and who they have an intimate relationship with, could possibly hold the position of many in the Church that any sin (except a conscious decision to actually say "no" to God) could objectively, in and of itself, turn one's heart away from God - which is the definition of mortal sin. This is what I think is the real issue, not whether something is a sin or not.

I'm curious to hear what you think. This is something I've been struggling with for some time sense becomeing Catholic six years ago.

Chad,

While some Catholics may share your struggle with the idea of mortal sin, I also affirm Jay's point that many Catholics believe something is good simply because their "conscience" says so. Coincidentally, I have a case study posted this week at my blog:
http://believeandprofess.blogspot.com/2007/03/our-consciences-can-err-church-cannot.html

It comes up often with all of the hot-button moral issues (contraception, abortion, euthanasia, in-virto fertilization, etc). Anytime a person asserts "I don't agree with the Church about this or that" he is implicitly placing the judgment of his "informed" conscience above the Magisterium.

Dan,

What do you think about those of us who understand things like missing our Sunday obligation and masterbation as sins, but don't necessarily understand why these would be considered mortal sin. The very conscious act of committing those two sins are considered by the COC to ruin charity in one's heart, severing their ties from God's grace. Technically speaking, no matter how the individual lived up until that moment would not be considered, if they happened to walk out the door and die before confessing their sins to a Priest, because in the very act of these two sins, the individual has turned away from God, committing an unpardonable sin, where God's grace cannot reach, except for a special act of God.

What if my conscience - which is informed by the Church's teaching and obviously takes it seriously or I wouldn't be discussing it right now - cannot understand how these two sins are considered by God to be a total turning of a person's back on Him, where grace no longer exists? Would I be considered a Sola Contientia person, wrapped up in relativism? Should I not take communion, even if I still love God and still believe I experience God's grace, even though the COC says I don't? Should I not take communion if I question whether a sin I've committed is really a mortal sin, that in and of itself has objectively removed God's grace from my life?

Chad,
I think there are a couple of issues here. The first is those who - as Dan says - place their own decisions above the clear teaching of the Church. These are the people I address in my article.

The second situation is those who don't feel a particular sin is as grave as the Church teaches. I would point out a few things for this situation. First, sometimes we don't understand the gravity of a sin because we see in human terms rather than as God sees it. For example, God asks that we spend one hour a week with Him in Mass to receive the Eucharist and participate in heaven on earth. When we choose to ignore this for personal pleasures (even sleep), it is a serious sin. But we may not completely understand the seriousness of it. Second, small sins dull our understanding of bigger, mortal sins. So when we allow ourselves to sin in small ways we begin thinking bigger sins aren't as serious.

In the end, I would suggest seeking the advice of a spiritual director - maybe a local priest who can help with your discernment between mortal and venial sins.

Hope this helps.

God bless,
Jay

Jay
You're avoiding the topic of sincere studious and prayerful dissent to the non infallible.

I felt you began by ackowledging that conscience must be followed (ccc #1790)and ended up saying it should not be followed but taught further if it disagrees with the Church's position on an issue.

I've seen that circular argument a thousand times (having gone to 16 years of Catholic school) and I have a copy of conservative Germain Grisez's "Christian Moral Principles" right here which almost says what you said but says it with annoying verbosity....yet he had to admit in the higher call of the studious conscience which for him had to be able to refer to a higher source to disagree. For example, the 20th century Catholic Theologian, Bernard Haring, dissented from HV based on New Testament reasons.....which are higher than ordinary magisterium authority if they truly differ.
Keep in nind that the early dissenters on birth control were faced with highly inaccurate natural methods and thousands of these people who were obeying at the time were the very ones who wrote the birth control commission seeking change from the Pope. The highly accurate NFP would have been a luxury to them at the time that HV was written.
But look at ccc #1791 and it could show you a way out of the circle... it describes the culpable conscience as one that "takes little trouble to find out what is true and good".

What you are not facing is the person who has taken a lot of trouble and finds that he disagrees with a Church position in the ordinary magisterium while embracing those things that are really de fide like the Immaculate Conception. Should he become a Protestant? Which Protestant Church will accept his believing in the IC and in the Assumption? None.

We have to stop implying that the Church has always been correct in the ordinary magisterium. For 600 years you sinned if you loaned your cousin Fred $2000 because he was traveling to France and you then asked for interest. You had to tell it in confession as mortal sin. And now you can do the very same thing with not even venial sin. The Catholics who thought that was nutty in 1622 and furtively agreed with Calvin that interest to the comfortable was not a sin...they were correct....even if Catholics at the time called them heretics. Now...I'll grant that they were heretics if they simply said to themselves: I'm charging interest to Fred...who is the Church to tell me all interest is a mortal sin.
But...if they proceeded with conscience and studied the issue...not lazily like the guy just above but prayerfully and meekly..... and still noted that Aquinas followed Aristotle and his idea that money is destroyed in consumption and is not fruitful....and noted that that seemed absurd since interest is really about the fact that one emotionally is risking that Fred will die in france and one may lose all his money and such emotional risk deserves a payment when the n eed one is succouring is not a necessity....then ccc 1790 implies that after studying it and praying....follow your conscience which has taken prayerful and studious trouble and yet disagrees with a Church position which is not de fide.

Abortion as evil by the way is de fide since 1995 in section 62 of Evangelium Vitae...but birth control is not but is within the ordinary magisterium and obedinece to it falls under Lumen Gentium 25's "relgious submission of mind and will".....unless one's conscience cannot agree after prayerful study that it is rational....and not provably within the "universal" ordinary magisterium. And Canon 749-3 requires e.g. in Church court processes for heresy, that the issue must be infallible with an infalliblity that is "manifestly evident"....for which abortion qualifies and birth control does not since HV was announced to the press in 1968 twice as not infallible by the Monseignor releasing it....and it later had hundreds of dissenting theologians who were not accused of heresy by the very Popes who were insistent on the opposite position.
Hard core supporters of HV will say that contraception is abortion....but the infallible statement in EV against abortion does not make that claim...some Catholics do....and condoms and sertilization e.g. have zero to do with non implantation problems.

Jay, and others,

The post by Bill Bannon is backed by very good reason, and that encyclicals are cited, gives me hope that there is indeed some small wiggle room for dialogue, which to me, is a precious commodity in the relationship with the Church and its faithful. The fact that it often gets couched in the language of legal loopholes in a court precedent is saddening, but perhaps necessary when dealing with very complex issues.

I find the Church's response to anyone who dares to invoke the "primacy of conscience" to be one that usually ends the argument before it even begins. The central argument is that "indeed, you have questioned, as is the right of your intellectual free will (or God's supposedly great gift to us), but by nature your inquiry is flawed because it doesn't conform with the Catholic Catechism, and it is actually wrong, because we are sinful agents who by nature are already predestined (through original sin), to be at odds with God's grace, rather than formed in it. Given this premise, the point is made moot, and it seems absurd to even start any intellectual debate about it. By that standard, a Catholic seems to be faced with two choices, conform to the doctrine, or leave the church (at one's peril, of course).
It's assumed that one's questions are already flawed (as we are flawed), therefore there is no need to question in the first place. By my accounting, that puts us back at square one.
While I know you example of Hitler is largely hyperbolic, and meant to be Socratic, the associative comparison of a murderous sociopath with a faithful people who really struggle to stay within our church and make moral decisions is largely unhelpful to me.
The Church's party line really is backhanded when it says "you may ask, but you are actually wrong, so don't ask."
If in fact we are invoking historical sociopaths, murderers and thugs, let's not forget about the fact that the "Office of the Inquisition" had genuine Magisterial sanction too. I say this just to put an analogous turn back into the argument.
It seems that the Catholic Church throws this bone to the faithful, but simultaneously sneers at the lowly laity, and our fallible inquiries. When you write, If you are convinced that birth control is okay, it doesn’t mean that birth control is acceptable for you, it means your conscience is malformed. And you are likely culpable for the sin of using birth control (if you are using it)."

This seems a bit patronizing, to assume that every Catholic has encountered this issue, and has opted for "selfish" convenience, and that we haven't struggled, maybe even agonized with choices related to birth control, abortion, euthanasia, etc.

That's a glaring example another way in which the Church teaches at every level that we are free agents, but applies the grand caveat with a checkmate. There is an essential contradiction in calling the Church a divine institution, while it is still composed of flesh and blood humans. And one only has to look at its history, even its recent scandals to see that.

The idea that the doctrine against contraception merely requires submission of will and intellect, which would be serious enough if not accepted and followed, is erroneous.

Vatican I in a solemn dogma declared that any papal doctrine by the Pope as supreme authority to the whole Church, defining a teaching on faith or morals to be held, is infallible. The same applies to the doctrine against women priests.

Usury is the taking of excessive interest, and when the economic system changed so that money had an intrinsic value, the doctrine no longer applied.

It is time that the sincere learnt what Christ's Church actually teaches, and that teaching is never contradicted, but our understanding may develop.

Contraception like abortion is Not revealed Truth. Vatican 1 laid out strict requirements for papal infallibilty. Vatican II taught that the consent of the Church(people Of God) cannot be lacking in a infallible teaching. Even at Vatican 1 it was stated that the consent of the people can never be lacking when infallibilty is pronounced. 3 poes have been officily condemned for heresy,Many popes hailed sex in marriage as a necessary evil,something that is anti-God to be sure. Popes have been wrong countless times in the past 2,000 years. That^s where conscience tries to separate Gospel values from the dictates of fallible men.