Indeed, this is our boast, the testimony of our conscience: we have behaved in the world with frankness and godly sincerity, not by earthly wisdom but by the grace of God—and all the more toward you. [2 Cor. 1:12, NRSV]
One of the biggest questions, among so many others, tackled by Amoris Laetitia, is the question of conscience. What Pope Francis says in this Apostolic Exhortation is immensely important for ministry in today’s Church. Without doubt, no one can be an effective minister of the crucified and risen Lord without being cognizant of what conscience is all about in today’s world.
Saint Thomas Aquinas in the 13th century first established the authority and inviolability of conscience, which was affirmed in the Second Vatican Council’s Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World (Gaudium et Spes) and Declaration on Religious Liberty (Dignitatis Humanae). Today, “freedom of conscience” as a key concept in Amoris Laetitia, completely consistent with the aggiornamento of the Council, has drawn much attention and debate.
Two sharply contrasting ways have appeared in presenting the Holy Father’s teaching on “conscience”, a term that appears fourteen times in the text. The struggle is not unlike what happens in the two corners of a boxing ring during a prize fight.
In the first corner, the sight is fixated on such unshakable objective norms as the indissolubility of marriage and the non-admission to Communion for the divorced and remarried without an annulment. This corner cautions that “conscience” and “truth” are like two competing animals. Seen in clear-cut black-and-white, the world in this corner is well-defined, and the pastors are tasked none other than to tell the laity how their conscience ought to be exercised in narrow and precise terms on specific matters. Some clear representatives of this corner are Cardinal Raymond Burke, moral theology professor Germain Grisez, and Archbishop Charles Chaput whom the American Bishops have appointed to head a working group to promote the teaching of Amoris Laetitia throughout U.S. dioceses and parishes. While guidelines from this working group are pending, Chaput has already issued guidelines for implementing Amoris Laetitia in his own archdiocese, Philadelphia. His guidelines do not suggest private consultation and discernment (the internal forum); nor does it give credence to “freedom of conscience” or the sensus fidei. Instead, the following, which are implicit in his document, are clearly at odds with the direction and intent of Amoris Laetitia:
- There is no value in the life experiences of the lay faithful to be taken into account, and so they must be told that their individual subjective conscience can never be set against objective moral truth;
- The non-ordained part of the Church knows not how to exercise its conscience properly according to the “official” teaching of the Church, and so its conscience must be properly formed by the clergy, and even made on its behalf or imposed on it by the clergy if necessary;
- The celibate clergy are in the “know”, and are living their conscience well, and in any case are ordained to teach, so they are the ones to teach the laity, never mind the fact that the subject matter concerns adults living intimate adult lives where things can and often do get pretty complicated.
The “objective truth” according to magisterial teaching, this corner insists, is that cohabiting but unmarried couples, and divorced and remarried couples living together without an annulment, are committing adultery and cannot legally receive Communion. There is absolutely no other way than that their subjective consciences must adhere to this objective truth. Detached and holier-than-thou, the pastors in this corner tend to be dismissive, judgmental and condemnatory, often quite detached from the realities of complex modern living.
In the second corner, however, a real-life-conscious pastoral orientation shines through and its spirit of compassion and mercy sets it apart from the first. Here, we see a deep respect for the individuals, the complexities of their adult lives, and a readiness to embrace the joys and struggles in their life stories. This corner does not just pay lip service as does the other corner to the “freedom of conscience” in Catholic tradition, it honours this freedom by practical actions. For instance, while the Exhortation calls for “an effort at evangelization and catechesis inside the family,” it stresses the need for “missionary conversion” so that “one is not content to proclaim a merely theoretical message without connection to people’s real problems” (No. 201). Willing to listen, this corner does not attempt to artificially reduce complex modern living to a neat and tidy picture preferred by the managers. Instead, “pastors of souls” are obligated to do the difficult work of accompanying the troubled souls, to journey and discern with them as they struggle with doing the right things in their concrete circumstances. In this corner stand such luminaries as the late venerable moral theologian Bernard Häring, renowned Jesuit moral theology professor Josef Fuchs, and Pope Francis himself. And so Amoris Laetitia occupies this second corner.
In chapter 8 of this Apostolic Exhortation, which by definition forms part of the official Magisterial teaching, the entire Church is urged to differentiate and distinguish between different situations of the divorced and remarried Catholics. The moral theology that is done here rests on the primacy of conscience as the final arbiter of whether a person is subjectively culpable for serious sins. The following, amongst others, deserve attention:
- Do not condemn people forever, for the Gospel is not like that (No. 297);
- Do not pigeonhole people “into overly rigid classifications” and miss the truthful reality (No. 298);
- Be conscious of the “immense variety of concrete situations” to see clearly and in depth what is really going on in every troubled couple’s lives (No. 299);
- When the Church undertakes “responsible and pastoral discernment” in each case, we may recognise that “the degree of responsibility is not equal in all cases” (No. 300);
- Come to grips with the truth that “the consequences or effects of a rule need not necessarily always be the same” (No. 300);
- In a clear-headed assessment of individual cases, one may objectively see in “a particular case no grave fault actually exists” (footnote 336);
- Taking the trouble to study the facts, one may find that people in an “objective situation of sin” may not necessarily be “subjectively culpable” (No. 305);
- Always remember that the Church recognises mitigating factors (No. 301-303);
- Pastors cannot close their hearts and refuse the work of discernment, or turn the confessional into “a torture chamber”, and close off the way of grace (No.305);
- Pastors must approach all imperfect situations with an eye to what is good in them and with a loving proposal for conversion;
- Pastors must be open to the fact that in proper discernment, the sacraments may be very helpful and in this regard, know that the Eucharist is “not a prize for the perfect, but a powerful medicine and nourishment for the weak” (footnote 351);
- Pastors must work on integrating all the divorced and remarried into faith communities in all possible ways, while avoiding scandal (No.299).
The aim of discernment is to help get the person moving towards fulfilling God’s will for them, which is holiness. The duty of a confessor is not to decide if a penitent committed a mortal or a venial sin, but to get them back to moving in the right direction. This encapsulates what Pope Francis wrote.
The ultimate key to understanding Pope Francis comes right at the end, in paragraph 311:
- “We put so many conditions on mercy that we empty it of its concrete meaning and real significance. That is the worst way of watering down the Gospel. … in the end (it) puts in doubt the omnipotence of God and, especially, his mercy.”
From a church that is judgmental, sometimes harsh, often condemnatory, Pope Francis wants to see it operating like Christ, merciful and welcoming and, like a field hospital, nursing the wounded, the “irregular”, the suffering, and making them a part of a community of love and forgiveness. In all this, respect is accorded to adults exercising their conscience in sincerity and truthfulness, within the situations in which they find themselves.
But commentators in the first corner think differently, and would not even mention the internal forum (private consultation, counseling, confession) or the possibility of this forum doing otherwise than to make sure that subjective conscience always submits to, and obeys, the objective “truth” of magisterial teaching.
At work in the two corners then, are different governing principles driving two very different perspectives on the authority of conscience. In turn, they produce two distinct understandings of the interrelationship between the objective and subjective realms of morality and how they relate to conscience. For this, Josef Fuchs is helpful in pinpointing the precise question: Does a truth exist “in itself” or “in myself”?
In the first corner, conscience is considered to be subjective and internal, often variable and relativistic, whereas truth is objective and external, definitive and untouchable, universal and invariable. Objectivity is consigned to the objective norm “in itself,” “external” to conscience. These objective norms exist outside the subjective conscience, so that conscience has no objective role at all. Instead, the only role of the conscience is to know and apply these norms. The subjective and internal conscience must always obey and conform to the objective and external truth. The only role, then, of the teachers in the Church is to educate the people on what the objective norms are that have been stipulated by the Magisterium. Hence, do not steal, do not lie, and do not receive Communion if you are divorced and remarried without an annulment. This world knows not any exception or, for that matter, the plurality of human circumstances or complexities of human lives in the modern world. In this approach, “freedom” of conscience is understood only in terms of obedience to external objective norms, and “dignity” of conscience is judged only in terms of the coincidence of one’s judgment of conscience with the objective norms. Then and only then, is the act considered right and moral; otherwise, the act is wrong and immoral.
By contrast, the second corner, Pope Francis’ corner, holds that conscience includes both the objective and subjective realms. Conscience discerns and interprets its comprehension of objective truth and applies that understanding in the subjective assessment of particular, concrete situations. Conscience thus has both the objective and subjective dimensions, which Fuchs labels the “subject-orientation” and the “object-orientation” of conscience. Conscience as subject-orientation affirms the intrinsic goodness of the human person created in the image and likeness of God which obligates the person to enter into profound relationship with God and neighbour. Taking conscience as subject-orientation optimistically, Fuchs sees it as “having inner knowledge of the moral goodness of the Christian, and as standing before God, and Christ, and in the Holy Spirit.” This optimism is not misplaced but resonates well with the teachings of Vatican II:
- “In the depths of his conscience, man detects a law which he does not impose upon himself, but which holds him to obedience. Always summoning him to love good and avoid evil, the voice of conscience when necessary speaks to his heart: do this, shun that. For man has in his heart a law written by God; to obey it is the very dignity of man; according to it he will be judged (Romans 2:15-16). Conscience is the most secret core and sanctuary of a person. There he is alone with God, Whose voice echoes in his depths. In a wonderful manner conscience reveals that law which is fulfilled by love of God and neighbor (Matthew 22:37-40; Galatians 5:14)” [Gaudium et Spes, 16].
The Second Vatican Council also sets out firmly that all persons have a right to religious liberty, a right with its foundation in the essential dignity of each human being. All persons must be free to seek the truth without coercion. While the highest norm of human life is the divine law and truth, it can only be sought after in the proper and free manner, with the aid of teaching or instruction, communication and dialogue. In any case, it can only be adhered to by personal assent. This freedom from coercion in religious affairs must also be recognized as a right when persons act in community. All persons, and the communities to which they belong, must be accorded the right to choose and practise their religions in freedom, in particular the freedom to choose religious education. Their personal conscience must be respected. Any absence of such freedom of conscience unjustly ignores the long-standing Catholic tradition fundamentally strengthened at the Second Vatican Council. All this is set out in the document Dignitatis Humanae.
Back to Amoris Laetitia, what the ordinary people want to know is whether their personal conscience – their subjective dignity – has a real role to play as they try to live out the official teachings (the “sacred and certain doctrine”) of the Church – the objective norms.
Humans do best, Amoris Laetitia insists, when they undertake honest practical reasoning in good conscience in their concrete situations. They gather as much evidence as possible, consciously weigh and understand the evidence and its implications, and finally make as honest a judgment as possible that this action is to be done and that action is not. It recognizes that in moral-decision making, the subject-orientation logically precedes the object-orientation. In line with Aquinas, Gaudium et Spes and Dignitatis Humanae, the emphasis in Amoris Laetitia is on the authority and dignity of conscience, not on the authority and dignity of the norm. It is conscious to the Lord’s own exhortation: “The Sabbath is made for man and not man for Sabbath.” Objective norms exist externally and are formulated and justified on the basis of the four sources of moral knowledge: Scripture, tradition, reason and experience. These norms, however, are good and genuine assistants to the human persons who face concrete life situations, not dictators who insist upon being obeyed regardless of concrete life situations. External, objective norms, to be truthfully obeyed, must always go through the object-orientation of conscience where the process of understanding, judgment, decision and action take place. Conscience, therefore, assists the object-orientation to select, interpret and apply the appropriate objective norm in a given situation. The norms maintain their objectivity, but so too does the objectivity of the conscience.
In this understanding, truth exists “in myself,” not frivolously or in a relativist sense that denies objective and universal truth, but in the sense of the intrinsic human dignity of the person and the authority of conscience, with due consideration for concrete life situations. This process of understanding, judgment, decision and action, often troubling and sometimes excruciating, realizes that a proper exercise of the human conscience involves internalizing the value reflected in the objective norm, but vigorously verifies its relevance to the human person in light of the understanding of all the circumstances in a particular real life situation. Conscience must, and is certainly, guided by those norms, but the authority of conscience is not identified with whether or not it obeys the objective norm to the letter. Otherwise, Dignitatis Humanae could not advocate for religious liberty, insisting that “everybody has the duty and consequently the right to seek the truth in religious matters so that, through the use of appropriate means, he may prudently form judgments of conscience which are sincere and true” [Dignitatis Humanae, 3].
Pope Francis, in other words, affirms the importance of ideas, but he does insist that reality is even more important. He is not, of course, talking about frivolous and egoistic exercise of one’s desires. He realizes that the human heart does not flow like a seminary marriage class syllabus, detached from real life circumstances. He favours freedom of conscience as much as he desires to see adult responsibility. He is talking about accountability and compassion, using a model of moral decision-making that permits certain personal circumstances to be taken into account. He is talking about conscience as “the interior space in which we can listen to and hear the truth, the good, the voice of God. It is the inner place of our relationship with him, who speaks to our heart and helps us to discern, to understand the path we ought to take, and once the decision is made, to move forward, to remain faithful.” In all this, we are reminded of an engaging Chinese wisdom saying: 天意不在天上, 而是在人心 – The will of heaven is not in heaven, but in the human heart.
Copyright © Dr. Jeffrey & Angie Goh, November 2016. All rights reserved.
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