Faithful Dissent, Part 2

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Continued from here.

Of course, that post was up for just a few hours when Damien posted a comment on the place of conscience in the discussion. I'm happy for him to weigh in, but as a Catholic with about two-years seniority (putting me on a level with most Catholic three year olds), I'm a bit outgunned. But I'll try to continue.

The background in Damien's argument is that conscience "as defined by the Catechism has to do with what we do more than with what we believe." The main thrust appears to be that, if actions are difficult to regulate (the 90% of relevantly active Catholics using birth-control), then beliefs are even harder, and attempts to regulate beliefs usually have catastrophic results.

If I understand correctly, than I agree with everything stated above. I don't feel, however, that this removes consciece from the equation. In fact, it assigns conscience a more active role... if we maintain that conscience is justification for faithful dissent, and that conscience is expressed in actions rather than thoughts and beliefs, then faithful dissent may be exercised even more robustly than I stated in the last post.

I agree with this as well, but am not quite ready to defend this claim yet. First, I think it's important to look a little more closely at several aspects of this discussion; namely, conscience as actually defined by Catechism, the distinction between belief and action invoked by Damien, and the role of belief in the Catholic church.

I'll go in that order.

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CONSCIENCE AS DEFINED BY THE CATECHISM

Some brief, brief context. Conscience is discussed in Part Three of four of the Catechism, entitled Life in Christ. This part discusses the foundation of scripturally justified living. Section one of two discusses various bases of morality, and the line of reasoning is progressive. This sequence begins with the creation of humanity in the image of God, proceeds to the link between the Beatitudes and the promises of God to Abraham and the central role of individual freedom, and then explores the relationship between emotion and rationality, before coming to Moral Conscience. There has been, then, already at this point, a dissection of scriptural instruction as to the nature of good and evil acts.

I base this summary on my own, sadly so-far cursory, review of the Catechism.

Article 6, Moral Conscience, then, is an attempted reconciliation of all these elements as distilled in individual human agency: the objectivity of the scripture and the passion of emotions, both acting and commenting upon human freedom.

Article 6 begins with a quote from Pope Paul VI*'s Gaudium et Spes:

1776. Deep within his conscience man discovers a law which he has not laid upon himself but which he must obey. Its voice, ever calling him to love and to do what is good and to avoid evil, sounds in his heart at the right moment. . . . For man has in his heart a law inscribed by God. . . . His conscience is man's most secret core and his sanctuary. There he is alone with God whose voice echoes in his depths.

In other words, just as the Ten Commandments and scriptures themselves are physical manifestations of the law of God, we each have an internal manifestation that exists as the inner "voice" we call our conscience.

Having broached the concept, the Catechism continues to discuss "the judgment of conscience." The voice of our conscience "enjoins" certain actions, and "judges" them. "It is by the judgment of his conscience that man perceives and recognizes the prescriptions of the divine law." "It is important for every person to be sufficiently present to himself in order to hear and follow the voice of his conscience," (1779) and "The dignity of the human person implies and requires uprightness of moral conscience" (1980). Crucially, "conscience enables one to assume responsibility for the acts performed."

It is not coincidental that these effects coincide with the explanation of the literal Judgment Day. Conscience is more than some shifting perspective on right and wrong ("moral relativism" in the minds of many conservative Catholics); it is a gauge of our own actions, and holds us accountable for our actions just as God holds us accountable. This facts leads to a linchpin in the argument that conscience allows and even necessitates an exercise of faithful dissent:

1782. Man has the right to act in conscience and in freedom so as personally to make moral decisions. "He must not be forced to act contrary to his conscience. Nor must he be prevented from acting according to his conscience, especially in religious matters."

The quote is, again, Pope Paul VI from Humanae Vitae, ironically perhaps the church's most emphatic condemnation of artificial contraception. This quote is, however, beautifully emphatic: "He must not be forced to act contrary to his conscience." Because our conscience is the unmuted and inscribed law of God. This passage is delivered with a forcefulness that bestows flexibility. My godfather has always urged me to seek out divinity in the presence of paradox.

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We cannot, however, stop reading here.

The next three paragraphs (1783 - 1785) stress the need to "educate" conscience. This education (1783-1794) gives the conscience volume, and is generally informed by scripture and Church teaching (1795). While those opposed to faithful dissent might cite 1795 in particular to curb the argument, I don't think such arguments seriously hold water. Firstoff, nothing in these paragraphs remotely implies that conscience is simply analagous to acting in accordance with Church teaching. The relationship is correlative and supplemental, but this fact in and of itself requires that teaching motivates and amplifies conscience, not restrains and directs it. Secondly, a fact that often escapes both Catholic "liberals" and "conservatives" is that "authoratative Church teaching" is not identical with every statement made by Church leaders. To assume so is to render emphasis meaningless, and practically every prophet and apostle in the Bible attacks the prevailing leadership for a neglect of context and emphasis.**

Moving along, we acknowledge the fallibility of conscience: "Faced with a moral choice, conscience can make either a right judgment in accordance with reason and the divine law or, on the contrary, an erroneous judgment that departs from them."*** It's our job, then, to apply our conscience with rigor and scrutiny... to try to reduce its fallibility. "To this purpose, man strives to interpret the data of experience and the signs of the times assisted by the virtue of prudence, by the advice of competent people, and by the help of the Holy Spirit and his gifts."

Also:

1789 Some rules apply in every case:

- One may never do evil so that good may result from it;

- the Golden Rule: "Whatever you wish that men would do to you, do so to them."56

- charity always proceeds by way of respect for one's neighbor and his conscience: "Thus sinning against your brethren and wounding their conscience . . . you sin against Christ."57 Therefore "it is right not to . . . do anything that makes your brother stumble."

Finally, the article on conscience finishes out by discussing the causes and consequences of "erroneous judgment" of conscience:

1790 A human being must always obey the certain judgment of his conscience. If he were deliberately to act against it, he would condemn himself. Yet it can happen that moral conscience remains in ignorance and makes erroneous judgments about acts to be performed or already committed.

1791 This ignorance can often be imputed to personal responsibility. This is the case when a man "takes little trouble to find out what is true and good, or when conscience is by degrees almost blinded through the habit of committing sin." In such cases, the person is culpable for the evil he commits.

1792 Ignorance of Christ and his Gospel, bad example given by others, enslavement to one's passions, assertion of a mistaken notion of autonomy of conscience, rejection of the Church's authority and her teaching, lack of conversion and of charity: these can be at the source of errors of judgment in moral conduct.

1793 If - on the contrary - the ignorance is invincible, or the moral subject is not responsible for his erroneous judgment, the evil committed by the person cannot be imputed to him. It remains no less an evil, a privation, a disorder. One must therefore work to correct the errors of moral conscience.

1794 A good and pure conscience is enlightened by true faith, for charity proceeds at the same time "from a pure heart and a good conscience and sincere faith."

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The Catechism then quite forcefully describes Conscience as:

1) An active voice with an indisputably divine origin.
2) A fallible voice that is informed by the environment around it and human culpability, and thereby sometimes subject to error.
3) Nevertheless, a voice which, rigorously developed, is our primary motive to do good, and which must therefore be heeded, even when error is sometimes a consequence.

Do you see where this is going?

Conscience is a universal property of humanity. These correlatives not only mean that conscience must be active in the laity (let's read about Ruth, kids), but also that the conscience of church leadership is still fallible (let's read about Peter, kids). It is staggering to me that this natural balance, this perpetual correction based on our collective better judgments working against our collective flaws to a future better world is present in most of the holy writings of the Church, and yet almost wholly invisible to its leaders. But then, we know what Jesus said about the wise and the fools as well.

Moreover, I know in my heart of hearts that women should administer in the priesthood. I know that homosexuality is not a sin. My most vigorous and strict education of conscience as informed by holy scripture and authoratative teaching of the church shouts my adherance to conscience in these and other matters, and there's nothing shifting or relative about the conscience I'm striving to hear.

The deeper I dig, the more binding I find these roots.

In the end, Pope Benedict and the other lesser powers that be might opt to deny me sacrament or eucharist, but they cannot ever drive me from a communion to which I belong. If one accepts the Catechism's interpretation of moral conscience, it cannot be trumped, it cannot be written off, it cannot be dismissed.

And that is what makes conscience, as the personal inscription (encryption?) of divine law, indespensible to this thing known as "faithful dissent."

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I was going to go further than this today, but I've clearly gone on longer on the Catechism than I ever intended to.

I'll pick up where I left off next time. With the distinction between conscience as a voice and the consequence of conscience: action in this world.

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* A problematic figure in-and-of himself. On the one hand he brought the Second Vatican Council to completion. On the other, his leadership was inconsistant and, in the end, frustrating to Catholics on both ends of most controversial issues. He certainly took over the church at a difficult time, and was perhaps the Papal equivalent of the Ford and Carter administrations.

** This is a problem that makes me very angry. There is a clear emphasis on the problems of poverty in virtually every book in the Bible, but church leaders would rather spend their political clout to deny some gay activists communion on account of an obscure passage in Leviticus and some writings of (by his own reckoning, frequently fallible) Paul.

*** Fallibility is a great thing. Paul (who is fallible with frequency, by his own reckoning) essentially implies this in his various arguments against the law. Our dependence upon Christ for mercy does not absolve us of the responsibility to do right as best we can, but it does absolve us of the need to be perfect. Paul does say that perfection is to be striven for, but if Christ is the agent of expiation rather than our own flawless conduct, we strive for perfection for its own sake; to make God happy more than to save our own asses. But I digress.