Catholic Conscience

Many Catholics today will tell you: "It does not matter if I follow the church's teaching on abortion or contraception. Vatican II said that all that matters is that I follow my conscience. I am a good person and I have prayed about this issue deeply and I just don't agree with the church. Besides you only have to listen to the Pope when he speaks ex cathedra."

There is a lot to address in this statement including the nature of the Church but I will mainly focus on one issue for now. Ever since the end of Vatican II there has been a lot of conjecture about what the council meant to mean. We are lucky though. We don't have to guess, we can simply read the documents that were promulgated with the council. One of the four constitutions that was promulgated was called: Lumen Gentium (Dogmatic Constitution on the Church).

Lumen Gentium 25 states:

"Bishops, teaching in communion with the Roman Pontiff, are to be respected by all as witnesses to divine and Catholic truth. In matters of faith and morals, the bishops speak in the name of Christ and the faithful are to accept their teaching and adhere to it with a religious assent. This religious submission of mind and will must be shown in a special way to the authentic magisterium of the Roman Pontiff, even when he is not speaking ex cathedra;"

A conscience must be formed. A conscience must seek truth, it is not merely personal opinion. I won't go into detail on the nature of the Church but if you read "Crossing the Threshold of Hope", John Paul II talks about how we profess belief in the Church in the creed. That the Church is meant to continue Jesus' ministry on earth: baptizing, forgiving, offering sacrifice and even teaching! As Catholics we believe that the Holy Spirit aids the Church in each of these ministries and that we are to be faithful.