RicbardM. Gak, S.S.

RresoN Ixronuno
gy F'errH
Foundations
of
Catholic ((/'l
Lonscience" is another word like 'sin"--often used but little
Morality understood. Trying to explain conscience is like trying to nail iello to the
wall; iust whcn you think you have it pinned down, pan of it begins to slip
away, This is really no surprise. We ell know we have a conscience, vet our
expcriences of conscience are ambiguous. We struggle with conscience when
facing dnse great decisions of life, such as the choice of a career, or of
conscientious obiection to war, or whether t6 pay oxr taxes which support
defense proiects. Yet we even feel the pangs ofconscience over petty maners,
like iaywalking or taking cookies from thc cookic iar. We are told that con-
science cnioys invioleble freedom, yet wc are often given rules so absolute in
character that we wondcr whether .conscierrce rnetters at all. What is this
thing called consciencc? Which is the u'ue consciencel
The 6rst task is to clarify the important distinction between rnoral coo-
science and the superegp, e psychological notion of conscience. After esab-
lisbing $is distinction, we will be able to appreciate the meaning of personal
moral conscience in our theologicel aedition. Only then will we be reedy to
onsider the criticel issue of the formation of conscience. Chapter l0 will bc
exclusively devotcd to th:t issue. Chapter I I will cr:nsider the reletion of
personal nnrd consciencc m the moral teaching of the megisterium, the
officiel teaching ofhce of the pope end the bishops.

Moral Conscience and the Superego

Psychology hes helped us gready in our effons to be clear about the
meaning of conscience. The work of psychologists has helped us to under-
stand tlre devclopmeat of e minrre conscience which is subiect to all the

@ vagaries of the human expriencc of growth and development. Normally the

patu:in of growth is frorn e conscience subiect to extemal control (when the
moral backbone is on the ouside and we do what we arc told to do by
New York PA ULIST PRESS Mahwah
t2t
 t24 Rcuon lxfomd $ Faith
somcone in .udoriry, or whrt wc sec othcr do) to a more intemd, self-
directiog conscience (r'tm thc mord badbonc is on the iaside rnd we do
whet wc.ourselves pcrcive to be right rnd went to do).
. ln other words, e criteriur of e matule norel coasciene is the abilig to
melc up one-s mind for onesdf about whet orrght @ be dme, Nde drc
critcrion says/or ocsclf, oot t, oncsdf. Thc mrtur€ consciena is formed ad
exerciscdin community in didogue with other surces of moral wisdom. The
criterion also implks drat if a person spends his or her whole life doing what
he or she is mld to do by some authority simply because the euthrity says so,
or because it is expectd by the gmup, then that person never reelly makes
moral decisions rvhich are his or her oran. For moral m.rturity one must be
one's oun person. It is not enough merely to follow what one has been told.
The morally rnature person must be eble to perceive, choose, and identify the
self with what one does- On the moral lcvel, we perceive every choice as a
choice between being an authentic or au inauthentic person. Or, as some
v'ould put it today, we act either in charactcr or out ofcharacter- In short, we
give our lives meaning by commining our freedom. The morally maturc
adult is called to snmit his or her freedom, not to submit it. As long as we
do not direcc our own activity, we are not yet free, mordly rnatrrre persons.
One of the rrrst @mmon errors and mures of confirsiqr in talking
rbout conscienct, or in examining coriscience, is to rnistake what the theolo-
gians meen by "mcd conscjencc" with what som psychologists mcan about
con'scieoce when speaking of the 'superego." l{e can appreciate this god of
commining our freedom, or developing our ch:racter, as a morally mature
person if we clear up the confusion between moral onscience and superego
which contaminates so nuch of our thinking and conversing about the moral
conscience.
1.le conscience/superego mixup causes confusion about what it is we
must fom, follow, eramine, and whose freedom we must resp€|ct as morally
rtsponsible aduls. So many confessions in the sacranrent of reconciliatiqr are
more clearly expressions of an over:cdve superego producing unhealthy guilt
than they rre the wimess of an edult moral consciene renewing itself so that
the moril person cen serve God rnore lovirgly end faithfirlly. But the morrl
conscienc€ is not drc suFrego. Whet then is the difference betri,een them?
Psychologists oftbe Freudirn school tell us that we have three srructur€s
to our persondity: the r4-the unconscious rcservofu of instinctual drives
largely dorninated by the pleasure principlg the go--rhe conscirrus srrucme
which operates on the reality principle to mediete dre forces of the id, the
demands of society, and the reality of the physicel world; ard tbe suprgo-
the cgo of another superimposed on our own to serve ls en internal censor m
regulete our cooduct by using guilt es its powerful wcapon. The superego is
Conscietee t25
likc an attic in en old housc. Instcrd of frrmiture, ir storcs all the "shoulds"
rnd "have-tos" which we absorb in the process of growing up under the
inlluerc of audnrity figures, 6rst our parcots but lat€f, any other euthoriry
fgur€e-terchers, police, bocs, sisters, priess, pope, €rc. Its powcrful
weepoo of guilt springs fordl rutomstically for simple faults rs u;U rs for
more serious mrncr, Thc supercgo tells us we are gmd wlreo we do whet we
rre told to do, ard it tells us we ere brd and males us feel guitty when wc do
not do whet the amlrority over us tclls us to do.
. To understand the supcrego we need to begio with childhood. As we
deveJop through dfldhood, the need to be loved and approved is the basic
need and drive. We fear punishrnenr as children.not foi its physical pain
only, but more because it represents a withdrawal oflove. So wi regulate our
behavior so as not to lose love and approval. We absorb the standards and
regulations of our parents, or anyone who has authority over us, as a mattcr
of self-protection. The authority figure takes up a place within us to become
the source of commands and prohibitions. Gordon Allport tells a delightful
tale-which illustrates graphically the way an authority foure takes up a-place
within us so thet not only the content of the command but also the voice of
the extemal authority arise from within.
A three-year+ld boy awoke at six in the rnoming and sarted his
noisy play. TIle fedrer, sleepy-eyed, went to dre boyt room and
sternly mmrnznded him, "get back into bed ad dont you darc get
up until seven o'clock." The boy obeyed. For r few minutes all was
quiet, but soon there were strange sounds dut led the father egain
to look inro the room. The boy was in bed as ordered; but puning
an arrn over the edge, he ierked it back in, srying, ,,Get back in
there." Next a leg protrudcd, only to be roughly retraded with the
warning, "You heard what I told you." Finally the boy rolled to the
very edge of the bed and then roughly rolled back, aemly warninq
himself, "Not until seven o'clockl" We could not wish foi a clearei
instance of interiorizing the father's role as a meaos to self-control
and socielized becoming.
A! dds srrg€ tbe extemel voice of authority is in the process of
-
becoming the internel, or appr.opriate, voice of euthmity. The par-
cnts' task is m enlist the voie in behalf of vimre, as the pcrents
. themselves cooctive virtuc.
To illustr{e tbe prevaiting theory at a sormwhet later age, let
us say the partnti teke their son into the woods on r family picnic.
Under their watchful eyes he picks up the liner efter lunih and
dispoes it. Perhap a 6rm weming on a printed sign, or the sight of
 126 Rcaw Infornal By Faitb
Consicncc
t27
r Fssing constrble, rray dso rct as a monitor of nermess. H€re still
SUPEREGO CONSCIENCE
the nord backbone is on the outside- t

A simplifcd way of drinking about the difference between superego rnd l. funnan& us b rct for thc selre of
monl conscim is to distinguish between the "slroulds" or 'have-tm" ard
l. R'51prrdt tost it vittriw to love; in thc
s.ining epprov.l, or out of feer of very rct ofrcsponding to otherc, one
the 'watts" as the source of bommands 'dirccting our behavior. .Shoulds. lociog lovc. . becomcs e certein sort of person and
and 'bave-msl belong to someone else. "Wrnts" belong to us. As e frierd of cocreatcs self-veluc.
mim ooce rcminded me, 'Don't 'should' on rnc. I dont ucr to be die way 2. Ttrd ir nood nlf io order m
you think I dnU be. " She hed it exacdy iight. 7- Farfuuntel ryta that is ori€trted
The cornmands of the superego which tell us what we 'should" do come
seqte ooc's scnsc of bcing d vduc, tourrd thc otha rnd tovard tbe
of beiag lovrblc. rduc which celts for ection-
from the proccss of absorbing the regulations and restrictions of those who
are the source of love and approval. We follow the commands of the superego t. Tends to b. rrarti by mcrcly rcpeat- 3- Terds to be firat i bv a sensidvirv
out ofthe fear of losing love, or out of our need to be accepted and appiovei.
ing I prio. coomand. Unable to to the demand of values which cail
leam or function creetively in a new
. The moral conscience, on the other hand, acts in love r€sponding to the call
situation.
for new ways of responding.
to commit ourselves to value. The commauds of the moral conscience come
from the personal perception end appropriation of values which 've discover 4. Oriented primarily tward aathitJ: 4. Oriented pd,marily touard aalu: re_
in the stories or examples of persons we want to be like. The moral con- not a mader of responding to value, sponds to the value that deserves
scieoce is the key to responsible ficedom of wanting to do what we do
but of obeying the commeod of preference regardless of \r,hether
authority 'blindly.
" authority rccognizes it or aot.
because we vdue what we are seeking. Whereas the..shoulds" and "have-tos"
ofthe supenqo lmk ro aurhority, the "wants" ofthe moral conscience look to 5. Primary rmntion is givci to iadioid- t. Prim.ry .ttcation is given to rhe
personalized end intemalized values- The consciancdsuperego mixup helps @, a.rr .s bciqg importrnt in them_ lary prr8 or ptt.rrr- hfiividu^l
us ro understrnd in part what makes a person with an over! developed br selves eFn fiom thc hrger context .crs become imponanr wirhin rhis
or patt€m of ectiofls.
,I 9r'erly lctive
srperego have a diffictlt time distinguishing berw€en wbet fu lrrgcr context.
is o-r_9l_ling him or her to do from what inreoni in authority says he 6. Orient€d rov.rd drcpcn: ..The way 6. Oriented toward .,Th3
Tabl_mg
or she'should" do.
the fizrc:
sort of Frson one ought to bccome- "
John W. Glaser gives a more sophisticated contrast of the differences 7. Panisbaat is the sure guarantee of 7. Repdation comes through Jt.z.rr_
bets,een superego and moral conscience in his valuable anicle, ,.Conscience reconciliation. The more sevcre the ing tht futaft orient tion toward the
and Superego: A Key Distinction."r ln the. accompanying chart, I have punishment, the morc certein one is value in question. Creating a nes,
reconstructed Glaser's nine contrastiog characteristics of the superego aud of being reconciled.
moral conscieirce: This listing is not intended to bc exhaustive. t have added
furure is rlso rhe wav ,o -ik" g*d
the pqsr.
empfalil poino of contrast in Glaser's lisg and I hevr slightly re-
F
.to
wolded his dsracteristics to bring his language ioto line with *L"t i
8. The traositioo.from gtilt ro clf- 8- S.{-ftrrcoal is a gradual process of
nnanol @M fairly cesily end np gro*th vhich char.crerizes all di_
using bere. "- klly by mos of confcssing to the mcnsioos of personal dcvelopmeot,
Gleser poiots out th.t the flilure to distioguish bcwecn superego rnd authority.
morel cooscieoce can cluse sorne serious Fstoral onfusion. For example, the
9. Oftetr fildr a gnat diryrynia *- 9. ExFrierrc! ofjBil, is proportionote to
belief thet wc csn makc a trarsition froh grace to serious sin and back to
tweqr f€elirys of guilt cxpericoced dre degree of koowleds. and frce-
grace again ersily and frequendy leads to rhe pheoomenon of mortd sin on aod the vdue .t strkc, for cxtcnt of dom as well as the siight of the
Friday, coofession on Saturday, Communion on Sunday, and back to sin guih depcnds more on the signifi- value at stake, even thouch the
again on Mooday. However, the approach ro serious sin which respects the cance of authoriry ficure .dis- authoriry may never have adiressed
dynamics of the rheory of fundamental option, rogedrer with an undersand_ obeyed' tban thc'weiiht of rhe the sFcifc value.
ing of the difference between supcrego guilt and genuine morel guik, chal_ lalue et stelc-
_lenges such e belief thar one can sin ieriously, refcnt, only to sii seriously
r28 konr Inlormcd 81 Faib
eoei*-end do ell this within r matter of days! The neturc of, garuine moral
c&rsciencc which we ere exploring in this chapter' togcther with thc dimen-
sions of humen freedom which we explored in Chapter 7' do not suppon
srrch an easv rnd frtqu€nt trsnsition.
AnotbL area of pasord cofirsion Perteins to the appropriatc form of
moral ounsctilg. Ai apgoach which services supcrego needs- would be
oriented orimerilv ovnrd-individual actions epert from their mtel contcxt in
'counscling
one's lifel Moml sensitive to mord onscicnce end mord grotth
would pay rttention to thelarg€r cont€xt of the person'i life and to the vrlues
tbrt deserve preference in this context.
What would this distincrion betwe€n s'uPer€go and moral conscience
look like when derting with a pastoral problem? Glaser offers some illuminat-
ing pastoral to cerrain isiues of sexuality-' (an. nororiously
"pp-""f,". -a-rea
suiciptible to i6e tyranny of superego) which resPect the-difference trtween
superego and m.rral conscicnci. For example, an actual case dealing with
m;$u;adun was resolved by the counselor'i refusiDg to resPe& the superego
as ifit were the conscience. It went like this:
A counselor told me of a case in which a hep! y married man with
several children had been plagued by masturhadon for fifteen years'
During tlrese ffteen yo.t't .-tt"a ,iutifolly gone the route of u'eekly
confesiion, Communion, etc. The counselor told hirn to stop think-
ing of this in terms of serious sin, to go to Communion -every
Srinday and to confession every six week. He tried to help him see
his introversion in terms of his own sexud meturity, in terms of his
relationshio to his wife and children. Within several months this
fifteen-yeai-old 'plague' simply vanished from his life. By refusing
to follow a panern of pestoral Practice based on the dynamics of
superego, this counselor was able to unlock the logiam of fifteen
y&s; by refusing to deal with the superego as if it were coosciencc,
h. freed the genuine values at stake; he rllowed them to sPeak and
call the person beyond his preseot lesser sage of sexual integration.
We ian pay rent to the superego but the house never becomes our
own posscssion.l
Although basically a principle of censorship and conrol, the superego
'still has a positive and meaningful function in our personalities. Io children'
the superego is a primitive but necessary stage on the way to genuine corr
scienci. In adults, the superego functions positively whcn integrated into e
meture conscicnct to relicve us from having to d€cide fr€shly in wery in-
stanc€ those matters which are alre*dy legitirmtely determined by conven-
tion or custom.
Coxscietce t29
The differeoce berween dre working ofthe superego in the child and the
adult- is one of degree and not of kind- ln concrete caies, the superego and
morel conscience do not exist as pure alternatives in undiluted'fori.r. We
exgerieng e mixnle of these in our deliberations. Fr. Frank McNulty pro_
vides an illumimting example of this mixore in his account of the inte-rior
dialogue he experiences in trying to decide wheths to attcnd a wake service
or not.-Thc issue emerged when he did not think he would be able to go ro
the.wake because of.e meeting he- already had to attend. But the meiting
broke up early, and thus the need for the decision. Here is the account of hii
interior dialogue:
"Good. I will have a chance to attend that u,ake." (Conscience at
work, saying, in effecr "Frank, my friend lust lost his father. C,o to
the wake; it will mean something to him.')
"Wait aminute. I can't go to that wake. I'm not wearing clerical
clothes. Priests don't go ro wakes dressed like this." (Superego *"-_
ing about making a "bad" appearance, facing disapproval.) -
"Why not? The imponant thing is consoling the beregved. It's an
act of charity. l-ook at Jesus and his example in Scripture, at how
good he was to Mary and Manha wben t azarus died. bid he worry
about what he was wearing?" (C,onscicnce back again.)
"What rvill people think? Remember I was taught that a priest
should even carry a hat to a wake. I don't have tL do that, but at
least I have to wear my clericals " (Superego)
.
"But I gotra go. I have the time. The family would like to see me
there. It will mean a lot to them. I'll probably be the only priest
there, since they dont know priests in the parish too well. C$ io the
wate." (Conscience)
"Wcll, if I go, maybe no one will recognize me. I can sneak in, sav a
preyer and sneak out, without declaring myself as a priesi."
q_uiet
(Superego making a concession, but hanging in there.)r
(As it turned out, the family asked Frank m come forward and lead the
ros4ry. )
The development from the superego of the child to the personal value
perception of the adult moral conscience does not take place automatically.
One of the asts of moral education and pastoral prrctici in moral maners is
to- rcduce th€infuence of the supcrego and to allow a genuinely penonal way
of seeing and responding to grow. One of the grert tempt;ti;ns of moral
r30 Recnn Informed By Faitb
counselim ls to 'should' on the person seeling assistrnce' We can examine
our Dssto;l Dractice on this score by esking' 'Have I 'shoutd' on lnyone
todei'l Or, hi"e t dnwn out of eoother whgt he or she Perceives to be going
or, ,rd rr-o to do?" The god of edult nroral edustion rnd adult moral
dcvelopmcot to ect urorq oui ofa petsonally appropriated vision snd P€rson-
is
dlv committed frcedom end lcss out of supercgo.
' Now that we have distinguished suPeiegp ftom the moral conscience,
we can prcceed with a more elaborate expression of the ways the Catholic
monl tradition has understood the moral conscience.
Moral C-onscience in the
Theological Tradition
The Gtholic tradition has krng rttested to the primacy, dignity, and
inviolabiliry of the moral conscience. According to that tradition' no one is to
be forced to act conrrary to his or her conscience. The followiog two state-
ments fiom the Second Vatican Council sum uP the Catholic tradition's
suppon of the dignity and inviolability of conscience:
On his pcn, man perceives and acknowledges tbe imperatives
of tie divini law tlrough the rirdiation of conscience. In all his
activity a man is bound to follow his conscience faithfully, in order
thrt hc may come to God, for whom he wrs cr€etd. It follows that
tre is not to be forced to act in a manner cbntrary to his conscience.
Nor, on the other hand, is he to be restrained from acting in accor-
daoce with his conscience, especially in maners religious (f)eclara-
tion on Religious Freedom, n. 3).
In the depths of his conscience, man detects a law which he
does not irnpose upon hinrself, but which holds him to obedience.
Always zummoning him to love good and avoid evil, the voice of
conscience can whel necessary spcak to his hean rnorc specificdly:
do this, shun that. For man has in his hean a law written by God.
To obcy it is the very dignity of man; accordiog to it he will be
iudcd.
Conscience is th€ most s€cret core and sanctuary of a man.
There he is alone with God, whose voice echoes in his depths.
(Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, n. 16)
While the dignity and inviolability of conscicnce in our tradition is
incontestably clear, the rneaning of conscience in the minds of many is not so
clear. What does the Church intend to uphold when speaking of the inviola-
Confiictcc l]l
ble digaity and Mom of consciencc? To what docs the Church refer when
spcaking ofconscicnce as our "most sccret core and sanctuary"?
Whereas in the prst we tried to re*rict conscicncc to a firnction of the
will or of dre intcllect, today we undersand coqscicoce as an cxpression of
the whole person. Simplv put, conscience is 'me coming to a decision.. It
includes not only crgnitive and volitional aspecs, but elso afrective, intuitive,
anitudinal, and sornatic rspects as well. Ultimately, conscience is the whole
person's commitment to vdues end the ludgment one must meke in light of
dret commitment to apply those values-
In light of this holistic sense of conscience we can appreciate the three
dimensions of conscierrce to which the Roman Catholic tradition ascribes: (l)
ryrderesis, the basic tendency or capacity within us to know and to do the
gcrcd; (2) norgl scieflcc, the process of discovering rhe particular good which
ought to be done or the evil to be avoided; (3) coasciorce, tbe specific iudgment
of the good rvbich "I must do" in this p::nicular situation. 1'o simplify
matters, Timothy O'Connell refers tr these dimensioos as consciencdl,
conscience/2, and conscience/3 resSrctively.r These are not three differcnt
reelities, nor three distinct stages through which conscience moves in develop-
ing from infancy to adulthood, but simply the three senses in which we can
undersand the one rerlity ofconscience.
The accompanying ctart summerizes briefly the principal characteris-
tics of each sense of consciencc in our theological nadition,
As the chart indicates, conscience/l (.yz&renir) is e giveo characreristic of
being human. This is the capacity for knowing and doing what is good and
avoiding what is evil. The very existence of this orientation to the good makes
possible the lively disagrecment over what is right or wrong in each instance
of moral choice. The great rrray ofmoral disagreement which we experierrce
in our lives does not ncgete the presence of conscience/1, but afrfirms it,
Because we have ryrdercsis, we share a general sensc of moral value and the
genenl sense that it makes a differcncc to do what is right and to avoid what.
is wrong. We cannot live morally without conscienc€/|, yet it is not sufficieat
in and of itself to enable us m choose what is right in eech specific instance.
We also need con-ieocrc/2 (mcel science). Thc force of conscicnce/l
€mpowers us to search out the obiective moral values in each specifc sirua-
tion in order to discover the right thing to do. Discovering th€ opcrative
moral values and the riht tiing to do is the worh of conscience/2 . Its primary
t4sks are accurate perccption end right moral reasooing. For this reason,
consciencd2 reccives a great deal of ettention in moral educetion and in moral
debates. It is the realm of moml blindness and insight, moral dislgreement
and error. It needs to be oducated, formed, informed, oramined, and trans-
forirrcd. In a word, conscbace/2 is subiect to the process called nthe forma-
 4E .2i.8 EE: A o.a.a 6 t t Conxicnce lll
;t
Z6 F=t s!d .o
a
E>, e"r3 i*eu !
E-oE gi! tion-of conscience." Th9 goals of this process are correct seeing and right
;E j.aHe {ETf; - E
'b.!E E€E c

; €s€€S; ctliE : i 9.c t:

E.
thinking. In its accountebility to morel truth, conscience/2 is illumined and
rssisted in many ways to perceive and appropriate this truth. This means that
conscience/2 is formed in community and draws upon many sources of moral
a!:lC E wisdom in order to lmow whet it means to be human in e truly moral way.
s BEFAfft liia Ee g;: E 1€ >.
Conscience/3 (conscience, in the more narrow sense) moves us from
perception and rcasoning to actioa. The generel orientation to the good
gt g iFfa H:;f: :;d Erg E
(conscience/l) and the process of considering tlrc relevant moral faitors
(consciencd2) converge to produce the iudgment of what I must now do rnd

ri iZE0.
F!
rZzi
F C.OE
F'E
F'O
iF f{
f it F ts g{r
the commitment to do it (consciencd3). In coming to make this iu<Igment,
many can help trut no one can substitute for making the iudgment whiih only
L)
z =:3gE; I can make. The characteristic of the iudgment of consciencdl is that ir is
E
; E
E !! 9?; *.i a! always a iudgment for me. It is never a iudgment of what someone else must
tEE *o EE do, but only what I must do. The quintessence ofthe dignity and freedom of
O
a
z
.F E E s?:I*
6 E ! - -.6 .c
V 6 s"i conscience is to be found in conscience/J: I must alwavs do what I believe ro
E F =g,I^_ 9n be right and avoid what I believe to be wrong. If a periorr truly believes in his
() SE
u I €,+;sEEi;F€As or her heart (i-e., with one's whole person) that one line of action rather than
another is God's obiective call, then that line ofaction is no longer simply one
l-\
a
b .9
';.,
EE
"'
{; E; ;cE[;{IE;; option among many. It becomes the morally required line of action ior that
person to take, which is what we mean by being "bound to follow qne's
14
tf)
z
,u)
,q€
va
; E:;€ ;: :is
sg
{g€
f,E
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A€ i € [-E
:ia conscience." Conscience/3 cannot be violated. It is what the Vatican Council
called our "most secret core and sanctuary" (G.S. n. 16) where we are alone
with God.
A good illustration of conscience/3 at work is Sir Thomas More as
c 9E 9 0 9,9
€ 5,'5 F: X 3 E E
FE F E F iJ =CE
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ponrayed by Roben Bolt in,4 /y'cn for All Seann. -fhis play can be read as a
ponrayal of the conflicts which arise between one who answers to conscience
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and those who choose to follow what is convenient- Thomas More faces up to
his conscience above the prestige of his service to the king. In s<r doing, he
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creates a conflict between what is expedient or popular and what he holds so
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portrayal of exercising the freedom of conscience, i.e,, the freedom to think
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't-* only what we believe to be true and ro do only what we believe to be right.
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_ Two shon excerpts illustrate dramatically rhe power and dignity ofthe
iudgment of conscience/3. The first is a scene in which Thomas More de-
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fends his loyalty to rhe pope ageinst the charges of the Duki of Norfolk:

. NORFOLK: All right-we're at war uith ihe Pope! The pope's a

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F.i E. O E L.; MORE: He is.
i.fORFOLK, And a bad one!

t32
 134 Reann l{orned \ Faitb
MORE Bad enough. But the theory is that he's also the Vicar of
God, thc descendant of St. Petcr, our only link with Christ.
NORFOLK: (Stcslr4d A tenuous link'
MORE: Oh, tenuous indeed.
NORFOIIC (Io rb orlan) Docs this ma l<e wtse? Q'to n2!; tbq bk
ot.LnRn You'tt forfeit all you've got-which includes the
respect ofyour muntry-for i theory?
MORE (I/o/y) The Apostolic succession of the Pope is-<SroA;
itttttTfitell - . . Why, it's a theory, yes; you can't see it; ent
touch iti it's a ldl.eiclry. (To NORFOLK, very rapidly bat calnly)
But what maners to me is not whether it's true or not but that I
believe it to be true, or rather, not that I bclieve it, but that 1
believe it. . . .6
In another place Thomas More demonstrares that the freedom and iudgment
ofcrnscience/3 do not exrend to anyone else. In consciencd3 one stands alone
withfu.
NORFOLK: I'm not a scholar, as master Cromwell [the prosecutor]
never tires of poiDting out, rnd frann. y I don't know whedrer
the [King's] marriage was lawftrl or not.. But damn it, Thomas,
look at drose na{nes. , . . You know those menl Cen't you do
what I did, and come with us, for fellowship?
MORE: And when we stand before God, and you are sent
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to Paradise for doing according to yow conscience, and I am
damned for not doing according tb mine, will you come with
me, for fellowship?
CMNMER: So those of us whose names are there are damned, Sir
Thomas?
MORE: I don't know, Your Grace. I have no window to look into
another man's conscienc.e. I condemn no one.7
. This same idee is expressed as poignantly by Manin Buber's tale of
Rabbi Zusya who illustrates the integrity of conscience to be true to itself, for
out of our loyalty to conscience will we be ludged by fu.
The Rabbi Zusya seid a short time before his death, "In the world
to come, I shall not be asked, 'Why were you not Moses?' Instead, I
shall be asked, 'Why were you not Zusya?' '8
Consinee I l.t
In light of this undersranding of conscience, we can now apprcciate the
m.rth of the rnaxirn, 'Let your conscience be your guide." To follow this
maxim uncritically would be to iniect the personal n3ture of aonscieoce with
s stroDg dos€ of individualism and effectively cut off conscience/3 from being
informed by other sources of moral wisdom. Yet genuine conscience ii
formed in did%ue, not in isolation, The.$'ork of conscielcel2 is to c&rry on
this didoguervith t!r9 soulces of rnoral widsom. As Daniel C. Magu;re
explains it, 'The individual and srpremely personrl ngrure of onscience
{oes not mean zre ageiDst thm; it means me distirict from rlsrz but inrinsically
uith tbem.a
The proper interpretation of "kt your conscieoce be your guide" fol-
lows upon understanding it as referring to consciencey'3, When conscience/2
has done its moral homework well, it yields to conscience/3. Its iudgment io
erclr case will be trustworthy in proportion to the thoroughness of the home-
work one does in forming one's conscience. In the last analysis, conscience/3
is rhe only sure guide for action by a free and knowing person. Violating
conscience/3 would be violating our integrity. If we have done all we could
possibly do to inform ourselves of what would be the most responsible thing
to do, then we will not.be entering the realm of sin even if we do something
which we later discover was the obfectively wrong thing to do. We need to
consider, then, what the formation ofconscience entails.
Notes
l. Allpon, Beconing (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1955), pp.
70-7 t.
2. In C. Ellis Nelscn, ed,, Conscie*e: Tbeological axd Pslcbologicat Perspc
&oer (New York Newman kess, 1973),pp. 167-188.
3. Ibitl., p. 182,
4. Frank J. MNulty and Edwxd Wt:*in, SbouA You Eoer Fel Guilty?
-
(Ramsey: Paulist Press, 1978), pp. 53-54.
-.. 5. O'C.onnell, Plittti?ks fu a Cctbolic Morality (New York Seabury
kess, 1978), pp. 88-93.
6. Bok, ,{ Mat for All Semns (New York: Random Housb, Inc., Vin-
tage Books, 1962), pp. 52-51,
. 7. Ibirl. , pp.76-77.
-. -
8. Martin Buber, Tle Wry af Man Accordixg to th Teacbhg of Haidbn
(New York Ciadel Press, 1966), p. 17.
9. Maguire, Tk Moral Cbite (Garden City: Doubleday & Company,
- 1978), p. 379.
Inc.,