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To: C. Edmund Wright
Perhaps you do not understand how I was using the phrase conscience. I use it in a religious sense - not defined as how 'the world' uses it. Perhaps Catholics and non-Catholic Christians have a different understanding of the phrase conscience in the purely moral sense for a decision between the person and God - not the customers. I had referenced St Thomas More so that it would be more obvious but evidently my efforts failed.

St Thomas More was a very successful lawyer who was in the court of Henry VIII. He refused to recognize the king's marriage changes (so to speak), lost his post, came to financial ruin (and bringing his family to ruin along with him) and was beheaded (dying as a Catholic martyr). All of this because while others were able to 'go along' and support Henry's claims/beliefs, More's conscience wouldn't let him. He condemned none of his peers for their choices.

I see it exactly the same.

From the Second Vatican Council: Deep within their conscience human persons discover a law which they have not laid upon themselves but which they must obey. Its voice, ever calling them to love and to do what is good and avoid evil, tells them inwardly at the right moment: do this, shun that. For human persons have in their hearts a law inscribed by God... the more a correct conscience prevails, the more do persons and groups turn aside from blind choice and try to be guided by the objective standards of moral conduct. Yet it often happens that conscience goes astray through ignorance which it is unable to avoid, without thereby losing its dignity. This cannot be said of the person who takes little trouble to find out what is true and good, or when conscience is by degrees almost blinded through the habit of committing sin. - Second Vatican Council, The Church in the Modern World (1965), §§27

I doubt that non-Catholic Christians have it written out in such a manner somewhere, but I believe that the concept is there. Such acts of conscience usually entail serious sacrifice. It seems evident to me that these Christians are following their consciences and feel that their participation in the wedding would be active cooperation with a moral evil.

Are they right? I don't know - again I am more inclined to agree with you. But conscience is personal between God and Man so IMO supporting them is what Christians should do.

99 posted on 09/30/2014 8:39:35 AM PDT by Patriotic1 (Dic mihi solum facta, domina - Just the facts, ma'am)
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To: Patriotic1

flawed analogy, but at least you were self rightous about it.


102 posted on 09/30/2014 8:43:29 AM PDT by C. Edmund Wright (www.FireKarlRove.com NOW)
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To: Patriotic1

What makes this so very frustrating is watching so many people try to cobble together moral theology from their own heads, as if there was no existing Christian tradition on what exactly constituted cooperation in sin.

That and seeing the children of the Reformation, who put such a premium on having the Scriptures speak to the individual directly, upbraid a fellow Christian for taking a stance that they find unstrategic.


112 posted on 09/30/2014 9:10:15 AM PDT by Claud
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