Conscience is the faculty of human reason that makes practical judgments regarding what is morally right or wrong. In the search for truth, a person should always turn to a respected authority for enlightenment. Catholics are encouraged to turn to the teaching authority of the church, namely to what’s referred to as the magisterium.
But those who act in a way that differs from the letter of the law cannot be presumed to be doing so in bad faith.
The decision to do what is right or wrong always remains a personal one. Catholics are bound to follow their conscience. In the case of Catholics who have remarried without the benefit of an annulment, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith teaches that Catholics whose “nullity of marriage cannot be demonstrated” are not permitted to receive the Eucharist, unless special permission has been given them to live as “brother and sister.”
Most Catholics in this predicament report that they are either unable or unwilling to live as “brother and sister” especially if they have doubts about the validity of the first marriage. They ask: “Can we not trust our own inner sense of right and wrong?”
Those who say no are saying that the partners of a marriage are too close to their situation to be objective, but this is a debatable point.
Pope Francis has placed importance on Catholics being free to make choices using a “well-formed conscience,” but he also warned that it doesn’t mean “whatever I think.”
He repeated the point that the church has always taught the supremacy of conscience. While he upheld the teaching that marriage is indissoluble, he put it in context by stating that conscience is the proximate norm of morality. This is a basic principle of moral theology.
Obviously, freedom of conscience is not a license to do anything one chooses. One must respect objective truth and goodness in making moral decisions. However, when we debate the limits of a person’s freedom in the church, we know full well that a law does not bind in conscience until the individual knows of the existence of the law and accepts it as objectively true and morally binding.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church tells us in No. 1782 that “man has the right to act in conscience and in freedom. … He must not be forced to act contrary to his conscience.”
The Second Vatican Council’s Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World defined conscience in No. 16 as “the most secret core and sanctuary” of the person.
In 1968, the American bishops issued a pastoral letter titled “Human Life in Our Day.” In it, they said: “There exists in the church a lawful freedom of inquiry and of thought, and also general norms of licit dissent. … In the final analysis, conscience is inviolable and no person is to be forced to act in a manner contrary to his/her conscience as the moral tradition of the church attests.”
