Synodality and the perversion of conscience

By Phil Lawler ( bio - articles - email ) | Nov 12, 2024

Last night, as I prepared a tutorial class, my wife Leila began tapping out a Substack post on how “synodality” might be used to a very damaging end: “The silencing of objective truth in the soul.” Reading her post early this morning, I put off my own plans to write about the dangers of synodality (that will be my next project), and decided to reflect on Leila’s somber warning about the prevalent misunderstanding of a crucial term: conscience.

Orthodox Catholics, who love and defend the truths of the faith, sometimes develop a habitual negative reaction to invocations of individual conscience. That reaction is understandable, because for decades “progressive” theologians have been invoking the role of individual conscience as a means of undermining moral law. Too often “conscience” has been portrayed as that faculty which enables us to do what we want to do, ignoring the inner voice that tells us it is wrong.

Rightly reacting against that perversion of the word, our orthodox friends hasten to insist that while one must obey one’s conscience, it must be an informed conscience. They are right, of course, but sometimes their next step takes them slightly off-course, if they suggest that the conscience must be informed primarily by the reading of papal encyclicals and theological treatises.

Thus as Leila observes, the fatal flaw of Amoris Laetitia is not that it is at odds with the teachings of St. Thomas Aquinas and St. John Paul II—although it is, and that is a defect—but that it is at odds with the teaching of Jesus Christ: “But I say to you that every one who divorces his wife, except on the ground of unchastity, makes her an adulteress; and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.”

Undoubtedly the voice of the teaching magisterium can and does help to clarify moral issues. But over the centuries countless Catholic have developed a well-formed consciences without ever having access to a single encyclical or apostolic exhortation. Because the teachings of Roman Pontiffs only clarify what comes to us through the Word of God and the living Tradition of our faith.

Conscience is the whisper of the Holy Spirit, or as Cardinal Newman puts it, “the advocate of truth in the innermost part of the human person.” The moral truths that guide a healthy conscience come to us from Scripture, from the Ten Commandments, and at an even more basic level from the natural law imprinted on our very nature. A devout Catholic, facing a serious moral problem, might well consult various Church documents. But in the end, praying over the problem, he might well find in his conscience what St. Thomas Aquinas describes as “the certainty that the divine light is greater than that which the light of human reason gives.”

Too often orthodox Catholics, reacting against the damage done to the faith by dissenters, drift toward the belief that the Catholic faith consists of dogmas that must be accepted and duties that must be performed. That belief is seductive because it is not entirely wrong; there are dogmas to be accepted and duties to be performed. But the essence of Catholicism is life in Christ, life in prayer, life in the sacraments. For active Catholics it should come naturally to want to know what God teaches, to want the guidance of His Church, and to listen to the voice of conscience.

If the Synod on Synodality provides any lasting benefit for the Church (and frankly I am skeptical), it will be the stronger realization that Catholicism is a faith to be lived, not a series of propositions to be debated. Unfortunately I fear that the main actors and organizers at this synod have had quite a different goal, and that their efforts will ultimately undermine the propositions without enriching the active life of the faith. More on that grim prospect in my next column, coming soon.