Archbishop Cupich: respect consciences of all Catholics who approach the Eucharist
October 16, 2015
Archbishop Blase Cupich of Chicago has said that pastors should respect the consciences of all Catholics who approach the sacraments.
Speaking to reporters at the Synod of Bishops, the archbishop invoked the authority of conscience in answer to a question about whether Catholics who are divorced and remarried should be allowed to receive Communion. “If people come to a decision in good conscience then our job is to help them move forward and to respect that,” he said. “The conscience is inviolable and we have to respect that when they make decisions, and I’ve always done that.”
Responding to a follow-up question, the archbishop said that the same logic would apply to homosexual couples who approach the Eucharist.
Questioned about the proper role of pastors in helping Catholics to form their consciences properly, in light of Church teachings, Archbishop Cupich said: “My role as a pastor is to help them discern what the role of God is by looking at the objective moral teaching of the church and yet at the same time helping them through a period of discernment to understand what God is calling them to at that point.”
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Posted by: Frodo1945 -
Oct. 19, 2015 7:37 PM ET USA
I heard this argument before - 1968. Many, many argued that the decision on whether or not to use artificial contraception was finally a matter of your conscience. And look what that got us, the contraceptive culture among Catholics and the ensuing culture of death. Anyone with any sense of history knows where this argument will lead us - further on down the road to a culture of relativism. I will not follow The good bishop down that road.
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Posted by: Tim S. -
Oct. 18, 2015 8:42 PM ET USA
In other words, simply let people cut into the line of Cafeteria Catholicism.
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Posted by: Randal Mandock -
Oct. 18, 2015 1:16 AM ET USA
If one of the "inviolable" consciences claims that her abortion was not sinful because it was performed for the common good, does the sensitive archbishop forgive or bind her sin in the confessional? If another "inviolable" conscience blasphemes the Holy Ghost, is the sin of this conscience forgivable? The first situation represents the conclusion that California Nancy came to when she asserted that she knows more about Catholic morality than the pope.
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Posted by: garedawg -
Oct. 17, 2015 11:07 AM ET USA
I think that my toddler should be allowed to play in the highway if his conscience tells him that it's OK.
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Posted by: jrorr19609092 -
Oct. 17, 2015 12:37 AM ET USA
So sin is dependent on what one thinks, not on the teaching of Jesus and the Church?
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Posted by: james-w-anderson8230 -
Oct. 16, 2015 10:41 PM ET USA
This does not sound like orthodox church teaching. By definition a homosexual couple can not be trying to live a chaste life because they at best are living in a grave occasion of sin.
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Posted by: unum -
Oct. 16, 2015 9:54 PM ET USA
What was the Archbishop trying to say?
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Posted by: feedback -
Oct. 16, 2015 9:17 PM ET USA
Not a word about the need to evangelize.
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Posted by: Lucius49 -
Oct. 16, 2015 8:53 PM ET USA
This is seriously flawed and is situation ethics which the Church firmly rejects. A sincerely erroneous conscience binds but conscience cannot overrule the commandments. Put another way this is the internal forum solution where a person's has subjective certitude that a prior sacramental marriage was invalid. The Church has rejected this. Very troubling remarks from an Archbishop and simply wrong.
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Posted by: filioque -
Oct. 16, 2015 6:48 PM ET USA
Is there a name for this heresy? I thank God I am not relying of Archb. Cupich for moral guidance.
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Posted by: JimKcda -
Oct. 16, 2015 6:47 PM ET USA
Huh? What did he say???
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Posted by: Minnesota Mary -
Oct. 16, 2015 6:40 PM ET USA
"The conscience is inviolable and we have to respect that when they make decisions, and I've always done that." ---Archbishop Blase Cupich And what has Archbishop Cupich done as a priest and bishop to form consciences that are in accord with Catholic teaching and the Scriptures? A conscience that has not been properly formed in knowledge of right and wrong is a disordered conscience.
