Huhhhhh???
I am not sure I exactly know where to start with this one, but here goes any way. LifeSiteNews, God bless them, has uncovered another case of absolute brilliance (not) on the part of some dissenting Australian Catholics. They are asking the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) to correct Cardinal Pell for what they say “are his misrepresentations of Catholic doctrine.”
Here is what has their skivvies in a knot, according to the article:
They complain that the Cardinal’s emphasis on the Church’s teaching on issues like contraception, abortion and euthanasia, leaves no room for what they call the “primacy of conscience” which they claim was established by the Second Vatican Council.
Now I am not sure if they honestly believe this claim or not, but I still find it curious. However, if they are serious, you would think they might actually first consult such Magisterial documents such as Veritatis splendor, which explicitly denies that one can appeal to a conflict between conscience and Church teaching as legitimate for dissent from authoritative Church teaching.
Conscience is not a source of Divine Revelation, nor it is a process of reflective moral speculation on par with the Magisterium. Rather, it is a faculty by which one 1) becomes aware of objective moral norms, 2) applies the norms to the given situation, 3) judges whether one’s actions are in conformance with these norms, and then 4) either acquits or condemns the person in his action or failure to act. Notice here there is no place for determining whether the Church teaching on objective moral norms is correct or not. That is not a function of conscience. A person can honestly err in any of the above steps and be morally inculpable. However, he cannot consciously dissent from revealed truth as authoritatively taught by the Magisterium and inculpably absolve himself from acting justly, by falsely classifying his action as a judgment of conscience.
I don’t know, perhaps these folks were bored and wanted something to occupy their time. Maybe they have fallen for some of the confused commentary on Deus Caritas Est, and thought that under B16 if the Church has turned over a new leaf on love maybe now is the time to try to get some “spirit of Vatican II” myths adopted as well. I hold only as a remote possibility that they were sufficiently ignorant so as to actually believe they are right. Whatever the case, I agree with Cardinal Pell…this appeal to the CDF certainly can be classified as a “real hoot.”
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