Let me say very clearly what this lawsuit is not about: it is not about preventing women from having access to contraception, nor even about preventing the Government from providing such services. Many of our faculty, staff and students—both Catholic and non-Catholic—have made conscientious decisions to use contraceptives. As we assert the right to follow our conscience, we respect their right to follow theirs.
This is part of what the President of the University of Notre Dame (UND), the Reverend John Jenkins, CSC, had to say in a statement explaining his decision that UND would file a lawsuit in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Indiana. The lawsuit concerns the so-called “Obamacare mandate” promulgated by the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius, who just happens to be a UND honorary degree recipient.
The explanation, posted to Fr. Jenkins’ page on the official UND website, articulates a position that many Catholics are familiar with and take for granted. That is, as long as in their consciences Catholics believe that conduct contrary to Church moral teaching is moral, they are free to engage in that immoral conduct because they believe it is moral.
The Motley Monk is no moral theologian or canon lawyer, but he is able to read and is saddened in reading Fr. Jenkins’ comments.
Why?
Fr. Jenkins contradicts long-standing, Magisterially defined Catholic moral teaching concerning artificial contraception (cf. 1989 Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, “The moral norm of ‘Humanae Vitae’ and pastoral duty“). In sum, Catholics do not possess a “right” to conscientiously dissent from defined Catholic moral teaching concerning the use of artificial contraception. After all, in the Catholic view, “rights” devolve not from man—bolstered by science, theology, and the social sciences or public opinion—but from God.
For a President of a Catholic university or college—especially one who is an ordained priest—to state otherwise promotes a false impression, ultimately creating or furthering serious confusion and ambiguity among the Catholic faithful, in particular. Rather than upholding the Church’s credibility in teaching matters concerning faith and morals, statements like that of Fr. Jenkins only provide ammunition to those who are opposed to the Church’s teaching.
It would have helped Fr. Jenkins had he grasped, in particular, the meaning of the CDF document’s reiteration of Pope Paul VI’s words to priests:
Worth recalling here are the words which Paul VI addressed to priests: “It is your principal duty—We are speaking especially to you who teach moral theology—to expound the Church’s teaching with regard to marriage in its entirety and with complete frankness. In the performance of your ministry you must be the first to give an example of that sincere obedience, inward as well as outward, which is due to the Magisterium of the Church, For, as you know, the Pastors of the Church enjoy a special light of the Holy Spirit in teaching the truth (cf. Lumen Gentium, n. 25)” (Humanae Vitae, n. 26).
Priests are called to lead by defending the Church and its moral teaching, calling the faithful to greater fidelity to the truth as defined by the Magisterium. This is especially true of priests who are appointed to lead Catholic universities and colleges.
While The Motley Monk applauds Fr. Jenkins in his attempt to advance the ball upfield in the U.S. Catholic Church’s current battle with the Obama administration concerning religious liberty, The Motley Monk thinks Fr. Jenkins dropped the ball when it came to his statement explaining his rationale.
And people wonder why the critics contend that U.S. Catholic higher education is “Catholic in Name Only”?
To read Fr. Jenkins’ statement, click on the following link:
http://president.nd.edu/communications/a-message-from-father-jenkins-on-the-hhs-lawsuit/
To read the CDF document, click on the following link:
http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_19890216_norma-morale_en.html
To read The Motley Monk’s daily blog, click on the following link:
http://themotleymonk.blogspot.com/
We must remember, as Bl John Henry Newman wrote “The celebrated school, known as the Salmanticenses, or Carmelites of Salamanca, lays down the broad proposition, that conscience is ever to be obeyed whether it tells truly or erroneously, and that, whether the error is the fault of the person thus erring or not ..”
Having cited many authorities in support of this proposition, he continues, “Of course, if a man is culpable in being in error, which he might have escaped, had he been more in earnest, for that error he is answerable to God, but still he must act according to that error, while he is in it, because he in full sincerity thinks the error to be truth.”
Do Father Jenkins’s words imply any more than that?
Michael,
I agree that Father Jenkins’ words are pretty much compatible with those of Cardinal Newman. That said, I would make two obervations. First, the level of serious reflection required or a Catholic in order to depart from the Magisterium is considerable, and it is ludicrous to believe that it is satisfied by most or even many dissenting Catholics. Second, there is a difference between (i) departing from Catholic teaching in order to avoid commiting an act that would be in violation of one’s conscience and (ii) departing from Catholic teaching in order to commit an act that is not permitted by the Church and also not required by your conscience.
“Required of”, not ‘required or”.
Mike Petrik
Fr Jenkins speaks of “both Catholic and non-Catholic” and non-Catholics are equally obliged to follow their consciences. Thus, Newman cites Fr Busenbaum S.J., a noted moral theologian: “”When men who have been brought up in heresy, are persuaded from boyhood that we impugn and attack the word of God, that we are idolators, pestilent deceivers, and therefore are to be shunned as pests, they cannot, while this persuasion lasts, with a safe conscience, hear us.” This is clearly a very strong case of the duty to obey an erroneous conscience.
“But, of course, I have to say again, lest I should be misunderstood, that when I speak of Conscience, I mean conscience truly so called. When it has the right of opposing the supreme, though not infallible Authority of the Pope, it must be something more than that miserable counterfeit which, as I have said above, now goes by the name. If in a particular case it is to be taken as a sacred and sovereign monitor, its dictate, in order to prevail against the voice of the Pope, must follow upon serious thought, prayer, and all available means of arriving at a right judgment. on the matter in question. And further, obedience to the Pope is what is called “in possession;” that is, the onus probandi of establishing a case against him lies, as in all cases of exception, on the side of conscience. Unless a man is able to say to himself, as in the Presence of God, that he must not, and dare not, act upon the Papal injunction, he is bound to obey it, and would commit a great sin in disobeying it. Prima facie is his bounden duty, even from a sentiment of loyalty, to believe the Pope right and to act accordingly. He must vanquish that mean, ungenerous, selfish, vulgar spirit of his nature, which, at the very first rumour of a command, places itself in opposition to the Superior who gives it, asks itself whether he is not exceeding his right, and rejoices, in a moral and practical matter, to commence with scepticism. He must have no wilful determination to exercise a right of thinking, saying, doing just what he pleases, [-] the question of truth and falsehood, right and wrong, the duty if possible of obedience, the love of speaking as his Head speaks, and of standing in all cases on his Head’s side, being simply discarded. If this necessary rule were observed, collisions between the Popes authority and the authority of conscience would be very rare.”
Thanks, Don. The quoted language describes exactly the type of “serious reflection” to which I was referring.
And Michael, my other point is simply that it is important to distinguish the circumstance where following Church teaching would do violence to one’s conscience from the circumstance where following Church teaching would simply deprive one of an option that is in accord with one’s conscience. Newman’s point more readily applies to the former, and Fr. Busenbaum simply exemplifies that.
In the context of contraception the distinction would be (i) I must contracept because the failure to do so would violate my conscience versus (ii) I may contracept because doing so does not violate my conscience. Plainly, Fr. Busenbaum was referring to the former situation.
Or put another way, Michael, a Catholic who disagrees with Church teaching regarding contraception but who submits anyway typically would not be violating a duty to obey his conscience, erroneous or otherwise.
One should not expect more from Father Jenkins than he is capable of giving. Whever Notre Dame stands against the Spirit of the Age–not allowing co-ed dorms, withholding university authorization for a,”gay” student association, so forth and so on–the only public justification offered to the World is that to do otherwise would go against the “teaching of the Church.” There is never s hint th
CONTINUED FROM ABOVE, WITH APOLOGIES–I NEED TO GET BETTER CONTROL OF MY FINGERS . . . There is never a hint that the teaching might have some reason or rationale behind it. Nor is there a hint that those enforcing the rule might agree with it. So, with the HHS mandate: It goes against Church teaching, whatever individual Catholics might think about it. Credit where credit is due: In bringing the suit Father Jenkins may well have gone against his inclinations, if.not his conscience.
FWIW, I suspect that Fr. Jenkins fully supports the lawsuit, but is trying to be excessively politic with important constituencies that are not sympathetic.
Mike Petrik and Donald R McClarey
I can well imagine a case of someone, especially a non-Catholic, who (1) thought contraception, in some cases morally licit (2) is under a duty to render the marriage debt and (3) believes a pregnancy, at this time, would be harmful to the well-being of the family, believing s/he was under a duty to use contraception. In that case, s/he would be bound to follow an erroneous conscience.
On the more general point, consider the well-known case of the cardinals who consulted M Emory, then Supérieur of St Sulpice and a noted moral theologian, on the licitness of attending Napoléon’s marriage to the Archduchess of Austria. No one could suggest they were under a moral obligation to attend, so he could simply have advised them to follow the safer opinion and not do so. On the contrary, he told Cardinal della Somaglia, who had already formed the view that he should not attend that, in that case, he should on no account do so. However, he advised Cardinal Fesch that he thought he might do so with a clear conscience. In advising Cardinal Fesch, M Emory was giving his own opinion; in advising Cardinal della Somaglia, he was stressing the duty of following one’s conscience. There was no contradiction here.
Michael, I agree that would could “imagine” such a scenario, but it strains reason to suggest that this is what Fr. Jenkins had in mind when he stated:
“Many of our faculty, staff and students—both Catholic and non-Catholic—have made conscientious decisions to use contraceptives ….”
Attending a civil wedding that is not recognized by the Church admittedly presents moral issues, but unlike contraception it is not an intrinsically sinful act. Such a decision requires a prudential calculus including consequences. Indeed, there is no way of determining the superior or “safer” decision without such a calculus. The good theologian is best understood as simply making that clear to Cardinal Fesch. Fr. Jenkins was not presented with a comparable moral problem insomuch as the Church teaches that contraception is intrinsically evil.
Not “would could,” but “one could.”
Mike Petrik
Cardinal della Somaglia’s objection to attending the wedding was that Napoléon had a wife living, not that it was a civil ceremony. Cardinal Fesch had actually conducted Napoléon’s first wedding and Somaglia regarded the annulment by the Metropolitan Tribunal of Paris as irregular and uncanonical; only the Holy See had jurisdiction over the marriages of sovereign princes.
Adultery is an intrinsically sinful act, which Somaglia thought he might appear to countenance by his assisting at the celebration. Cardinal Fesch (and M Emory) thought the invalidity of the previous marriage probable, although they thought the contrary view was also probable
Michael, I understand that. But while adultery is an intrinsically evil act, attending a wedding is not, even a wedding that presupposes adultery. As you note attending such a wedding is potentially scandalous and therefore must be considered morally problematic, but the such moral problems are resolved by a prudential calculus, not a rule.
I am not familiar with the intricate history regarding Napoleon’s marriages, but I cannot see how the same person can view the first marriage as “probably” both valid and invalid.
Finally, I do admit to the possibility that it is morally permissible for a Catholic to commit an act that the Church teaches is morally objectionable if such act is in keeping with the actor’s conscience, even if the omission of the act would not violate his conscience. But even if such an expansive understanding of “primacy of conscience” is correct, it is very dangerous terrain. It is one thing for a person to refuse to violate his conscience even in subordination to Church teaching. It is quite another to subordinate Church teaching to private conscience in cases where Church teaching does no violence to private conscience. The latter inevitably involves considerable hubris, almost always unwarranted.
Mike Petrik
In the judgment of moral theologians, “an opinion is solidly probable which by reason of intrinsic or extrinsic arguments is able to gain the assent of many prudent men” Five or six are usually deemed sufficient and even a single grave doctor, such as St Alphonsus, may suffice.
In this way, two contrary opinions may each be probable.
The only response Father Jenkins deserves to receive is the response from Ezekiel 34:1-10.
http://www.usccb.org/bible/ezekiel/34
Those who contracept and abort will be held accountability, and to even greater accountability will be held those priests who encourage, aid and abet such evil. St. Paul would know how to deal with Father Jenkins – the same way he dealt with Hymenaeus and Alexander in 1st Timothy 1:19-20.
Liberal. Progressive. Democrat. The three dirtiest words in the English language. That’s the dictatorship of relativism. “I get to decide what’s good and evil by my own personal conscience!” Horse manure. That’s the very same lie with which Satan beguiled Eve in the Garden of Eden. That’s the way of the serpent, the way of death and destruction. No one’s personal conscience gets to decide anything. Truth, righteousness and holiness are as immutable and ever constant as solid granite rock itself, hence Jesus’ words, “And upon this Rock I shall build my Church and the gates of hell shall NOT prevail.”
Interesting, Michael, thanks. That is indeed a most idiosyncratic definition of “probable,” foreign to science, math, logic and common usage. It seems to me that its usage among Catholic theologians is unfortunate in that English supplies us with “plausible.”
In any case I don’t see how a Catholic understanding of “supremacy of conscience,” properly understood, can honestly explain Fr. Jenkin’s unfortunate statement.
What an interesting phrase – “supremacy of conscience.” Genesis 3:1-7:
1* Now the serpent was more subtle than any other wild creature that the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree of the garden’?” 2 And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden; 3 but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.'” 4* But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not die. 5 For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” 6 So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband, and he ate. 7 Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons.
Paul,
You are correct that “[t]ruth, righteousness and holiness are as immutable and ever constant as solid granite rock itself.” But we humans are imperfect receivers of the truth, and hence some uncertainty is an inevitable part of the human condition. And although the Church speaks truthfully on matters of faith and morals, it cannot speak perfectly simply because it exists in a fallen world where even the most carefully chosen words impart ideas imperfectly. The Church does in fact teach that one should not violate one’s own conscience, and that is good enough for me. But that teaching cannot be properly understood without taking into account our grave obligation to learn and understand Church moral teaching. And the Church’s regard for individual conscience, however real, may not be employed as a license to ignore Her precepts in favor of private preferences. I agree with Michael that it is conceivable that some Catholics have truly and faithfully grappled with Church teaching and have nonetheless decided to contracept for reasons they deem serious and grave, even to the point of believing a failure to contracept would be a moral wrong. In such cases I concede that these Catholics may be innocent of moral culpability or fault; but I believe these cases to be exceedingly rare. Indeed, the number of contracepting Catholics who have even read Human Vitae, let alone struggled to understand it, is almost certainly quite modest.
Yes, Mike P., I agree 100% – “…it is conceivable that some Catholics have truly and faithfully grappled with Church teaching and have nonetheless decided to contracept for reasons they deem serious and grave, even to the point of believing a failure to contracept would be a moral wrong. In such cases I concede that these Catholics may be innocent of moral culpability or fault…”
This happens because bishops, priests and deacons are failing to teach the Truth, the Whole Truth and Nothing but the Truth so help them God.
When was the last time we heard a cleric speak unambiguously about Humanae Vitae from the pulpit at Sunday morning Mass, or failing that, even about the first sin in the Garden of Eden?
Yes, again you’re 100% right – “Indeed, the number of contracepting Catholics who have even read Human Vitae, let alone struggled to understand it, is almost certainly quite modest.”
This is the fault of Roman Catholic clerics in these United States, and of us in the laity who know better for not praying for them that the Holy Spirit strengthens them and gives them wisdom. And God will hold them accountable for failing to preach and teach the truth just as He will hold us accountable for not lifting them up in prayer to the Throne of Grace.
Sorry if I get so vociferous. I am not known for being delicate. 🙁
Speaking as a psychologist, I an say that since the late 19th Century, we know about how the mind works. It is capable of rationalizing anything.
Speaking as a layman, I can say that the mind can fool the conscience.
Terrorists, dictators, politicians, business people, students, pastors, anyone, can fool himself into believing he is acting in conformity with his conscience.
Only God can judge!
But we all know what sin is objectively if we are honest with ourselves.
Paul W Primavera
I quoted Newman earlier as saying “Of course, if a man is culpable in being in error, which he might have escaped, had he been more in earnest, for that error he is answerable to God, but still he must act according to that error, while he is in it, because he in full sincerity thinks the error to be truth.”
Similarly, “invincible ignorance,” excuses, whilst supine ignorance does not and affected ignorance is the prevarication of an unquiet conscience.
Am I alone in finding an eerie similarity between the “Truce of 1968,” as George Weigal calls it, when the Congregation for the Clergy decreed that Cardinal O’Boyle of Washington should lift canonical penalties against those priests whom he had disciplined for their public dissent from Humanae Vitae and the “Peace of Clement IX” during the Jansenist controversy?
In both cases, after the Church had been riven by a decade-long dispute, a papal document was issued that was intended to be definitive.
In both cases, the original quarrel was immediately forgotten and argument raged over the scope of papal authority to decide the question. In the Jansenist case, peace, of a sort, was achieved, when Pope Clement IX brokered an agreement that neither side would argue the question, at least, from the pulpit.
The “Peace of Clement IX” lasted for about 35 years and ended in 1705 when Clement XI declared the clergy could no longer hide behind “respectful silence.” Eventually, in 1713, he issued Unigenitus and demanded the subscription of the clergy to it. There was enormous resistance, with bishops and priests appealing to a future Council (and being excommunicated for their pains, in 1718). As late as 1756, dissenters were still being denied the Last Rites.
Will the “Truce of 1968” end in a similar fashion?
Mike Petrik
As in many other cases, Catholic theologians are using an English word in its Latin sense. Now prob?bilis = likely, credible, plausible (it can also mean commendable, admirable or justifiable)
It comes from Latin proba = proof or evidence, which, in turn, comes from probare = to approve , esteem, commend; let; show to be real, true.
Lawyers are doing the same, when they speak of “the balance of probabilities,” as meaning more likely than not.
It is a “term of art,” a bit like anatomists talking of the “mental nerve,” which is in the chin (Latin mentum) and has nothing to do with the mind (mens)
Yup. Authority. That is the sticking point I think.
We stray into protestant thinking when we think we can be our own authority and still call ourselves Catholic. Father Jenkins states Catholics and non Catholics conscientiously go against church teaching “ both Catholic and non-Catholic—have made conscientious decisions to use contraceptives”.
Once you decide against the teaching Authority of the Church, promised by Jesus through the Holy Spirit, you are not wholly in communion are you. When you start to throw out this or that issue, you are no longer united to the Church in all she teaches and requires for our belief.
Authority and Freedom. Does docility to Church authority as our Mother and Teacher mean that we are not intellectually free? No. We employ our conscience in order to discern the objective moral law; we don’t interpret the Truth ourselves but rely on our three legged stool of Magistereum, Tradition and Scripture.
Unfortunately today we are skeptical that there is an objective Truth. JPII :
“ How should we define this crisis of moral culture? We can glimpse its first phase in what Cardinal John Henry Newman wrote in his Letter to the Duke of Norfolk: ?”In this century [conscience] has been superseded by a counterfeit, which the 18 centuries prior to it never heard of, and could not have mistaken for it, if they had. It is the right of self-will”. ?What was true in Newman’s 19th century is even truer today. Culturally powerful forces insist that the rights of conscience are violated by the very idea that there exists a moral law inscribed in our humanity, which we can come to know by reflecting on our nature and our actions, and which lays certain obligations upon us because we recognize them as universally true and binding. This, it is frequently said, is an abrogation of freedom. But what is the concept of “freedom” at work here? Is freedom merely an assertion of my will — “I should be permitted to do this because I choose to do it”? Or is freedom the right to do what I ought to do, to adhere freely to what is good and true ? (Baltimore, October 8, 1995)?
The doctor said the mind can fool the conscience.. as I think Eve’s and Adam’s did. “Did Eve make a mistake? or did she sin? She had been taught the truth, but her mind wanted to justify her desire.
Perhaps people see conscience as an instrument for positing truth, instead if thinking it to be more like an ear trumpet to the mouth of God.
We form our conscience when we are listening to what God is saying to us.
When John Henry Newman wrote “Lead Kindly Light” he did not mean a light he had lit in His conscience– but the true eternal unchanging light of God. We form our conscience to follow that Light.
Michael, thanks for the explanation — very interesting. FWIW, I am a lawyer and can assure you that in law the term “probable” means more likely than not, unless qualified such as “30% probable.”
Dr. Kenny,
While I’m generally sympathetic with your point of view, I do think the truth is a bit messier than we might wish. As an example: May a soldier in combat intentionally kill his comrade who is dying in agony and begging to be mercifully killed? Church teaching plainly says no — murder is always wrong no matter the motive or consequences. Yet, I don’t think most offenders of this teaching under these circumstances can be presumed to having knowingly sinned, no matter how objectively they may evaluate the situation. Same with torture in the context of the proverbial ticking time bomb. While moral laws are imprinted on the hearts of men, such laws are not all equally accessible. Some are written so gently they are in need of “greater light” to be seen. This is one reason Christ left us his Church. And it is also a reason we should (i) be diligent in seeking to understand Her teachings and (ii) be cautious about subordinating such teachings to our conscience except when necessary to avoid its violation.
Culpability is lessened by the duress of the situation. Agreed. We cannot presume anything about the sin of another person; only God knows the whole story about the person who acts under pressure. We leave the judgment to God Who has all knowledge of the factors that go into the sins of despair and mercy killing.
If we seek Him we will find Him; there is some responsibility on our part to stay close to
Him and get to know HIs voice.
There is no moment in time when we can say we are a better judge than God of when or how a person (even ourselves) should die.
Even if the “conscientious” Catholics and non Catholics referenced by Father Jenkins justify birth control or abortifacients because of the extreme dire nature of their situation they are still only justifying a revolt against the Authority of the Author of Life.
About God’s laws …some written faint and some written bold. That almost makes it seem He has hidden the knowledge we would need to make good use of our intellect and will. ??? While King David did think we could have unknown faults (psalm 19) because perhaps our subjective perception may be more or less clouded, nonetheless the truth is accessible to us, if not in our own thinking, in the revelation of God in Scripture and Tradition and the Teaching of Church.
Objective truth is all of a piece and is coherent. One teaching that is True can not contradict another teaching that is True. It is mortally sinful for us to take another person’s life, in the nursing home or hospital or at Planned Parenthood. Mercifully, our culpability is measured by God.
If men loved God as much as God loves men, life would be livable.
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Everyone is under a duty to inform their conscience. However, most moral theologians argue that, in the case of the laity, this duty does not normally extend beyond seeking the direction of their confessor or spiritual director.
Now, following the promulgation of Humanae Vitae, many pastors, tended to minimise its authority, by teaching that it was not infallible, that many theologians questioned its teaching and so on and suggested that it was up to the individual to follow his own judgement in the matter. Now, doubtful laws are certainly not binding and the fact that advice is welcome does not mean that it is not accepted in good faith.
Many bishops, too, were equivocal on the matter and Rome quashed the censures imposed by Cardinal O’Boyle on those pastors who had publicly dissented from Humanae Vitae. Even those who supported the encyclical’s teaching inclined to the view that those who did not were to be “left in good faith” (a phrase with a venerable history, but only as applicable to errors of fact, not of law)
It is a little strong to suggest that those were wilfully dissenting from Church teaching, who followed the spiritual direction of the pastors appointed for them by the Church.
Dr Charles Kenny
Well said.
As Lord Macaulay said, “We know through what strange loopholes the human mind contrives to escape, when it wishes to avoid a disagreeable inference from an admitted proposition. We know how long the Jansenists contrived to believe the Pope infallible in matters of doctrine, and at the same time to believe doctrines which he pronounced to be heretical.”
Anzlyne
“About God’s laws …some written faint and some written bold. That almost makes it seem He has hidden the knowledge we would need to make good use of our intellect and will. ???”
And, yet Isaiah says “Truly, you are a hidden God” [Is. 45:15.] and Our Lord teaches “”Neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him.”[Matt. 11:27] As St Augustine explains, “There is sufficient clearness to enlighten the elect, and sufficient obscurity to humble them. There is sufficient obscurity to blind the reprobate, and sufficient clearness to condemn them and make them inexcusable.”
Those who teach that it is possible to demonstrate the validity of supreme values by means of reason alone, leaving aside the proclamation of the faith are not speaking the language of Scripture or Tradition.
Michael PS,
Excellent posts. With converts and reverts being a large prescence on the blogs, you provide theological data they are unaware of. Germain Grisez, moral theologian and recently used by the Vatican on a marriage debate at Theological Studies, over here in the US in an interview (he argued that the issue was settled in the universal ordinary magisterium infallibly) said that the laity disagreeing with him on infallibility was perfectly understandable given the silence of Bishops on the issue. I’d add that the abscence of any Pope censuring both Bernard Haring and Karl Rahner for public dissent sent the same message. Arguably John Paul II’s youth when he entered the papacy was ideal if any Pope were going to move the matter out of the ordinary magisterium into the extraordinary magisterium. He did not and this Pope is interested in NT writing. In Evangelium Vitae, John Paul II moved three issues of morals to extraordinary level by polling the world’s Bishops by mail etc. thus abortion, euthanasia, and killing the innocent are now infallibly condemned clearly in language based on the ex cathedra wording of the IC. I suspect he polled them on birth control but did not get the unanimity require to circumvent ex cathedra.
That whole ‘follow your conscience’ thing when it comes to accepting immoral behaviour is a cop-out. We have a duty to have a well-formed conscience and that means in accord with the teachings of the church and not jsut what we think or want something to be. I have known cases where “God wants me to be happy” when couples lived together outside of marriage or entered into an invaid marriage. And they say their conscience is fine with it.
My conscience was ‘fine’ with a lot of things in the years I had in between confessions. Did not hurt a bit when I missed Mass or committed sin. That is because, not being in a state of grace, it was dead.
It is a very serious matter when someone in a place of authority or power-say the head of a university or a politician–says that something immoral can be a ‘matter of conscience. It can’t. And they have the duty to speak and teach the truth and not to do so is sin by at least omission but more likely commission.
Yes. Thank you so much Michael for responding to me.
JPII called the conscience a “herald”. When I think of that, I think “I don’t form a herald, I hear a herald” with the senses that God gave me for that purpose. My conscience is formed not just by my will and intellect, but in cooperation with the Holy Spirit.
My conscience is formed in my personal cooperation with grace, receiving and accepting.
Jeremiah 24:7 “I will give them a heart to know me, that I am the LORD…”
You and Augustine and Isaiah are certainly right. They (and you and I) were and are also right to keep up the effort, the search. We will only know Him completely when we are face to Face.
You are generous and I think Christ-like, when you say that people can’t be faulted if they truly follow their spiritual advisor. At the same time,in love we can encourage people that we are responsible for what we do know, even though we may wish we didn’t have even that inkling of Truth.
In the 70’s, when we went to our hippie priest asking to be married in the Church he asked why we didn’t just live together.
In all the millions who have been taught by Mother Church, many do know that the Church teaches that mercy killing is a sin, that artificial birth control is a sin, that having sex outside the sacrament of marriage is a sin, etc. but sometimes we latch on to what is easier to believe, and to claim confusion because of errant priests.
He is hidden but the search is not fruitless. We are called to seek Him and He doesn’t set an impossible task for us… Perhaps we are granted insights and grace and knowledge of Him and His laws relative to our capacity in the same way that Therese taught us about being little thimbles but being full; so whether you are a barrel or a thimble you can be filled to the full..
The catechism called us to KNOW love and serve Him in this life. We have responsibility to incline our ears, and harden not our hearts; esp. when we are “forming “ our conscience.
We can pray with Paul as in Ephesians 1:17 …” the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation resulting in knowledge of him.”
Magdalene,
But the concept of a sincere erroneous conscience is valid far outside this one issue…otherwise Christian history is permeated with intrinsically evil acts if we accept the list of them in section 80 of “Splendor of the Truth”. Popes from 1253 A.D. until 1816 cooperated with torture in both ecclesiastical courts (light torture) and in secular courts; recently a Pope wrote that torture is an intrinsic evil and far prior to 1253 A.D., Pope Nicholas I had condemned torture to extract a confession as “against divine and human law” in a local bull to the Bulgarians. Who’s correct?
Did the Popes from 1253 til 1816 sin based on doing the opposite of Nicholas I.
St. Alphonsus di Ligouri in his “Moral Theology” noted that even saints have disagreed on the less clear areas of the natural law. He could have been thinking of the Dominicans denouncing the Franciscans for usury in the late 15th century on the way the Franciscans ran their pawn shops by charging interest to cover expenses… with the Fifth Lateran Council subsequently siding with the Franciscans. You have Popes Nicholas V, Calixtus III, Sixtus IV, and Leo X believing in chattel slavery and Vatican II saying it’s “shameful” and John Paul calling it an intrinsic evil. If it were an intrinsic evil, it would be wrong regardless of century. You had Jesuits in China accepting Chinese ancestral rights with Franciscans and Dominicans objecting that it was evil with subsequent Popes siding with both opposing groups.
All of this is why the charism of infallibility should be used more in the extraordinary mode as to morals so there is no doubt. Abortion is now clearly infallibly condemned for that reason and so a person preaching abortion as a good could now be prosecuted in a Vatican ecclesiastical court for doing so in line with canon law 749-3 …” No doctrine is understood as defined infallibly unless this is manifestly evident.”
On contraception Germain Grisez and a Fr. Ford argued it was evidently infallible in the universal ordinary magisterium but other theologians of repute argued it was not…Karl Rahner and Bernard Haring…and Rahner had edited the Enchiridion Symbolorum for years (the tome that keeps track of dogmaticbauthority levels on issues).
On torture, I side with it’s being acceptable ( Popes from 1253 til 1816) but unlike them, acceptable rarely e.g. to extract from a criminal the whereabouts of a slowly dying hostage that he has left in a basement. I think John Paul was incorrect to call it an intrinsic evil based on scripture: ” Evil is driven out with bloody lashes and a scourging to the inmost being” Proverbs 20:30. And his calling chattel slavery an intrinsic evil is refuted by Leviticus 25:44-46. It is necessary in primitive contexts in which there are no prisons…e.g. the uncontacted tribes of Peru and Brazil where theoretically wouldreduce executions, the alternative for even petty thieves where there are no prisons.
also, “the issue was settled in the universal ordinary magisterium infallibly”
Generous for Grisez to say people’s confusion is understandable because of the silence of the bishops, but I think that could be letting people off the hook. People understand that there are bishops who might or might not speak on this but the ex cathedra is all they need to know. Am I wrong?
Anzlyne
Ex cathedra was not used on birth control but it’s kindred infallible venue ( bishops unanimously agreeing with a Pope) was used on abortion in section 62 of Evangelium Vitae. The youngish generation of Humanae Vitae saw an ex cathedra encyclical ( Pope speaking solemnly alone wih particular wording) when they were in grade school…the Assumption encyclical (1950)…18 years before Humanae Vitae (1968). Then imagine that generation growing up and having heard many times that ex cathedra was the cats meow as to being clearly infallible beyond dispute…in Catholic school as to the Assumption. Then Monseignor Lambrushini at the Humanae
Vitae press conference twice stated that HV was not infallible. That meant to the Assumption generation that it was disputably true. Then theologians went public against it. Then dissenters of that generation influenced their children as a recent NY Times piece by Maureen Dowd showed in her case.
Thank you Bill.
… about all the controversy with the infallibility of HV..
Because a teaching about a particular act has not been deemed infallible by the extraordinary magisterium does not mean it is fallible.
There was tremendous pressure on pope the 6th concerning this issue as you know, People waited and wondered what he would say, and some, disappointed, have tried ever since to find ways around it. He felt that repeating and reinforcing the consistent teaching of the Church was the way to go.
The teaching about contraception has been taught consistently from the beginning (Genesis 38) The sin of Onan.
Also Clement of Alexandria wrote, “Because of its divine institution for the propagation of man, the seed is not to be vainly ejaculated, nor is it to be damaged, nor is it to be wasted” (The Instructor of Children, 195 AD,)
and of course Augustine had something to say too: . …”Sometimes this lustful cruelty, or cruel lust, comes to this, that they even procure poisons of sterility” (Marriage and Concupiscence)
and protestants even followed this teaching until Margaret Sanger and her birth control movement began to hold sway early 1900’s ..the Anglicans were led away from this teaching at their 1930 Lambeth conference.
It is a long term highly respected teaching.
Primacy of conscience is being stressed today when so many people WANT to dissent, but the teachings of our Holy Church is our glue. If people want to go against the consistent teaching of the Church and quibble about types of infallibility – that seems too dodgy for me.
Searching for truth, Holy spirit guided. Development of doctrine from the roots to the tip of the vine There is organic growth in our development of doctrine, Yay!
Great discussion. But I am confused. Are not the issues:
1. Should Rev. Jenkins have said “Many of our faculty, staff and students—both Catholic and non-Catholic—have made conscientious decisions to use contraceptives. As we assert the right to follow our conscience, we respect their right to follow theirs.”?
2. Does one’s decisions of conscience have consequences?
As to the first issue, isn’t Rev. Jenkins a Catholic priest speaking in a public forum as the President of a Catholic University? Thus, shouldn’t he uphold his Church’s teachings by denouncing the use of contraceptives as both a violation of natural law and the teachings of his Church? If not, why not? If he does not believe his Church’s teachings, shouldn’t he resign? If he does believe, why didn’t he say so with certainty? Politics is not an excuse.
Second, for the sake of argument, let’s assume one’s conscience can rationalize the use of contraceptives. Doesn’t that use explicitly contradict the teachings of the Catholic Church? Let’s assume that person doesn’t live on an asteroid in deep space. As such, that person, if a Catholic, has removed them self from communion with the Catholic Church, ie. excommunicated them self ? They may be proven right in the next life, but in this life shouldn’t the Catholic Church accept their self excommunication, unless and until they repent. To do otherwise, would be to create confusion and scandal in the Church. And we all know what that can do to a Church. If the Church believes really in what it teaches, it should go forth and preach it. Otherwise, change its position as so many would like it to do. It is either right, wrong or not sure! I believe the Church has chosen?
Anzlyne
You are talking about infallibility in the universal ordinary magisterium. Some very great theologians though would have differed with you as to this topic….and they knew your references
and more. Not every theologian throughout the centuries who opposed contraception agreed with Augustine on Onan. They were against birth control without mentioning Onan. Look at the NAB.
Onan did this repeatedly (“whenever”). Thus God’s killing Onan was not about the act but about the series of acts that precluded any child whatsoever being born. Why is this critical? It’s critical because Christ was to be descended from the house of Judah…which was four men: Judah and his sons…Er, Onan, Shelah. In other words Onan was trying to have no children whatsoever with Tamar. Onan was risking the non descent of Christ from the house of Judah…a sacrilege. Throughout the Bible, God kills for sacrilege not for sex or gluttony or slander etc. God kills Uzzah for touching the ark; Achan for stealing precious metal dedicated to God; Dathan and Abiram for attempting to dethrone Moses; the sons of Aaron for using unauthorized incense; Herod in Acts 12 for accepting the name “god” from the crowd; Ananias and Sapphira in Acts 5 for lying to the Holy Spirit. It was sacrilege for Onan to risk Christ not coming from his little family…the house of Judah. Apocalypse 5:5…”One of the elders said to me, “Do not weep. The lion of the tribe of Judah, the root of David,* has triumphed, enabling him to open the scroll with its seven seals.”. Augustine missed the sacrilege involved and saw only sex….his past in fact. But Tamar and Judah sin sexually in the same story and God does not kill either one of them…because it was about sacrilege…about risking Christ not coming from the House of Judah…one of four men.
ps…the sexual sin of Judah and Tamar produces Phares, the ancestor of Christ.
Good discussion by Bill Bannon. I need to save this text for future uses.
very interesting.. about Onan– I think Jewish (and Christian) tradition was that contraception was the reason that Onan was killed. I don’t think your exegesis is a widespread conclusion.. I could write up some of the arguments about it but
but what we were getting back to is whether Fr. Jenkins statement that there are conscientious Catholics teaching and on staff or studying at Notre Dame who dissent against accepted Catholic teaching. and that that is respected.
That puts everything Cardinal Dolan has been saying in a poor light doesn’t it? Does the Church teach against contraception or not? Is it important? If the individual conscience can trump the accepted consistent teaching of the Church in the case of teaching staff at the Catholic university why should the Bishops be trying to fight the mandate?
Jenkins references “conscientious decisions” and says ” we respect their right to follow their conscience.
We do respect people’s right to follow their conscience. My point is that there is a certain tension between authoritative teachings and the primacy of conscience. The widespread cries among liberal Catholics that HV may not be an infallible pronouncement, begs a question of the authority of long time honored teaching of the Church.
It seems disingenuous to claim in any way that the Church has not always taught against contraception and that the Bishops are hollering then about nothing, because everyone can just decide for themselves. Sound Protestant? Not that there is anything wrong with that, but we Catholics have to be responsible to our Faith. we have to count on the Teaching Authority and not make Church teaching morally relative.
I don’t like the NAB, do you? those footnotes are killers. ..when I was in post graduate I had to put up with a lot of Raymond Brown etal.
Paul,
Thanks. You’ll notice that if God did not kill Onan, Tamar could not move on to the next brother in order to have a child. So killing Onan was for sacrilege but the killing also was necessary to undo the sacrilege by producing a child. But the next brother, Shelah seems to have feared Tamar due to his two brothers dying ( in Tobias, the devil Asmodeus kills any man who marries Sarah). Tamar then disguises herself as a harlot and seduces the father. Thus Tamar and Judah materially sin sexually but live on because they produced the next ancestor of Christ.
Anzlyne,
I threw out Raymond Brown’s “Birth of the Messiah” as a dangerous book to leave to others when I’m gone. But I kept his late life “Introduction to the New Testament” which is actually good in the main as is “Community of the Beloved Disciple”. In “Birth of the Messiah” I think he was performing for Protestant scholars in showing how much he could disbelieve. The last two Popes in varying capacities allowed him on the Pontifical Biblical Commission. They in biblical matters are not as traditional as people think especially when it comes to God ordered violence within the Bible. Read section 40 of Evangelium Vitae by JPII and section 42 of Verbum Domini by Benedict. Both men are insinuating that God did not order death penalties (the first reference) nor the dooms (the second reference). No thanks. Thus Raymond Brown was more innocent to them than to you and I.
thanks – I must be turning into a crackpot– I prob wouldn’t have given him the nihil obstat! : )
I don’t mean to be a smart alec about such a well educated man, but he was a skeptic and he spread it around… Some of my teachers knew him personally and assured me he was a loving gentle man; no horns.
I threw out my Intro to the New Testament ’cause I couldn’t in conscience give it to Goodwill. Lots of good stuff there, but just enough skepticism to infect someone who wasn’t tenacious in their faith.
He and Rahner Hellwig and others made me so earnest about teaching adults the Catechism– Brown more than the others because he reaches down to beginning bible readers and throws them off right at they are getting started..
as far as the pope and biblical interp, I am sure you have read B16 Erasmus Lecture 1998… so the fact that he wasn’t really outright censured doesn’t mean his ideas are necessarily accepted..
Westphilo
By my reading, Fr Jenkins did affirm the church’s teaching, when he said “As we assert the right to follow our conscience, we respect their right to follow theirs.” In other words, “we” do not agree with those who “have made conscientious decisions to use contraceptives.” What more do you want?
Bill Bannon
In examining the Tradition, we look to the Fathers, not as theologians, but as witnesses to the apostolic tradition, handed down in the churches. What we find is a universal condemnation of any interference with or manipulation of the life-giving process. This is their explicit teaching. Coupled with this, we find various explanations offered, as to why this should be so. These are examples of theological reasoning and, as such, form no part of the Deposit of Faith; they stand or fall on their own merits. That is why the evidence of the Didache, of Clement of Alexandria, of Origen, even of Tertullian (who later became a Montanist heretic) are more important than the exegesis of St Augustine. They stand much closer in time to the Apostles and they give the evidence of the Tradition held in the different churches.
Anzlene
Asserting the duty (hence the right) to follow an erroneous conscience is not to concede the teaching is doubtful. It is merely to acknowledge that human beings can be sincere in their false beliefs.
It seems to The Motley Monk that there’s a bit of confusion concerning the “primacy of conscience” in some of the comments to his post as well as in the minds of U.S. Catholics’ as well.
Here is the confusion, at least as it was discussed by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, as best as The Motley Monk recalls that discussion. “Conscience” is not similar to “a breakwater stopping the Church’s teaching from reaching the shore.” In defined, papal magisterial teaching the conscience must yield to the Church’s teaching.
Sounds harsh, no?
As this relates to the use of artificial means of birth control, a married couple might, yes, in conscience, believe it moral to contracept. But, according to Ratzinger, that does not mean they can contracept morally and doctrinally speaking. It means that they must sumbit to the Churchh’s defined, papal magisterial teaching.
That’s even more harsh, no?
Definitely not!
This brings up an entirely different but related discussion that The Motley Monk intends to bring up at some point in the future when there’s a good case application that riles everyone up. That is, the Sacrament of Penance exists for sinners to confess their sins—for example, the inability to follow defined, papal magisterial teaching—and to overcome those sins, in part, through the instruction provided as part of the Sacrament. The Sacrament affords Christ—through the Holy Spirit present in the Church and its ministers—the opportunity to form a defective conscience as well as the grace to live in conformity with defined, papal magisterial teaching.
Perhaps many of those who confessed contracepting in the 1960s, 70s, and 80s were not provided the instruction they needed to strengthen them in their resolve to conform their lives with defined, papal magisterial teaching. Might it have been that confessors “winked and nodded” when spouses confessed contracepting? Then, too, listening to public opinion polls of U.S. Catholics, perhaps those who would otherwise have confessed contracepting stopped presenting themselves for the Sacrament of Penance. After all, the reasoning may have gone, “If everybody’s doing it, God can’t send them all to Hell.” Top all of that off with the “magisterium of U.S. Catholic theologians”—whose infallibility is defined by their unanimity—who spoke against defined, papal magisterial teaching. It’s quite understandable why so many Catholic aren’t confused but conforming their lives with the things of this world rather than other-worldly things, as St. Paul wrote.
One important tool for overcoming this lack of understanding about conscience, in particular, is more catechesis based on the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
To reiterate, perhaps more clearly:
The question here is whether artificial contraception is or is not morally permissible. The Church teaches no. An individual Catholic may want to dissent from that teaching, either in his own case, or in general. So the moral question becomes “does my conscience trump Church teaching?”. The answer is that the consciences of individuals must be formed in accordance with Church teachings, not over against them. Conscience does not need to be convinced by Church teaching, it is obligated to be formed by it and to yield to it.
Now in case the conscience, after having been properly informed of Church teaching, still dissents from it, the morally just behavior, after using artificial contraception, is to confess the sin of contraception and to pray for the grace of a truly divinely illumined conscience.
But the bias is always in favor of the Church’s teaching. And the conscience must always be formed in accordance with that teaching.