"I am a pro-adultery Catholic because my Catholic faith tells me I can be."

No, wait, that's not it.

"I am a pro-spousal abuse Catholic because my Catholic faith tells me I can be."

Uh, hold on.

"I am a pro-murder Catholic because my Catholic faith tells me I can be."

Ugh. Sorry, there must be a technical glitch here. One second.

Oh, here it is:

Finally, I am a prochoice Catholic because my Catholic faith tells me I can be. The Catechism reads, “[Conscience] is man’s most secret core and his sanctuary. There he is alone with God whose voice echoes in his depths.” Even St. Thomas Aquinas said it would be better to be excommunicated than to neglect your individual conscience. So really, I am just following his lead. After years of research, discernment and prayer, my conscience has been well informed. Being a prochoice Catholic does not contradict my faith; rather, in following my well-informed conscience, I am adhering to the central tenet of Catholic teaching -- the primacy of conscience.

Yeah, that's from a piece in the good ol' National "Catholic" Reporter titled, "I am a prochoice Catholic," penned by Kate Childs Graham. Graham was once, she writes, opposed to abortion, but then she had a conversion experience on the road to, uh, somewhere:

And thus started my process of discernment around the right to abortion. It took several years. I asked friends on both sides of the issue thousands of questions. I read book after book. I prayed. I studied what the church hierarchy had to say about the issue. I studied what the Catholic church -- the faithful -- had to say about the issue.

In the end, after months of avoiding my conscience as to not stir up any controversy in my life, I finally discerned that I am a prochoice Catholic.

The conscience, you see, is the Greatest Thing Ever, even greater than God, truth, good, and evil. No, seriously: if you follow Graham's argument to its logical end, that's what she is implying. She knows the Church clearly and consistently condemns abortion and yet she insists her "well-informed conscience" (!) has primacy over said teaching. Making matters worse, she provides a very selective and misleading excerpt from the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which is drawn from Gaudium et Spes. The larger context is, of course, helpful:

In the depths of his conscience, man detects a law which he does not impose upon himself, but which holds him to obedience. Always summoning him to love good and avoid evil, the voice of conscience when necessary speaks to his heart: do this, shun that. For man has in his heart a law written by God; to obey it is the very dignity of man; according to it he will be judged.(9) Conscience is the most secret core and sanctuary of a man. There he is alone with God, Whose voice echoes in his depths.(10) In a wonderful manner conscience reveals that law which is fulfilled by love of God and neighbor.(11) In fidelity to conscience, Christians are joined with the rest of men in the search for truth, and for the genuine solution to the numerous problems which arise in the life of individuals from social relationships. Hence the more right conscience holds sway, the more persons and groups turn aside from blind choice and strive to be guided by the objective norms of morality. Conscience frequently errs from invincible ignorance without losing its dignity. The same cannot be said for a man who cares but little for truth and goodness, or for a conscience which by degrees grows practically sightless as a result of habitual sin. (par 16)

The Catechism says of abortion: "Since the first century the Church has affirmed the moral evil of every procured abortion. This teaching has not changed and remains unchangeable. Direct abortion, that is to say, abortion willed either as an end or a means, is gravely contrary to the moral law" (par 2271). Since the passage from Gaudium et Spes states that the rightly formed conscience summons man "to love good and avoid evil" and "to be guided by the objective norms of morality," it cannot lead a truly informed person to say in good conscience: "I am a prochoice Catholic because my Catholic faith tells me I can be."

Pope John Paul II, in Evangelium Vitae, reflected on how our consciences can be warped and turned away from truth:

The moral conscience, both individual and social, is today subjected, also as a result of the penetrating influence of the media, to an extremely serious and mortal danger: that of confusion between good and evil, precisely in relation to the fundamental right to life. A large part of contemporary society looks sadly like that humanity which Paul describes in his Letter to the Romans. It is composed "of men who by their wickedness suppress the truth" (1:18): having denied God and believing that they can build the earthly city without him, "they became futile in their thinking" so that "their senseless minds were darkened" (1:21); "claiming to be wise, they became fools" (1:22), carrying out works deserving of death, and "they not only do them but approve those who practise them" (1:32). When conscience, this bright lamp of the soul (cf. Mt 6:22-23), calls "evil good and good evil" (Is 5:20), it is already on the path to the most alarming corruption and the darkest moral blindness. (par 24)

And:

The sacredness of life gives rise to its inviolability, written from the beginning in man's heart, in his conscience. The question: "What have you done?" (Gen 4:10), which God addresses to Cain after he has killed his brother Abel, interprets the experience of every person: in the depths of his conscience, man is always reminded of the inviolability of life-his own life and that of others-as something which does not belong to him, because it is the property and gift of God the Creator and Father. (par 40)

And especially:

Among all the crimes which can be committed against life, procured abortion has characteristics making it particularly serious and deplorable. The Second Vatican Council defines abortion, together with infanticide, as an "unspeakable crime".

But today, in many people's consciences, the perception of its gravity has become progressively obscured. The acceptance of abortion in the popular mind, in behaviour and even in law itself, is a telling sign of an extremely dangerous crisis of the moral sense, which is becoming more and more incapable of distinguishing between good and evil, even when the fundamental right to life is at stake. Given such a grave situation, we need now more than ever to have the courage to look the truth in the eye and to call things by their proper name, without yielding to convenient compromises or to the temptation of self-deception. In this regard the reproach of the Prophet is extremely straightforward: "Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness" (Is 5:20). Especially in the case of abortion there is a widespread use of ambiguous terminology, such as "interruption of pregnancy", which tends to hide abortion's true nature and to attenuate its seriousness in public opinion. Perhaps this linguistic phenomenon is itself a symptom of an uneasiness of conscience. But no word has the power to change the reality of things: procured abortion is the deliberate and direct killing, by whatever means it is carried out, of a human being in the initial phase of his or her existence, extending from conception to birth. (par 58)

That's heavy stuff. And it is backed up by the Catechism, which doesn't uphold the skewed notion of "the primacy of conscience":

Ignorance of Christ and his Gospel, bad example given by others, enslavement to one's passions, assertion of a mistaken notion of autonomy of conscience, rejection of the Church's authority and her teaching, lack of conversion and of charity: these can be at the source of errors of judgment in moral conduct.

If - on the contrary - the ignorance is invincible, or the moral subject is not responsible for his erroneous

judgment, the evil committed by the person cannot be imputed to him. It remains no less an evil, a privation, a disorder. One must therefore work to correct the errors of moral conscience.

A good and pure conscience is enlightened by true faith, for charity proceeds at the same time "from a pure heart and a good conscience and sincere faith." (pars 1792-94; emphasis added)

Joseph Ratzinger has written quite a bit on conscience, including the book, On Conscience. In that work he remarks:

It is, of couse, undisputed that one must follow a certain conscience, or at least not act against it. But whether the judgment of conscience, or what one takes to be such, is always right—indeed, whether it is infallible—is another question. For if this were the case, it would mean that there is no truth—at least not in moral and religious matters, which is to say, in the areas that constitute the very pillars of our existence. Thus there could be, at best, the subject's own truth, which would be reduced to the subject's sincerity. No door or window would lead from the subject into the broader world of being and human solidarity. (p 12)

Why this obvious truth is not obvious is, well, not obvious to me. Dr. Ed Peters (who first brought the column to my attention), writes of Graham's column:

I think that her remarks, considered specifically and generally, "gravely injure good morals" and thus constitute the kind of abuse of the instruments of social communication that renders one liable to a "just penalty" under canon law (1983 CIC 1369). Finally, and this is what distinguishes Graham's essay from the typical pro-abortion Catholic palaver, by her own words, she vitiates several defenses that might have been raised for such conduct, defenses based on say, one's ignorance of Church teaching, or because one acted without sufficient deliberation (e.g., 1983 CIC 1323-1324). I can scarcely conclude other than that Graham is daring the bishops to do something about her.

Definitely read his entire post on the "In the Light of the Law" blog.

• "Our personal conscience is supreme" (Feb. 7, 2007)
• The Truth About Conscience | John F. Kippley
• Happiness and the Heart | Fr. Robert J. Spitzer
• Conscience and Chaos | Dr. James Hitchcock
• The Illusion of Freedom Separated from Moral Virtue | Raymond L. Dennehy
• Our Enslavement to "Freedom" | Dr. James Hitchcock

Comments

[Dan Deeny]

Very interesting. A journalist should ask Gov. Sebelius how her Catholic faith supports her pro-choice views. She might explain herself as Ms. Graham has done.

[Janny]

Unfortunately, the bishops will come out with a public statement talking about how sad it is that she has a misinformed conscience, and that will be the end of it. And guess whose statements will get more airplay, press, and attention?

And guess what will be done about THAT?

If we continue to look to our American bishops for leadership in this issue, we're either blind, naive, or just plain stupid. With a handful of notable exceptions, they unerringly fail to provide it.

I'm not sure what else we as lay people need to do, but at the very least, we need to continue to bring attention to this inaction until some, or all, of these corrupt, worldly men are brought back into the obedience they vowed on their day of priestly ordination.

JB

[Joe]

"...my conscience has been well informed." Isn't this so typical of the self-affirming generation now ascending, whether she technically fits the demographic or not. She may disagree with Rome and Tradition, but she has no doubt.

[Bruce]

Truly vile stuff. Have you checked out any of the other stuff she's written? Check out this lovely column from a week or so ago, with all the insightful analysis of an eigth-grader:
http://www.religiondispatches.org/blog/religionandtheology/1154/a_peek_at_the_pope%27s_planner

Ick.

[Deacon Harold]

You cannot be pro "choice" and truly Catholic. Period. You can be claim to be or call yourself a "Catholic" but now you'll have to redefine what "Catholic" means to fit your relativistic way of thinking. Now your caught in a temporal loop redefining objective truth. You are morally and intellectually justifying the taking of innocent human life based on your own authority as arbitrator of subjective truth, which is a bunch of BS.

[Bryan]

Methinks Miss Childs has some other issues going on in her life that are forming her concience:

"Kate Childs Graham writes for ReligionDispatches.org and YoungAdultCatholics-Blog.com. She also serves on the Women’s Ordination Conference board of directors and the Call to Action Next Generation Leadership Team."

Keep drinking the coffee, Carl.

[Ed Mechmann]

It appears that while the young lady was "forming" her conscience, she mistakenly looked up "protestantism" in Wikipedia, instead of "Catholicism". She actually did a pretty good job of forming a good protestant conscience, since believing in the infallibility of one's own private judgment is essential to that effort.

[ELC]

Individual conscience is not the arbiter of doctrine. If she wants that, she should become a Protestant. Officially, that is.

[Chris B]

So, let me see if I have this right. Ms. Graham's individual opini...Oh, sorry: "informed conscience" tells her to reject Church teaching on abortion. "Womens Ordination Conference"? "Conscience" trumps church teaching again? And I'm just spit-balling here, but I'm willing to bet that anyone involved in the "Call to Action Next Generation Leadership Team" (young people in CTA? All 20 of 'em, no doubt. Average age of 40 I'd guess) has a boatload of other issues where their almighty "conscience" parts company with bad old Mother Church.
I'd like to know-seriously- why not join a group that more closely mirrors your conscience, Ms. Graham. The ECUSA certainly could use the numbers. They might even make you a bishop.

[El Zorro]

While this is a critical issue by itself, let's make sure to see the proverbial forest and not just this tree. This woman's article is very much in line with the "young voices" section of the NCReporter web site. It seems to me, as a young Catholic myself, that this is meant to act as a kind of counter-agent to the young Catholic orthodoxy movement so evident in a variety of Catholic circles today. This is an attempt to breathe new life into an aging movement, and judging by the comments underneath many of the articles, it is meeting with some success, inspiring those who have long held such heterodox views but whose voices had been fading into relative obscurity. This could be the beginning of a serious movement, and deserves a charitable, faithful response. Sorry for using the word "movement" so many times. :)

[Carl E. Olson]

This could be the beginning of a serious movement, and deserves a charitable, faithful response.

Which is one reason I wrote what I did...

[Roberta Young]

Doesn't she and her cafeteria-Catholic dissenters realize the Reformation has already happened? The church they want to be a part of already exists (Episcopalian). So why don't they just join it? I think it's because if they left the Catholic Church and joined the Episcopalian Church, the Catholic Church would still exist and they can't stomach that. They really want to destroy the Catholic Church from the inside. These "tolerant" liberals can't tolerate beliefs and moral teachings that are orthodox.

[joanne]

"Conscience frequently errs from invincible ignorance without losing its dignity. The same cannot be said for a man who cares but little for truth and goodness, or for a conscience which by degrees grows practically sightless as a result of habitual sin."

The average understanding of formation of conscience is that one reads all easily accessible material on the topic, speaks to everyone about it in general, conforms to the ingested material, then compares it, (maybe) to official Church teaching. At that point, there's not a single window open for truth. But the "informed", who has merely formed a strong opinion, feels qualified at that point to act according to his or her "conscience".
I, and many of my contemporaries, made that same huge error when faced with the Bush/Kerry conflict. (Yes, I did bring that to Confession--never mind.)Blindness can come from sincere error and from STUDYING sinful thought and opinion.
I have a feeling that there are many blind Catholics out there who intentionally, but mistakenly "informed their conscience" before the last election and are now worse off than they were before. In fact, I know that there were actually pro-life Catholics who "converted" to Obamaniacs after "informing their conscience" incorrectly.

Our stupidity might be funny if not for the millions of lives and souls that will be destroyed. Our near-invincible ignorance is not funny. Pray lots!

[LJ]

We must remember that anyone who claims invincible ignorance is not invincibly ignorant by the very fact of claiming it.

[Diana]

"An Open Letter to US Catholic Bishops regarding National Catholic Reporter's Article: I am a Pro-Choice Catholic"

http://te-deum.blogspot.com/2009/02/open-letter-to-us-catholic-bishops.html

[Karl]

The Title in Bold is most appropriate because that is the factual pastoral bent of the Catholic Church which feeds it annulment mills and is destroying marriage and which feeds the abortion cycle.