CONSCIENCE

Code: ZE06041121
Date: 2006-04-11
Conscience and Catholic Politicians
Fordham's Father Koterski Unpacks an Ongoing Debate

NEW YORK, APRIL 11, 2006 (Zenit.org).- A recent "statement of principles" by 55 Catholic Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives has rekindled the debate over the responsibilities of Catholic politicians.

The signatories of the letter stated that "we seek the Church's guidance and assistance but believe also in the primacy of conscience."

But, according to Jesuit Father Joseph Koterski, professor of philosophy at Fordham University, the Catholic understanding of conscience requires a distinction. The crucial factor is not fidelity to one's chosen moral principles, but rather fidelity to moral principles given to us by God.

Father Koterski explained to ZENIT the importance for Catholic politicians to inform their conscience in accord with divine moral principles as mediated by the magisterium of the Church.

Part 2 of this interview will appear Wednesday.

Q: Can you describe the historical context that has created the perception that politicians may disagree with, or work against, Church teaching through appeals to "conscience" and their responsibility to constituents and the Constitution?

Father Koterski: It seems to me that it is only because the Church is such a stalwart defender of the genuine rights of conscience, properly understood, that the situation you describe could have come about.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church, No. 1782, reflects a long-standing tradition in Catholic moral teaching that every person has the right to act in conscience and that no one must be prevented from acting according to one's conscience.

In the sections that follow, the Catechism reviews the importance of a proper formation of one's conscience, including the duty and right of the Church through her bishops to be the authoritative interpreter of moral principles for this formation of conscience.

Unfortunately, a common misunderstanding has grown up in modern culture about the notion of conscience. And I think that this misunderstanding is at the root of the notion that politicians may disagree with and even work against Church teaching through an appeal to conscience.

The misunderstanding occurs when one thinks of conscience in terms of fidelity to one's chosen moral principles.

Clearly, acting in good conscience does mean fidelity to moral principles. But in the Catholic understanding of conscience, we are not simply permitted to choose some set of moral principles to which we want to be faithful. God chooses the moral principles we must use in our moral deliberations for us.

God has revealed them to us, and we can find them in the Scriptures. Likewise, we can find them in the natural moral law that God has implanted in human nature.

It is one of the duties of the Church to make clear just what those moral principles are where there is any doubt about them.

In the situation that you describe, it seems that some politicians hold that they may choose other principles than those that God has chosen for us as their basis for making moral decisions.

Sometimes they articulate their reasoning in terms of what their constituents accept as moral values. But in doing so, they risk doing precisely what one may not do as a Catholic, namely, acting as if one were permitted to choose which moral principles one will use for one's moral deliberation.

Q: Is there such a thing as the "primacy of conscience"?

Father Koterski: Yes, the Church has long recognized the primacy of conscience, so long as one understands the term properly. It is not just that one may obey one's conscience, but that one must do so -- but, first, one must form one's conscience correctly.

Pope John Paul II's encyclical "Veritatis Splendor" gives a fine treatment of this question within the section on "Conscience and Truth" in Chapter 2.

In that section he criticizes those theologians who have misunderstood conscience as if it were what creates moral values. Rather, he takes the authentic understanding of conscience to be the inner witness of our fidelity or infidelity to the divinely given moral law. It is for this reason that Pope John Paul II often speaks of conscience as the very witness of God himself within us.

In the correct sense of the term, conscience is the judgment that we make about whether an action we have done or are about to do is in conformity with the objective and universal moral law that comes from God and that can be known by us as the natural law.

But we must note that conscience is not an infallible judge, as "Veritatis Splendor" says in No. 62. Since it is subject to error, we must constantly work to form the conscience truthfully. The magisterium of the Church is at the service of this formation.

Q: To what extent are Catholic politicians and public officials bound by their individual consciences, even when they conflict with Church teaching?

Father Koterski: The issue here, I think, concerns the meaning of the term "conflict with Church teaching."

The term "Church teaching" is a broad term by which people group together various things that need to be carefully distinguished. The term can easily run the range from "universal moral precepts that bind always and everywhere" to recommendations of a practical nature made by one's local pastor on a particular question.

Catholic politicians and public officials are bound just like the rest of us to conform to Catholic teaching on matters of moral principle. In fact, they have a special duty in this regard, precisely by reason of the office they hold and their obligation to work for the common good.

They have a special obligation to know various things about the Church's teaching on any number of matters, precisely because they may need to vote on these matters, or to make policy, or to enforce the law.

If Catholic politicians or public officials find themselves at odds with the Church's teaching, they have a very strong duty in conscience to form their consciences better by careful study of the Church's teaching on moral principles and their proper application.

In saying this, I want again to emphasize that not everything that is said by a Vatican document or by a particular bishop or in a particular sermon is at the same level.

To the extent that we are dealing with a practical judgment made by someone in the Church and not with a moral principle, there is more room for possible disagreement, and hence greater need for clarity about what the facts of the situation are, so that we can ascertain the correct application of moral principles to particular cases.

Even so, it is crucial for everyone involved in such discussions to root their thinking on moral matters in divine revelation and in good discernment about the natural law.

And it is crucial that everyone in such a situation should have the humility to admit that our own individual reasoning in matters of conscience is not infallible. It is precisely for this reason that we need the guidance of the Church on controversial matters.

Q: Is a "properly formed conscience" just another way of saying one who is in total agreement with Church teaching? If that is the case, what is left of conscience?

Father Koterski: In addition to the distinction that I have been making between moral principles and judgments of fact on practical matters, I would like to make an additional distinction: To speak about being in "total agreement with Church teaching" does not imply that the Church has already spoken on every possible issue and on every particular practical question.

Having a properly formed conscience certainly does mean that one will intend to be in total agreement with the moral principles that the Church teaches.

Catholicism is not a moral supermarket in which one can pick the stances that seem best to any individual. Rather, it is a religion that has the promise of divine guidance for its magisterium in moral matters, and that, after all, is a better guarantee than the rest of us can claim as individuals.

But even when we are committed to be in total agreement with Church teaching, we still face the need to work out a solution to new problems that come along on which the Church has not yet definitively spoken.

Further, each of us needs to face various questions of a factual nature, on which we will need to work at applying the principles of divine morality correctly.

For example, one could take up particular moral topics such as the question of law and public policy on immigrants, or the morality of a given war, or countless other questions that turn on questions of fact.

Lawmakers will have to wrestle with the distribution of the revenues at hand, and they will have to ascertain how to state the language in a bill they are trying to enact, so that it will garner enough support to become law. Their task is to craft legislation that will truly respect the moral law in what their legislation requires, permits, or forbids.

It seems to me that there are all sorts of things left for conscience to do even when one is completely committed to Catholic teaching.

Code: ZE06041220

Date: 2006-04-12

Conscience and Catholic Politicians (Part 2)

Interview With Fordham's Father Koterski

NEW YORK, APRIL 12, 2006 (Zenit.org).- The "statement of principles" by 55 Catholic Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives has rekindled the debate over the responsibilities of Catholic politicians.

Signatories of the letter stated that "In recognizing the Church's role in providing moral leadership, we acknowledge and accept the tension that comes with being in disagreement with the Church in some areas."

However, Jesuit Father Joseph Koterski, professor of philosophy at Fordham University, notes that while some issues allow for varying prudential judgments, other issues deal directly with basic moral principles and thus leave less or no room for individual judgment.

Father Koterski shared with ZENIT why disagreement with Church authorities on war or immigration reform is fundamentally different from disagreement on abortion.

Part 1 of this interview appeared Tuesday.

Q: Is there a distinction between a conscientious disagreement with the Church on immigration reform and disagreement on abortion?

Father Koterski: On both these questions, it seems to me, one can identify some matters of moral principle and other matters of practical judgments about the facts.

No Catholic legislator could support legislation on immigration reform that violated the moral principle that requires respect for human dignity.

But determining precisely what our immigration policies should be in order to respect human dignity turns on all sorts of practical questions, such as how many immigrants a region can really handle in any one period of time, or what the appropriate level of health care or welfare support for new immigrants should be.

There are some practical recommendations on these subjects by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, and Catholic legislators should definitely give these careful study.

I think that there is some latitude on the specific answers to these questions, whereas there is no room at all for a Catholic legislator to claim reasons on conscience as allowing support for policies that would treat immigrants, even illegal immigrants, inhumanely.

In regard to abortion, there is a similar distinction between principles and their practical application.

The Church has clearly taught that we must be opposed to procured abortion always and everywhere -- this is a universal moral principle, and on this point there are no possible grounds for disagreement with the Church based on some claims about reasons of one's own conscience.

But there remain various questions about how best to proceed on practical questions, such as on the recent initiatives to outlaw partial-birth abortion.

Here it is important to take note of the directives of "Evangelium Vitae," No. 73, on how a Catholic legislator whose unequivocal opposition to abortion is well known may still vote for legislation that does restrict some types of abortion even if it is not possible at that time completely to forbid the practice of all induced abortion.

In contrast with this careful vision of the relation of moral principles and their proper application, stands the sorry track-record of most of the individuals who signed on to the recent statement by Catholic Democrats in the House of Representatives. For many of them have voting records that the National Abortion Rights Action League considers "perfect" by virtue of their support for the pro-abortion agenda.

The assertions of that document about a commitment to protect the most vulnerable members of our society ring hollow by a comparison with the actual voting records of many of the signers.

The document's references to the "undesirability of abortion" might be thought a hopeful sign. But it is distressing to see that the farthest the signers of the document were willing to go in regard to real opposition to abortion is the document's statement that each of the signers "is committed to reducing the number of unwanted pregnancies and creating an environment with policies that encourage pregnancies to be carried to term."

From the pro-abortion voting records of many of the signers it could appear that their commitment to "reducing the number of unwanted pregnancies" includes keeping abortion legally permissible.

Q: In what way is the Church's teaching on abortion binding on the individual believer in a way that the Holy Father's views on an issue such as a particular war are not?

Father Koterski: It is important to remain mindful of the distinction between: 1) universal moral precepts that bind always and everywhere and 2) judgments that one makes about the facts of a given situation.

The Church has a clear teaching on the topic of procured abortion that has been constantly affirmed and reaffirmed as a principle of morality.

The principle in question here is a universal negative precept that applies always, everywhere, and to everyone, namely, that it is never permissible to procure an abortion -- see "Evangelium Vitae," No. 62 -- because innocent human life is sacred to God and may never be deliberately attacked.

By contrast, the views of the Holy Father on an issue such as the morality of a particular war are not uttered at the level of principle but at the level of a judgment about the facts of a given situation, in light of certain principles -- here, the principles of just war.

If the Holy Father were making a comment about what the principles of just war are, he could well be articulating some universal precept, such as the precept that the aggrieved party may not go to war unless it has exhausted all other avenues to address the injustice, or the precept that even in a just war one may not directly attack the innocent.

But the question of whether a given war is just or not depends not only on adherence to the moral principles dealing with the conditions for just war, but also on all sorts of factual questions.

Because there are so many factual issues that enter into such a judgment, anyone's judgment about the matter can be considered debatable in a way that a statement of moral principles is not debatable.

The Holy Father's judgment on any such matters deserves great reverence from Catholics, but it should not be considered to be at the same level of authority as a statement that he might make on the universal moral principles.

I would go so far as to say that we should even presume that the Holy Father has better access to the facts than we do, and that this would make his judgment on factual questions likely to be better than ours.

But questions of fact are crucial for making the correct application of moral principles, and questions of the application of moral principles to the facts are debatable in a way that moral principles in and of themselves are not.

Q: If a Catholic politician, as a matter of conscience, finds herself in disagreement with the Church on a particular issue, how should she respond?

Father Koterski: Mindful of all that we have said above about the differences in the level of Church pronouncements on moral matters, I would urge that a Catholic politician be first of all ready to become better informed in conscience by further study and discussion of what the Church's moral principles are and what the magisterium has taught about their proper application.

When there is no more time for study and one must act, for example, by casting their votes in their roles as legislators, they need to observe the principles of divine law as superior to their own theories and opinions in matters of moral principle.

When it comes to disagreement over an application of the moral principles because of a disagreement over the facts, legislators certainly must try to ascertain the truth about those questions of fact and obey a conscience well formed by knowledge of true principles.