Conscience

Conscience is in the news these days, take Archbishop Broglio’s advice to Catholics in the US military if ordered to attack Greenland. He made it clear “Within the realm of their own conscience, it would be morally acceptable to disobey that order.” 

For the 1.8M Catholics serving in the American armed forces (together with their families, and US government personnel serving abroad, students at military academies and patients in VA medical facilities), their head of their archdiocese is Archbishop Brogilo. 

Brogilo’s statements are a teaching moment for Catholics.  His position is alignment with that famous affirmation of conscience in Gaudium et Spes “Conscience is the most sacred core and sanctuary of a man.  There he is alone with God.”  (I would change the language from ‘man’ to ‘people’, so everyone knows that this applies to women too, but I digress.)

And Brogilo is not the only one calling out conscience – Cardinal Blasé J. Cupich, Archbishop of Chicago, also called out conscience in his March 7, 2025 statement  “A Call to Conscience” about “gamifying” the war with Iran and how it is a moral failure to treat the suffering of Iranian people as ‘entertainment’.

Let’s consider what Catholic Catechism has to say (see sections 1783-1785 -- if you want to check me) -- conscience must be informed and moral judgment enlightened. It must be upright, truthful, and its judgments according to reason.  As I read it, no one has the right to tell you that your conscience is wrong, or that following your conscience when it does not perfectly align with Catholic rules would then make you a bad Catholic.

Catholics for Choice defines conscience as “our capacity to judge right from wrong and good from evil.  It is an internal moral compass that seeks truth and wisdom to guide own behavior and decisions.  One’s conscience draws upon moral codes that come from religion and society, as well as one’s internal belief systems and personal values.”

Let me also quote Deacon Douglas McManaman of Catholic Education Resource Center    “Because conscience is one’s best judgment, hic et nuch (a Latin phrase that translates to ‘here and now’ which means immediate action), a person has a duty to obey it.  The Fourth Lateran Council says “He who acts against his conscience loses his soul”. Moreover, the duty to obey one’s conscience includes an erroneous conscience.” (again, I wish folks would stop excluding half the population by using male language, but I digress).

Not to make light of church teaching, but , like Jiminy Cricket, it just wants to help us to form a conscience but then it allows us to act in accord with that judgment in distinguishing right from wrong.  There is solid moral wisdom in our Catholic tradition about how to know right from wrong.  But, like Pinocchio, we each must develop our own sense of right and wrong. The Blue Fairy in Pinocchio advised Pinocchio to “be a good boy and always let conscience be your guide.”  Our choices, good or bad, are ours to make.  Our church says conscience can err, but it must always be obeyed.

Marylee Raymond Diamond

March 27, 2026