{"id":5511,"date":"2015-01-21T23:38:03","date_gmt":"2015-01-22T05:38:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/marccardaronella.com\/?p=5511"},"modified":"2020-09-10T15:07:12","modified_gmt":"2020-09-10T21:07:12","slug":"problem-conscience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marccardaronella.com\/blog\/2015\/01\/21\/problem-conscience\/","title":{"rendered":"The Problem With Conscience"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"The<\/a><\/p>\n

I have this little voice in my head.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not really a voice, actually. It\u2019s more like an intuition.<\/p>\n

Sometimes it tells me I should do something a certain way, or that I should have done something a different way.<\/p>\n

A lot to times it comes a little too late, like as I’m doing something I\u2019ve already decided to do.<\/p>\n

Sometimes it’s a terrible feeling in my chest, like a brick, after I’ve done something that I thought would be good realized wasn’t, or that I’m on the fence about doing and do anyway.<\/p>\n

Do you ever get that feeling? It\u2019s your conscience talking.<\/p>\n

What is conscience?<\/h2>\n

According to the Catechism, conscience is a \u201cjudgment of reason\u201d that helps you recognize whether an action\u00a0is good or bad. It could be something you\u2019re going to do, something you\u2019re in the process of doing, or something you\u2019ve already done.<\/p>\n

Conscience is\u00a0present in your heart\u2026the spiritual not physical heart. Your heart is the core of your being, where you make decisions, where you determine yourself.<\/p>\n

The Vatican II document, Gaudium et Spes<\/em>, calls conscience a \u201claw inscribed by God,\u201d a \u201csecret core and\u2026sanctuary\u201d where a person is \u201calone with God whose voice echoes in his depths.\u201d<\/p>\n

Conscience is God\u2019s voice speaking to you in the inner recesses of your heart, helping you judge the quality of your acts. It\u2019s independent of Baptism. It\u2019s just there. The vestige of a time, in the beginning, when we walked with God and knew his mind as our own. John Henry Cardinal Newman called it the \u201caboriginal Vicar of Christ.\u201d<\/p>\n

Can you trust your conscience?<\/h2>\n

So that\u2019s cool, right? God is sort of hanging out inside, keeping tabs on what I\u2019m doing, and through little intuitions and feelings, he\u2019s helping me walk the straight and narrow in order to stay close to him.<\/p>\n

Except for one thing.<\/p>\n

The Catechism also\u00a0says, \u201cWhen he listens to his conscience, the prudent man can hear God speaking.\u201d The prudent man. How many of us\u00a0are prudent? (I’m only half raising my hand.)<\/p>\n

Now we’re getting to the problem.\u00a0Some might hear they\u2019re obliged to follow their conscience (and they are) but they are not the \u201cprudent man\u201d the Catechism is talking about. That’s because prudence would dictate forming conscience in the Faith\u2026and they\u2019re not!<\/p>\n

Conscience can lead you\u00a0astray. Because it\u2019s a judgment of reason, it goes off what you know and understand. To really be sure conscience is guiding you in the right direction, you have to know Church teaching. You\u00a0have to follow conscience, but can you completely trust it if you don\u2019t know what the Church teaches?<\/p>\n

In some cases, a bad decision that’s the result of\u00a0following your conscience can reduce your responsibility. If there\u2019s no way you could know better, there’s no guilt.\u00a0There is such a thing as “invincible ignorance.”\u00a0That\u2019s when there is absolutely NO WAY you could have known any better. It remains a sin, though, and it can damage your soul.<\/p>\n

EVEN THEN, you may still not be off the hook. If you haven\u2019t taken the appropriate steps to form your conscience, that bad decision is all on you. If you happen to live in the one place on earth a Catholic missionary can’t reach, the remote mountains of China perhaps, you might be alright. But really, most Catholics have complete access to Church teaching these days (think Internet). It\u2019s just a matter of making learning it a priority.<\/p>\n

The point: Conscience needs enlightening<\/h2>\n

My point is, all this should make\u00a0studying the Faith, and teaching it, even more urgent for you.<\/p>\n

People need to know what Christ reveals\u2026especially baptized Catholics. Their holiness\u00a0hangs in the balance.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not enough to just know a little. Most people are content with a limited understanding of\u00a0the Catholic Faith.\u00a0Perhaps they think it doesn’t matter because they’re following their conscience. But that may not be the case. Their conscience might be leading them to error.<\/p>\n

The great thing about conscience is, if you enlighten it with education, it will lead you to God. There aren’t always concrete answers. You may find yourself having to make decisions in a morally gray area. In those situations, a right conscience can lead you toward God. Conscience\u00a0makes you most happy when it knows the right direction to go.<\/p>\n

Image credit: Unsplash\/Chris Sardegna<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have this little voice in my head. It\u2019s not really a voice, actually. It\u2019s more like an intuition. Sometimes it tells me I should do something a certain way, or that I should have done something a different way. A lot to times it comes a little too late, like as I’m doing something […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5513,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5511","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-catechesis","post-wrapper","thrv_wrapper"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Problem With Conscience - Marc Cardaronella<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Conscience can be a great help in the spiritual life. It can also lead you astray. 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