It seems, then, that there are extreme cases in which Conscience may come into collision with the word of a Pope, and is to be followed in spite of that word. Now I wish to place t
On October 13, 2019 the Church canonized a man whose life and work has been described by Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI as ‘one great commentary on the question of conscience’, who was
Liberty of conscience and religious liberty are often identified as more or less the same; and justifications for one liberty are often offered as justification for the other. Whil
Through our individual conscience, we become aware of our deeply held moral principles, we are motivated to act upon them, and we assess our character, our behavior and ultimately
Conscience is an important concept in moral philosophy. It is a subject that gives rise to challenging conceptual, metaphysical, and epistemological questions, and it has generated
To have a conscience involves being conscious of the moral quality of what one has done, or intends to do. There are several elements under the idea of conscience. First, conscienc
The theme to which you have called the participants' attention, and therefore also that of the Ecclesial Community and of public opinion, is very significant: the Christian consci
This Vatican Council declares that the human person has a right to religious freedom. This freedom means that all men are to be immune from coercion on the part of individuals or o
In its modern use, deriving from 18th century moral psychology, conscience refers to a supposed faculty or capacity naturally possessed by human beings by which they are able to tell right from wrong and which troubles them if they act against its determinations. Thus, we have such expressions as ‘consult your conscience’, ‘what does your conscience tell you?’, ‘my conscience has been troubling me’. These indicate that conscience is thought of as an internal voice or companion that a person can listen to and take guidance from. This notion then came to be undermined by theories that explained the impression of an inner voice as being a result of the internalisation of the voice of external authorities. In earlier Christian moral theology, primarily in the work of Thomas Aquinas conscience (conscientia) is the capacity for reasoned deliberation about what is the right thing to do in a particular situation, an exercise of practical wisdom or prudence (prudentia). There is a so-called ‘paradox’ of conscience, namely the belief that it is always right to do what conscience prescribes even where what one’s conscience judges is right is actually wrong. Resolving the paradox involves pointing out that there can be faulty conscience and hence a need for a well-formed conscience to be got from moral education.