Leila Marie Lawler.
Short (I hope) ramblings.
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I wrote a piece for The Catholic Thing on Cardinal McElroy and the trap of rejecting the primacy of conscience just because he says he's for it. Spoiler, he is not.
Read it all here (mine is the second piece -- feel free to contact the editor and ask for it to be posted as a separate link so that you can more easily share it!): McElroy's Conscience Trap
So many questions swirling around, about our relationship to authority in the Church, when that authority is going wrong. We can clearly see the result of dismissing authority full stop. Christ founded His Church and a hierarchy to govern it (this is clearly laid out in the Book of Acts).
But when the Gospel isn't being defended? Then what?
I recommend meditating on this beautiful sermon by St. John Henry Newman: The Gospel A Trust Committed to Us. You can also listen to it here (I don't know what the quality of the narration is). Print it out, take it to your prayer, meditate on it slowly.
Ask for a copy of his collected sermons for Epiphany or your birthday -- they have nourished me for many years (affiliate link),
Your conscience is a real voice within and must be heeded. Know the 10 Commandments and the catechism to grow in wisdom. There are many good catechisms -- this one is short and to the point. A book to help you understand when to obey: True Obedience in the Church.
A terrible consequence of the past two+ years that I want to note in a general way:
A trend with some very online people displaying a manifestly bad conscience about having gone along with and vehemently argued for the lockdown, masking, and vaccination. Their behavior is what results when conscience torments, in this case because they gave in to fear, and in the process, harmed their followers who were persuaded by them.
Those who based what they said specifically on "love of neighbor" seem to be worse off than others, I have to say, in this regard of becoming more and more outrageous in their loud and irrational insistence that the universe owes them something that they are too angry to identify.
Their vituperation is increasingly aimed at good things: God, Christianity, marriage, even children. They question everything. They don't have any real arguments, but rather, emotionally rail against anyone who speaks out about what is undeniable, namely that there was a real deception, to which they fell prey. They especially direct their ire at anyone who warns -- in general -- of the consequences of the current trajectory of society in many areas, and the need for a return to a traditional way of life.
I really won't name those I have observed; that's not the point. I'm alerting anyone tempted to argue with such people, to the phenomenon. These were, before the Great Temptation, level-headed enough, but now are bent on dragging everyone down to a permanent state of cynicism; we went through a winnowing time, sadly, and this is one of the results. The general profile includes admitting to and even vaunting self-medication, drug use, and forms of paganism; finally, the descent into a nihilistic attitude that they can't help venting over and over. They have lost hope because they have lost their sensitivity to their consciences, which have now become avenging.
Thus, argument will have little effect. They are like the Narnian dwarves in The Last Battle. Having beaten down conscience for so long, they are blind and deaf -- and sometimes even insane.
It would be better for them, if they could understand, simply to say, "I was wrong and I apologize for my part in what happened. I regret not listening to those who tried to warn me." Maybe follow up with some penance, like remaining silent for a time. Peace follows repentance. Anyone who has struggled with his conscience (and I am certainly one!) knows the happiness that follows true repentance.
I'm old enough to remember a few wars that I do not think the US should have been involved in. Nation-building as foreign policy has not be successful for us or for others. As a person of Arab descent (my father was Egyptian, a Moslem -- as we wrote it back then), I also remember a Middle East that, precarious as it was, was not as divided and devastated as it is now.
So I welcome Fr. Jerry Pokorsky's careful analysis of the situation in the Ukraine: Propaganda and the Ukraine War. I admit that one of the red flags for me early on, warning me that we were in propaganda territory, was... flags -- Ukraine flags popping up immediately in people's avatars, on the heels of Covid propaganda emoji, as if people couldn't wait to jump on the bandwagon offered by a state-media conglomerate that had certainly not been transparent until that point.
Catholics hear a lot from our leaders on the subject of this conflict, just as we heard a lot about viruses and lockdowns. But most of it is unwarranted retailing of talking points from parts unknown and unexamined. We can't trust sources that so blatantly demonstrated their inability to separate fact from propaganda in the previous two years, not to mention decades.
And that readiness of churchmen to pass along untrustworthy information is an issue that relates to the delicate nature of obedience and authority, something that is so precious in our Church that it must never be abused. Yet it has been. One important point that Fr. Pokorsky touches upon is that sometimes we just don't know what is going on or what our response should be, and we shouldn't act as if we do.
It's good to see a priest offering correction to his confreres.
The meaning of propaganda has evolved from simple advertising to promoting biased and misleading information. The art of gleaning facts from various propaganda outlets has become increasingly difficult. Indeed, the mainstream media have mostly become organs of institutional (primarily liberal) propaganda.
Catholic priests, especially in their official capacities, must not distort the Gospel message by repeating propaganda and stay in their lane when enunciating Christian principles. But as Americans, the clergy also have a right to political views, provided they make clear distinctions separating their religious office from their secular opinions. This article is written by an American (call me “Jerry”) and concludes with a brief priestly exhortation (call me “Father”).
After a detailed and helpful characterization of the various points of view about the conflict (which should also be informed by something my husband wrote regarding the religious background, here -- part one is embedded), Fr. Pokorsky criticizes another priest for his undue pressure on conscience:
Exercising priestly authority, the clerics must dutifully decry the carnage and encourage a just solution. The laity has the responsibility to address the mess. As Americans – distinctly and consciously apart from their official religious duties – priests have a right to express political views, careful to avoid violating the consciences of those with opposing views.
The Dominican chaplain of the Knights of Columbus recently wrote that the Knights of Columbus Ukraine Solidarity Fund financially supports Ukraine war refugees. As long as the funds do not line the pockets of Ukraine politicians and oligarchs, the fund sounds like a noble enterprise.
However, the priest violated the boundaries separating the religious from the secular spheres when he writes — as the appointed chaplain of the Knight of Columbus: “In the face of the ongoing tragedy of war, injustice and humanitarian disaster inflicted by Russia on Ukraine, no one can remain indifferent. As the world continues to witness the steadfast struggle for freedom that the people of Ukraine endure….”
If you're attacked (and yes, it's an attack) by someone in the Church to accept the Covid vaccines against your will, I urge you to read Janet Smith's article: The Fake Theology behind Vaccine Mandates. Janet recently retired from the Father Michael J. McGivney Chair of Life Ethics at Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit. Her impressive academic credentials don't prevent her from writing a spirited and readable essay!
She rightly observes that most arguments rely on authority, not good reasoning. But what authority? The most important point she makes is that the decision to accept or reject a medical procedure is a prudential one.
Therefore, such prudential decisions cannot be made under authority -- no authority can do more than simply offer principles. The principles in the case of the Covid vaccines tend more towards rejecting them than accepting them -- but that is my determination and opinion. Yours might be different. In the matter of a particular treatment, one must decide for oneself (or for one's children or other legal dependents).
Prof. Smith considers it deceptive that those urging vaccination, (and even, incredibly, approving of or enabling mandates), though they rest their argument on authority, fail to cite the most authoritative statement to this effect: "At the same time, practical reason makes evident that vaccination is not, as a rule, a moral obligation and that, therefore, it must be voluntary." (the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith's Note on the Morality of Using Some Anti-Covid-19 Vaccines)
However, as she points out: "None of these documents, however, have the degree of magisterial authority to require assent; they are all low-level documents or non-magisterial statements that cannot impose obligations on Catholics."
"Lumen Gentium 25 [cited as authority for getting the vaccines] cannot possibly apply: so far as I know, no respectable theologian has ever claimed that the authority of the papal magisterium extends to whether or not an individual should get a vaccine, any vaccine, let alone an experimental vaccine. The Holy Father is not an expert on the health risks of a virus or the safety and effectiveness of vaccines and even if he were, again, papal authority does not extend to such matters."
Her whole argument should be read by everyone and shared widely with pastors and others pushing vaccines and mandates on the faithful.
I would like to add a few notes of my own:
1. Among other prudential considerations, the implications are obviously dire if we acquiesce to the power of the state to force a medical procedure on the populace, particularly one that infringes on bodily integrity, including even a passive acceptance of other institutions (corporations, schools, medical facilities, and so on) making the procedure a condition of participation.
In this case the procedure is touted as life-saving (something questionable even by the authorities' own metrics and definitions, which change daily) Even the vaccines' manufacturers claim no more than that they will alleviate symptoms -- not that they will prevent death or even transmission), and they do carry significant risks.
In another case the procedure could be overtly life-threatening. It's already established, and scandalously not opposed by our moral leaders, that children can be taken for an abortion or to be implanted with a contraception without parental consent or knowledge.
We simply must be aware of where this power has already led and could lead and not be naive about the larger context.
2. Janet points out:
Yes, the “Note” does speak of the “duty to pursue the common good” but implicitly acknowledges that there may be other ways to protect the common good and also, extremely importantly, that those who have a conscientious objection to vaccines produced from cell lines from aborted fetuses, if they work to protect the vulnerable, need not get a COVID-19 vaccine. [my emphasis]
I must add that the CDF's "Note" overreaches here in imposing an extra responsibility on those refusing the vaccine, as if we don't have positive reasons. Again, these theologians are not medical experts. They are accepting government authority's claims. The burden of protecting the vulnerable falls on all, not only those who do not take the vaccine.
Everyone must take reasonable precautions such as normal (not obsessive) washing of hands, staying home when sick, and not coughing and sneezing on others. Some have pointed out the considerable evidence that it's the vaccinated who put the vulnerable at risk. This is certainly the case for other (actual) vaccines. It's known (though not widely so) that those receiving certain vaccines are responsible for outbreaks of the very diseases their shots protect against.
At the same time, no one has the right not to die of natural causes. Life is about assessing risks and making decisions. We would be paralyzed -- and actually end up endangering others -- if we considered ourselves ultimately responsible for risks to others that we can't actually control.
3. Janet points out that those insisting on the vaccines give "no consideration to the fact that people have no obligation to use experimental medicines or procedures. The Declaration on Euthanasia (section 4) makes it clear that patients may use experimental means but that they need not do so if they judge the risk to be too great."
She is right.
But additionally, it simply has to be stated that one has the right to bodily integrity, and therefore one is not under an obligation to undergo any medical treatment one wishes to avoid. Society may have the right to quarantine a contagious person (but would have to demonstrate the need and be subject to recourse in law). But as far as requiring that someone undergo a procedure such as an injection that violates bodily integrity, no.
4. Pope Pius XI stated in the encyclical Casti Connubii paragraph 70 the position of the Church in her teaching role: "Public magistrates have no direct power over the bodies of their subjects; therefore, where no crime has taken place and there is no cause present for grave punishment, they can never directly harm, or tamper with the integrity of the body, either for the reasons of eugenics or for any other reason."
Anyone claiming to argue from authority in the Catholic Church must grapple with this statement and the larger support of practical wisdom and conscience that the Church has always maintained.
Of course I'm appalled at the New York bishops' letter regarding people's freedom in medical matters. They bring dishonor on themselves, making it clear that they are guided by lawyers and have no regard for anything beyond the most utilitarian, transactional considerations. They should rescind it and apologize immediately.
The bishops of Colorado have made a good statement and will help raise the moral tenor of the conversation. I appreciate that these bishops recognize that people have reasons to resist and must be supported by their moral leaders.
Conscience issues come in with the question of aborted fetal cells, yes, but also with other matters. In conscience, one might object to treating the body in the mechanistic manner displayed in our current vaccine-based health care model. "She did not wish to be viewed in that agricultural light" as Dickens has a character remark.
The truth is that most decisions about medical care are prudential decisions, not actually related to religious freedom but to medical freedom. There isn't "church teaching" about such things, other than to point out that people have reasons for making choices. The teaching we need now concerns the principles that inform one's decisions, and those teachings are of course based on the Commandments. An important one is that whatever a person decides, that the good he seeks not be brought about by intentionally harming another person.
The "template" letter they provide for pastors is actually better than the their own letter, in that it makes this broader, very important point regarding the prudential nature of decisions on vaccines (and other medical interventions) apart from the moral questions surrounding their provenance:
Therapeutic proportionality is an assessment of whether the benefits of a medical intervention outweigh the undesirable side-effects and burdens in light of the integral good of the person, including spiritual, psychological, and bodily goods.[5] The judgment of therapeutic proportionality must be made by the person who is the potential recipient of the intervention,[6] not by public health authorities or by other individuals who might judge differently in their own situations.
Prudential issues are simply decisions one makes when one balances risks. We have to be free in these matters and it's overly dramatic to make it sound as if there is some secret force motivating those who don't think these vaccines are going to be our salvation, or that there is some religious (and not simply rational) reason to avoid them. For instance, a Jew might not want to receive a medical product containing from pork. Even the most orthodox Jew would acknowledge that this a purely religious reason -- it would not obtain for a non-Jew. But both the Jew and the Christian of good will would resist aborted fetal tissue research and development as well as the idea that government will dictate what will be injected. These objections are not religious but have to do with violation of the universal moral law and medical freedom, respectively.
I hope that as bishops gain a voice, they begin to discuss things in a more common sense way. This letter from the Colorado bishops is a good start.
I'm a housewife who won't lose her job if she doesn't get the jab, because I don't have a job. I probably will have to stay put and not go on airplanes, but I'm also 61, have traveled a fair amount, and can live with that.
But I have known for a long time, long before Covid and the current delusional vaccine juggernaut, that the bishops would not come to the aid of anyone daring to question groupthink on this topic. Even if a parent, without challenging vaccines in principle, merely has common-sense objections to sticking an infant with over 20 shots in his first year of life, starting on day one -- even if the parent simply wants to modify the schedule -- the required "religious exemption" will not be supported by any spiritual leader in the Catholic Church he is likely to come across. If a parent is challenged by legal authorities (as many have been, to the point of the child being taken away, even for wanting to delay a shot), I doubt his bishop would come to rescue him.
They haven't heeded the warnings of Fr. Michael Copenhagen about the legitimate concerns of parents faced with subjecting their children to the twin evils of a jab using aborted fetal cells and a mandate to be jabbed in order to participate in society. He rightly points out that without the bishops' support, parents are at the mercy of the bureaucracy in this matter, having no recourse for conscience (or really, medical freedom), since so-called religious exemptions require a declaration from the spiritual leader -- regarding conscience, not the particular intervention.
These issues have been known and have been with us for decades now. Moms like me have been left alone in doctors' offices, trying to navigate the maze that is the balancing of risks and benefits with vaccines for our children, arguing with health professionals who demand submission. I say left alone because I am referring to spiritual support -- at a minimum on the grave subject of aborted fetal cell tissue used in the process.
Bishops caved on the main issues long ago, thanks to legalistic and unscientific theological support from those who dwell in unreal academic corridors, not among the vaccine harmed and those skeptical of increasing governmental intrusion on personal matters.
Now, with Covid, things have come to a head. As the pressure increases to get the still-unapproved, experimental vaccine to work, travel, and otherwise take part in normal activities, people face losing their jobs and their freedom. I have just heard of a nurse in this situation, seeking intervention from her bishop. I can honestly say I doubt he would even read her letter. After all, they didn't read the letters or answer the calls of those reporting abuse of children (see my husband's book, The Faithful Departed, and the tragic story of, among many, Marjory Gallant, the aunt of a boy abused by the notorious John Geoghan). They have moved on to another sort of abandonment.
The bishops are not only unconcerned with such injustices and official overreaction, they have run headlong to support this totalitarian scenario by getting jabbed themselves as a matter of public relations on behalf of a bureaucracy they should resist. They forget the teaching of our Church, expressed in Casti Connubii:
70. Public magistrates have no direct power over the bodies of their subjects; therefore, where no crime has taken place and there is no cause present for grave punishment, they can never directly harm, or tamper with the integrity of the body, either for the reasons of eugenics or for any other reason. St. Thomas teaches this when inquiring whether human judges for the sake of preventing future evils can inflict punishment, he admits that the power indeed exists as regards certain other forms of evil, but justly and properly denies it as regards the maiming of the body...
In my anger, I want to ask them -- should we apostatize, becoming Jehovah's Witnesses or Christian Scientists, to obtain from you support for conscience and medical freedom? Can you really not imagine any circumstance in the future that you would deplore, arising from this precedent? Why not understand that people have valid reasons to refuse injection? Why not do as Catherine Pakaluk, Stacy Trasancos, and thousands of those who signed their statement beg: uphold the right to conscience and awaken the consciences of others?
Before Christianity, there was no such thing as hospitals that take care of all people.
Humane treatment of patients, but most of all the idea that people have an innate sense of responsibility and can act on it, is by no means something universally known or prized. The current era repudiates the Christian legacy, which includes enabling others of good will to reach their potential as helpers of those in need. Instead, an administrative mentality has already taken over, with unforeseen consequences that cannot be remedied until we understand what it is that Christianity offers the world. Where doctors and nurses (and aides) cared for patients based on their skills and knowledge, we now instead have medicine by rote. It's like Moneyball but for health.
The sad thing is that good medical personnel (of all creeds) are trapped. Like the rest of us, they had no idea that the world view would shift, leaving them without a voice. I know that good doctors are not happy to have to go along with what the unknown powers have deemed standard operating procedure, whether of critical race theory, gender ideology, or Covid restrictions. I know that good nurses have quit rather than try to go through each day covered in "PPE" that renders them inaccessible to the very patients they need to reach. I know doctors who fear being caught in a situation where they have to go along with mutilation of the body.
Here is an important article on the subject of silencing, by Bari Weiss. Keep in mind that President Biden has removed conscience protections for medical professionals. As you read, think about the fundamental view of the person that informs how the system itself is set up. Medicine ought to be about the whole person; it ought to look at health integrally. But its agents, doctors and nurses, are also whole persons. They can only approach the patient with their integral being. Nothing can replace their ability to know and act -- no purely bureaucratic system can replace it. There will always be costs and benefits. We can't minimize risk to zero, nor should we try. In fact, it's better to assume more risk on a purely physical plane if it means preserving less risk of dehumanizing -- and really, tormenting -- the ill and their caregivers.
I urge you to read (and click through to sign if you agree that conscience must be protected) this statement on the morality of Covid vaccines.
It's disheartening to see fellow people of good will acquiesce to the premise of the vaccines -- that the situation is grave and warrants such a response, and that a morally tainted response is the right one.
Statement of Conscience to Awaken Conscience (when you click through you will also see embedded links to support statements)
“Abortion has become the greatest destroyer of peace, because it destroys
two lives, the life of the child and the conscience of the mother.”
Mother Teresa of Calcutta (1988)
“She is the human and sacred image; all around her the social fabric
shall sway and split and fall; the pillars of society shall be shaken, and the
roofs of ages come rushing down, and not one hair of her head shall be harmed.”
G.K. Chesterton, What’s Wrong with the World
We the undersigned, men and women in solidarity with the weakest among us, wish to respond publicly to what appears to be a growing consensus among Catholic ethicists that vaccines derived from aborted fetal tissue are not only morally permissible (licit), but also (nearly) morally obligatory for the sake of the common good. Examples include, among others, this statement organized by EPPC, the steady position of the Catholic Health Association (CHA), and a December statement of the USCCB which says that receiving the (abortion-tainted) COVID-19 vaccine “should be considered...part of our moral responsibility for the common good.” These statements are troubling to us, and seem to run afoul of our rights of conscience to refuse such vaccines, clearly defended by the Church, in Dignitas Personae (CDF 2008) and Note on the morality of using some Covid-19 vaccines (CDF 2020). We now fear the circling of the wagons around abortion-tainted vaccines, advanced by powerful voices which seem ready to silence our moral intuitions.
We resist this “consensus” being foisted upon us as morally repugnant: we do not wish to benefit from abortion. We deplore the lack of moral imagination displayed by public health officials, politicians, and all those who disregard the natural disgust felt by persons who wish to remain separate from the crime of abortion in every way possible. And we lament a “soulless scientism” that fails to account for the unique dignity of the human person and the role of suffering in human life.
We are puzzled and pained by the lack of reasonable skepticism which pro-life persons ought to show for the scientific-industrial complex (SIC). A distortion of medical and scientific standards so often accompanies questionable ethical practices, and a “science” which denies life inevitably takes life. Consequently, there are many reasons why a person may feel duty-bound to avoid these vaccines besides religious conviction, such as the experimental nature of them (FDA “emergency use”) and the unknown effects, especially on children and pregnant women.
We hereby urge, by our witness and testimony, that people who agree with us—and also those who disagree but who admire our stance, and who wish to defend our right to hold it—join together to claim the freedom in conscience to refuse vaccines derived from aborted fetal cell lines.
“There is a grave responsibility to use alternative vaccines and to make a conscientious objection with regard to those which have moral problems,” wrote the Pontifical Academy for Life in 2005, in guidance confirmed by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith; abortion-tainted vaccines create a ”context of moral coercion of the conscience of parents, who are forced to choose to act against their conscience.” Indeed, many of us have spent decades trying to resist the abortion-tainted varicella and MMR vaccines, which were produced in the same compromised way, meeting resistance everywhere, being ‘fired’ by our physicians, and opposed even by leaders of our own churches. Many Catholic schools even require students to obtain the morally objectionable vaccines in order to attend.
These failures make us now question whether earlier capitulations (on the grounds that there was ‘no alternative’) were the right courses of action. The threats grow by the moment. Even now, there is pending legislation which would allow children the right to consent to vaccines without parental knowledge. Such a policy has implications far beyond the present crisis. We wish to call attention to the unintended consequences of a ‘soft opposition’ of words and not of deeds. Coercion in these and other matters hostile to life is coming.
We are told there is nearly ubiquitous use of HEK-293 cells in the scientific and medical industry. If this is so, we take it to be evidence of structures of sin surrounding abortion. We invite (and call upon our lawmakers to require) all product manufacturers to reveal publicly and label their use of these cells, so that we can go forward avoiding such products. More has been done to resist animal cruelty and the use of genetically modified organisms than to resist the benefiting from the murder of a child. (The very same papers which report tests of vaccines using HEK-293 cells take pains in their disclosures to say that no animals were mistreated in the course of their research!) We lament that we have been led to use compromised products and medicines in the past without knowledge. Let all that has been hidden be brought into the light.
We find insufficient the accounts of moralists who lean on casuistical distinctions, originally designed to analyze private action in a Christian society, when we are crushed by a public edifice determined to protect the so-called ‘right to abortion’, and determined in addition to benefit from its byproducts in many ways beyond the current (and previous) vaccines. We know that trafficking in aborted fetal body parts exists and amounts to an industry. The acceptance of the use of tissues derived in the past does have implications for incentivizing this industry. While no attention is given to the truth about human life in the public square, and while academia, the media, and elite institutions remain in the grips of a “culture of death,” we believe a more radical public witness is needed today.
We remember the holy mother in 2 Maccabees, a type of Our Lady, who urged her sons to resist violating God's law even if it meant their death, saying, "Therefore the Creator of the world, who shaped the beginning of man and devised the origin of all things, will in his mercy give life and breath back to you again, since you now forget yourselves for the sake of his laws.” We expect great public good to arise if her example of witness to higher goods and God’s sovereignty inspires our actions today. The march of science, the treatments it pursues, the political incentives it responds to, are none of them are immune from moral witness. Without our courage we fear that pinches of incense will continue to be extracted from us, rendering us insensitive to what should cause our indignation, sorrow, and determination to change.
The abortions from which the cell lines are derived are said to be so “remote” as to be like roads constructed by slave laborers hundreds of years ago. Surely remoteness is a judgment in conscience. How “remote” is a cell line connected by continuous life with the murdered child? How “remotely” long ago is the abortion of a child who would be only 50 years old today? It is urged, as if it mattered, that the abortions were not carried out in order to create the cell lines—and yet the tissue of the aborted child (which no lab scientist had authority to use) did not miraculously give rise to cell lines but instead was manipulated deliberately, precisely in order to create the cell lines. Therefore, the use of these cell lines exactly corresponds to and complements the depraved intention to create them.
“Protect unborn man from born man!” St. John Paul II exhorted us. We live in a world divided into a Way of Life and a Way of Death. The Way of Death is this: born man subordinates unborn man to himself, for his own advantage. The Way of Life is this: born man unwaveringly and resolutely protects unborn man, even to his own disadvantage. To which culture do we wish to belong? With which do we identify? “What does it profit a man to gain his life but lose his soul?”
We therefore urge our ethicists to resist a premature “consensus” about abortion-tainted SARS-CoV-2 vaccines. We insist on our freedom of conscience in this matter, to witness to life as we judge we are being called to do. We also urge a reconsideration of earlier “consensus” views about previous abortion-tainted vaccines. And we urge a public reckoning as regards every secret use of these cells derived from an abortion.
We reiterate in closing: even if, as a matter of general principles, it is not always morally illicit to use such abortion-tainted vaccines temporarily, in extreme necessity, and even then under strenous protest, the use of such vaccines must never be advanced as mandatory, or as a universal duty. Because some of us in conscience believe that we are called to refuse to take them.
St. Gianna Beretta Molla, pray for us!
Signed by,
Catherine Ruth Pakaluk, Ph.D.
The Catholic University of America
Washington, DC
[Corresponding Author: pakalukc@cua.edu]
And by,
Stacy Ann Trasancos, Ph.D.
St. Philip Institute of Catechesis and Evangelization
Tyler, TX
[Correspondence: strasancos@stphilipinstitute.org]
Michael Pakaluk, Ph.D.
The Catholic University of America
Washington, DC
Jose Luis Trasancos, Ph.D.
Children of God for Life
Tyler, TX
Most Rev. Bishop Joseph E. Strickland, J.C.L.
Bishop of Tyler
Tyler, TX
Media Inquiries: ysosa@stphilipinstitute.org
For an excellent explanation of how conscience works, read this post from Leila Miller (in which she borrows from J. Budziszewski's thoughts).
We are living in a time dominated by the avenging conscience.
The remedy isn't to outsource conscience but to liberate it the way Our Lord Jesus Christ did, by speaking of repentance. Now there's a word you don't hear much these days...
Leila Miller ends her post thusly:
Men may keep a sort of level of good, but no man has ever been able to keep on one level of evil. That road goes down and down. —G.K. Chesterton
Praise God for the gift of the avenging conscience. For to be pursued by the Five Furies, even to the very edge of the pit of hell itself, is a severe mercy given by a loving God Who will use drastic means to call us back to Himself.
The most rigid authoritarian of the past never dreamed of the sort of interior assent demanded by today's papolators -- that we take every word coming from the Pope as infallible, that we submit to every finding of every Vatican academy or advisory board. (This attitude has a secular analog in abject obedience to experts.)
Underneath all this is a real crisis of understanding conscience, which is simply put, prudence, a cardinal virtue everyone must have in order to be fully man. Putting so much emphasis on authority obliterates the soul. Man has freedom and his conscience can and will guide him. This is a central teaching of the Church, all but lost.
There are many reasons for this that I'd like to explore as we go on. One is certainly the (erroneous) response to those who claim that conscience can relieve them from doing what is good and right.
