Conscience Formation for Citizens

Written by Bishop Wm. Michael Mulvey

July 22, 2012

The Health & Human Services (HHS) mandate requiring Catholics to accept the distribution of contraceptives and abortion inducing drugs is contrary to Catholic teaching and a clear violation of our First Amendment freedoms. As the deadline for this regulation to go into full force is upon us, it is an opportune time to review what we will do if the regulation is not lifted.

Our decision is quite clear. We will obey the law of God.

The “Declaration On Religious Freedom (Dignitatis Humanae)” points out that man “must not be forced to act contrary to his conscience. Nor must he be prevented from acting according to his conscience, especially in religious matters.”

We do not make this decision without seriously considering all the ramifications, but our conscience prevents from taking any other course.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church, in an irony one can only consider profound, describes a moral conscience in paragraph 1776 as “Deep within his conscience man discovers a law which he has not laid upon himself but which he must obey. Its voice, ever calling him to love and to do what is good and to avoid evil, sounds in his heart at the right moment…For man has in his heart a law inscribed by God…His conscience is man’s most secret core and his sanctuary. There he is alone with God whose voice echoes in his depths.”

God’s will is written on our hearts. There is no room for compromise. Conscience is not just a feeling or an opinion. It is not a notion, or whim of the moment. It is a judgment of practical reason about the moral quality of a human action.

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