Challenges in forming the conscience

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Challenges in forming the conscience

• Ongoing formation
• James McTavish, FMVD

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Outline

• Part I What is conscience?
• Part II Conscience formation and its challenges
• - Our charism and the formation of conscience
• - Challenges to form the conscience
• Part III Forming the Filipino conscience

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What is morality?

• What is it? The P500 bill
• All human acts are moral acts
  St Thomas Aquinas
• The way we preach, talk, dialogue, pray...
• Any act, behaviour, or way of proceeding that we
  intend belongs to morality James F.
  Keenan, S.J.

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Vatican II

• Special care must be given to the perfecting of
  moral theology. Its scientific exposition,
  nourished more on the teaching of the Bible,
  should shed light on the greatness of the calling
  of the faithful in Christ and the obligation that
  is theirs of bearing fruit in charity for the
  life of the world. Optatam totius 16

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What is Conscience? Discuss using GS 16

• 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.
  Conscience is the most secret core and sanctuary
  of a man. 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. Gaudium et spes 16

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What is Conscience?

• In fidelity to conscience, Christians are joined
  with the rest of men in the search for truth, and
  for the genuine solution to the numerous problems
  which arise in the life of individuals from
  social relationships. Hence the more right
  conscience holds sway, the more persons and
  groups turn aside from blind choice and strive to
  be guided by the objective norms of morality.
  Conscience frequently errs from invincible
  ignorance without losing its dignity. The same
  cannot be said for a man who cares but little for
  truth and goodness, or for a conscience which by
  degrees grows practically sightless as a result
  of habitual sin? Gaudium et spes 16

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General Principles
CONSCIENCE

Concrete cases
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• the greatest difficulty is to apply principles
  rightly and in a new way to particular cases
  according to the many circumstances calling for
  different solutions
• St Alphonsus Liguori

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From the apostolate

• The civil wedding in Cebu...
• To pass from general to particular
• The lola who is sick...we will just pray
• To pass from particular to general

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We will just pray...

• Ordinary means of preserving life are all
  medicines, treatments and operations which offer
  a reasonable hope of benefit for the patient and
  which can be obtained and used without excessive
  expense, pain or other inconvenience.
  (Kelly 1958)
• ? Ordinary means are morally obligatory.

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• How does our charism help
  form the conscience of a person?

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PRAYER with the Word of God

• It is important for every person to be
  sufficiently present to himself in order to hear
  and follow the voice of his conscience. This
  requirement of interiority is all the more
  necessary as life often distracts us from any
  reflection, self-examination
  or introspection. CCC 1779

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Prayer

• To discern what is good
• To receive the grace to put it into practice!
• To learn from Christ how to love others
• To correct ones errors

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Community
Social dimension
Dialogue
Take counsel from every wise person and dont
despise useful advice (Tobit 4,18)
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Spiritual means

• Exam of conscience
• Return to your conscience, question it. . . .
  Turn inward, brethren, and in everything you do,
  see God as your witness
• St Augustine
• ROL
• Reconciliation
• Spiritual direction

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Our preaching

• Our preaching can help so much to enlighten the
  conscience. How can we address the issues of our
  times?

Human sexuality
Same sex attraction
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Study and formation

• To help the disciples to discover what is right
  and wrong to know the Law of God written in
  their hearts helping them discover the truth

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Formation of the Conscience

• It would be impossible to live, feel, think and
  love like Jesus without a keen sensitivity and
  right formation of conscience (VDC 27)

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Challenge to form Conscience
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Formation of conscience

• To follow your conscience is in vogue, but it
  must be formed first!
• Conscience must be informed...The education of
  conscience is indispensable for human beings who
  are subjected to negative influences and tempted
  by sin to prefer their own judgment and to reject
  authoratitive teachings. (CCC 1783).
• The education of the conscience is a lifelong
  task (CCC 1784).

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Challenge to discover truth

• Eternal law
• Natural law
• OUTLAW!

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Cardinal Newman

• The sense of right and wrong, which is the
  first element in religion, is so delicate, so
  fitful, so easily puzzled, obscured, perverted,
  so subtle in its argumentative methods, so
  impressible by education, so biased by pride and
  passion, so unsteady in its flight, that, in the
  struggle for existence amid various exercises and
  triumphs of the human intellect, this sense is at
  once the highest of all teachers, yet the least
  luminous and the Church, the Pope, the Hierarchy
  are, in the Divine purpose, the supply of an
  urgent demand
• A Letter addressed to the Duke of
  Norfolk, 1875

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Care for the formation of conscience

• The care for the formation of the conscience
  clearly emerges as the fundamental ethical
  responsibility of every person. Whatever laziness
  in this regard will have immense consequences for
  oneself and for the others it can never be
  justified. Neither is it possible at a certain
  point of life to stop. The path of formation
  needs to be continually taken up in fact in
  adulthood there is a renewed responsibility in
  front of ones professional, family and social
  duties challenged by new ethical problems full of
  questions and uncertainties.
  Rev Fr. S.Majorano CSs.R

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Challenge to form conscience

• Speed of life
• Relativism and going with the flow
• Mass media and misinformation e.g. Human
  sexuality and article from Yahoo news on abortion

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Yahoo news! 1 minute

• Ann Furedi, chief executive of the charity BPAS
  (the British Pregnancy Advisory Service) said
  some women became pregnant despite being careful.
  She said "Women try hard to avoid becoming
  pregnant when they don't want to become a mother,
  or aren't able to bring up a child, but
  unintended pregnancy still remains a significant
  public health problem." Ms Furedi added "Women
  who are then faced with a difficult decision
  about a pregnancy need the option of accessible
  abortion care available to them as early as
  possible - and as late as necessary. "The law and
  medical evidence on abortion has been examined by
  Parliamentarians and we expect July will bring
  further abortion votes when the Human
  Fertilisation and Embryology Bill reaches report
  stage. "We hope that MPs will recognise the
  importance for individual women and society of
  creating a more fit-for-purpose abortion law to
  allow women to access the most up-to-date medical
  care at the earliest possible stage.
  Unfortunately, the existing legal framework can
  actively work to delay some women from
  treatment."

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From Yahoo news

• Ann Furedi, chief executive of the charity BPAS
  (the British Pregnancy Advisory Service) said
  some women became pregnant despite being careful.
  She said "Women try hard to avoid becoming
  pregnant when they don't want to become a mother,
  or aren't able to bring up a child, but
  unintended pregnancy still remains a significant
  public health problem." Ms Furedi added "Women
  who are then faced with a difficult decision
  about a pregnancy need the option of accessible
  abortion care available to them as early as
  possible - and as late as necessary. "The law and
  medical evidence on abortion has been examined by
  Parliamentarians and we expect July will bring
  further abortion votes when the Human
  Fertilisation and Embryology Bill reaches report
  stage. "We hope that MPs will recognise the
  importance for individual women and society of
  creating a more fit-for-purpose abortion law to
  allow women to access the most up-to-date medical
  care at the earliest possible stage.
  Unfortunately, the existing legal framework can
  actively work to delay some women from
  treatment."

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Ongoing challenges

• Individualism
• Reduced communication
• Lack of a critical sense to be closed in ones
  convictions

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What are the elements in the formation of the
conscience?

• - To be sufficiently present to myself
• - Vigilance and critical sense
• - To be open and humble

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Critical consumers

• The means of social communication (especially
  the mass media) can give rise to a certain
  passivity among users, making them less than
  vigilant consumers of what is said or shown.
  Users should practice moderation and discipline
  in their approach to the mass media. They will
  want to form enlightened and correct consciences
  the more easily to resist unwholesome
  influences. CCC 2496

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• The world is in danger from a lack of thinking
• Rev. Fr. Adolfo Nicolas, S.J.

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Which is first in forming the conscience?

Theory or praxis?
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Evangelium vitae, 16

• The Pharaoh of old, haunted by the presence and
  increase of the children of Israel, submitted
  them to every kind of oppression and ordered that
  every male child born of the Hebrew women was to
  be killed (cf. Ex 17-22). Today not a few of the
  powerful of the earth act in the same way. They
  too are haunted by the current demographic
  growth, and fear that the most prolific and
  poorest peoples represent a threat for the
  well-being and peace of their own countries.
  Consequently, rather than wishing to face and
  solve these serious problems with respect for the
  dignity of individuals and families and for every
  person's inviolable right to life, they prefer to
  promote and impose by whatever means a massive
  programme of birth control. Even the economic
  help which they would be ready to give is
  unjustly made conditional on the acceptance of an
  anti-birth policy.

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Ongoing formation

• What pastoral situations are challenging you to
  form your conscience?
• e.g. teenager asking me about her older
  sister who has a
  girlfriend...what to advise?

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I didnt know...

• Ignorance
• - vincible (your fault that you did
  not know)
• - invicincible

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Duty to follow the conscience

• Follow your conscience but form it well first!

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• With great care guard your heart for in it are
  the sources of life (Proverbs 4,23)
• Do not conform yourselves to this age but be
  transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you
  may discern what is the will of God, what is good
  and pleasing and perfect.
• (Rom 12,2)

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SALAMAT!Case discussion to follow
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Discussion points

• The community will always follow the guidelines
  of the Holy See, will always heed the
  orientations given by the Shepherds of the
  Catholic church VDC 6 (See also VDC
  12-14, 90)
• To be zealous for the truth a true pastoral
  accompaniment