I came of age during the cultural changes of the 1960s. Even though my Catholic upbringing had taught me that sex outside of marriage was wrong, I couldn’t wait for my first sexual encounter with a willing young woman. Everyone seemed to be ‘doing it’ and I was eager to do it, too.
Such was the impact of the ‘Sexual Revolution’ of the 60s.
As a young boy I was a fairly devout Catholic, but as a teenager I veered off the narrow path. I rationalized my lust by telling myself Church teaching on fornication just might be wrong. After all, I asked myself, what is so wrong about a male and a female experiencing the pleasure of sexual intercourse?
Of course that kind of thinking also got me thinking that Church teaching about artificial birth control might be wrong as well. If there was a method available to prevent pregnancy what was so wrong about utilizing that method?
Such are the thoughts of an immature, teenaged boy with a not yet well-formed conscience and raging hormones. And it didn’t help that the religion classes I had taken stressed that sexual intercourse was only licit for married men and women without really going into the “why” of this teaching.
More Bad Turns
In my college years I veered down another path. I started questioning the necessity of going to Mass on Sunday. Why, I wondered, can’t I just refrain from work, say a couple prayers, and enjoy the day? Surely, I thought, this would be keeping the Lord’s Day holy.
Fortunately for me, I was dating a young lady who was also Catholic and whose faith was stronger than mine. She got me back on the narrow path. (And I am happy to say that she is my wife of 47-plus years now.)
But after my wife and I were married, even though we both wanted children, we thought we should put off having kids for at least a couple years. Thanks to the 1973 OPEC oil embargo, the “energy crises,” and stagflation, the economy during the 1970s was a might shaky. We thought we should have a savings account, just in case.
So in Confession one day I asked the priest if it would be wrong to use artificial birth control for a couple years, just till we could save up some money. He replied that I should follow my conscience.
Apparently this was a pat answer that many priests were handing out in the 70s. As Fr. Timothy V. Vaverek wrote at The Catholic Thing recently:
“After Humanae Vitae (1968), many priests and bishops embraced the so-called “pastoral approach” of telling the faithful they could practice contraception and still receive Holy Communion if they were following their conscience.”
Every priest who ever offered such “pastoral” advice should be ashamed of himself. Assuming that every Catholic who comes seeking advice has a “well-formed conscience” is foolish. I can’t help but wonder how many Catholics with less than well-formed consciences have been led astray by priests being “pastoral.”
Answers
Thankfully, something (I don’t remember exactly what the something was any more) led me to dive in to Catholic teaching in a big way. I also started looking at the teachings of other Christian denominations (and even other religions as well), comparing and contrasting those teachings to that of the Catholic Church.
After a few years, and a whole lot of reading, I came to the conclusion that Catholic teaching is correct in every respect. I also came to the conclusion that the Catholic Church was indeed the one true Church instituted by Jesus Christ Himself.
Now that I am older, and hopefully at least a little bit wiser, it’s easy for me to see where I went wrong as a young man. I “discerned” poorly.
Gaudium Et Spes tells us that “For man has in his heart a law written by God” (16). What’s more, we receive the Holy Spirit and the Gifts of the Holy Spirit in Baptism and we have those gifts strengthened in us in Confirmation.
In addition, the Catechism of the Catholic Church tells us:
“1777 Moral conscience, present at the heart of the person, enjoins him at the appropriate moment to do good and to avoid evil. It also judges particular choices, approving those that are good and denouncing those that are evil. It bears witness to the authority of truth in reference to the supreme Good to which the human person is drawn, and it welcomes the commandments. When he listens to his conscience, the prudent man can hear God speaking.”
And then the CCC also tells us, “1790 A human being must always obey the certain judgment of his conscience. If he were deliberately to act against it, he would condemn himself.”
Poor Discernment
So God’s Law is written in our hearts, the Holy Spirit is in every Catholic, and if we listen to our conscience we can hear God speaking to us. If all this is so, how come all Catholics are not living saintly lives?
Unfortunately, I think far too many Catholics discern poorly instead of wisely – just like I did. They often let themselves be convinced that odd ideas that pop into their heads or that hear from others are actually very profound thoughts. Then they run with those crazy thoughts and leave reason and sound doctrine behind. And they let their poor judgement override their consciences – just like I did.
We must take care. We must make sure that what we think is good judgement coming from our conscience, is not, in fact, erroneous judgement. The third sentence of CCC 1790 warns us of this: “Yet it can happen that moral conscience remains in ignorance and makes erroneous judgments about acts to be performed or already committed.”
This could be why there are hundreds (some say thousands) of denominations of Christianity now. Martin Luther, John Calvin, John Wesley, Ulrich Zwingli, Joseph Smith, William Miller, Ellen Gould White, Charles Taze Russell, and many others, got ideas that were counter to sound Catholic teaching but they ran with those notions anyway.
Hubris and Pride
Instead of trying to figure out why their ideas might be wrong, Luther, et al, assumed their ideas were right. Perhaps they convinced themselves that the Holy Spirit was really at work in them and that they were smarter than all the great theologians of the Catholic Church. Chances are, however, that this was nothing more than hubris.
Far too often people close their minds to any argument that contradicts their new found way of thinking. They hold on to their new-think with the tenacity of a bulldog. They hold on so tightly that they are unable to hear logical, rational, sound arguments that point out the errors in their thinking.
This is also perhaps why there are so many lapsed Catholics in the world today. They’ve let irrational or downright crazy notions, thoughts, or ideas enter their minds. Some may have even allowed emotional arguments to sway sound, logical, reasoning. They think because they believe in Jesus Christ that the Spirit is profoundly at work within them. But this could be nothing more than Pride.
The Battle Between Good and Evil
During my search for the truth, I realized the father of lies is likely behind this. He’s probably implanting all those strange thoughts, ideas, and notions that draw people away from the Church and Church teaching in their brains.
We are even warned in 1 John 4:1: “Beloved, do not trust every spirit but test the spirits to see whether they belong to God . . .” So while the Holy Spirit may be in us, we don’t always listen to Him. Sometimes we end up listening to evil spirits whispering in our ears.
Everyone should realize that the devil and his minions want to draw us as far away from God as possible. They have a big bag of tricks they pull from to lure us away from God. And they are adept at what they do.
As Msgr. Charles Pope wrote a few years ago, “Pride is our most pervasive and serious sin.” The devil and his minions know this.
When we get thoughts or ideas that are contrary to Catholic teaching, it’s a pretty sure bet those thoughts and ideas were planted in our brains by the father of lies. He likes to use our own sense of self-worth against us. He tricks us by making us believe we are truly wise!
As St. Padre Pio once said, “As long as there remains a drop of blood in our body, there will be a struggle between right and wrong.” This is the age old struggle between good and evil. It is a battle that began in the Garden of Eden and it will not end until the Second Coming. And we are all caught up in this battle every day of our lives whether we like it or not.
Discern Wisely
When we discern unwisely, and act or do not act because of poor discernment, the devil is pleased. If more people realized this maybe they would ‘discern’ with greater wisdom.
Pope Saint John Paul II gave the Faithful a great and wonderful gift in 1993. He made the Catechism of the Catholic Church available to everyone. If you or someone you know has any doubts about Catholic Doctrine, the Catechism is the first step toward allaying those doubts. And do pay attention to the footnotes for further reading if necessary.
The wisdom and the legacy of the Fathers of the Church, of the Doctors of the Church, the popes and councils, and of all of the great saints who shared their thoughts with us on how to live our lives are all encapsulated in the Catechism. A copy of it should be in every Catholic home, right next to an approved version of the Bible.
We need to realize, though, that even while we are trying to grow in wisdom the devil is going to be trying that much harder to keep us ignorant – and prideful. St. Ignatius even warns of this in his Rules for Discernment.
12th Rule: The evil spirit is a bully. You must confront him head on and be firm and oppose him. If you do not, he will take advantage of your weaknesses and weaken you further.
13th Rule: The evil spirit conducts himself as a false lover in wishing to remain secret and not be revealed. Reveal secret evil thoughts, temptations, and problems to a good confessor or to another holy confidant – those who know how the enemy works.
14th Rule: The evil spirit will attack you in your weaknesses. Know your weak points and strengthen them quickly with the Lord.
9 thoughts on “A Poorly Formed Conscience: the Real Devil’s Playground”
As a kid, I always saw a future somewhere in Medicine. I lost sight of that for a while as I studied Chemistry and worked full time jobs in the Chemical Industry. When I took a BioChem Class in my senior year, I finally remembered the whole point of why I got started. This propelled me through Grad School.
My classmates back then are now directors of well-known hospital laboratories. That’s what we were studying. However, I continued having a nagging feeling about how I was going to make this career work with my faith.
Tests are never developed unless there is already a therapy in mind. It would be unethical for a Physician to say to a patient, “You tested positive for Test X, so you will likely die within the next few weeks.” The patient would obviously ask, “What can be done?!” If no therapy has been developed, the Physician would say, “Well, there is nothing we can do. You’re going to die”.
What was the point of running the Test?!
But this is not the case with many prenatal tests run in hospital laboratories. Many of these tests have no therapy developed. Worse yet, as the New York Times recently reported, very often the test results are in error. Unfortunately out society considers abortion to be therapy!
To make a long story short, my prayers were answered, and I was given another great opportunity to use my education in a more redeeming manner. We really should all pray for the conscience formation of our health care workers.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/01/upshot/pregnancy-birth-genetic-testing.html
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GVS- Re: Novus Ordo: my https://the-american-catholic.com/2022/01/31/novus-ordo-theater-no-mass-no-worship/. Guy, Texas
My experience in my Catholic walk is also very similar to yours.
I feel so Blessed now to be a faithful Catholic.
As a young Mother I found my way to the local parish. After a few years of returning to Holy Mass my faith became alive! My husband followed but sadly during Covid he has lost his faith. I pray for all my family. Our six adult children and their spouses are all on different paths of their Catholic faith. Thank you for your article.
Gene-I am really upset that evidently you have had someone spying on me for 60 years plus or minus. Change a few things and dates, and this IS me. Somehow, while studying philosophy at a secular university that gave me all the eogcentric reasons and justifications for “following my conscience” no matter how poorly formed, somehow I continued to go to Mass every week. And then God my Dad gifted me with a woman like no other who – somehow – loved me back to the church and to the faith I had been given as a cradle catholic. Amazingly when we met in college, found out our parents were married in the same church, St Ann’s, in San Antonio Tx and we were both baptized there in 1947. We had 7 children and 14 gkids and she showered God’s love on me beyond measure. God works in strange ways – but He always works. Thanks for the memories and for the hope. Guy, Texas
Gene
Did you ever encounter a Church teaching which seemed “wrong” to you, but you ended up following it anyway? This is a serious question.
I can honestly say I don’t think any Church teachings are “wrong.” I initially had a bit of a problem with Unitatis Redintegratio. Protestants were called heretics when I was growing up but now they are called brothers and sisters separated from the true Church. But I came to accept that because that is really what a heretic is – a person separated from the Church for one reason or another. I also have concerns about Pope Francis’s take on the death penalty and Traditionis Custodes. But I’ve not been blessed with any insight into whether or not PF is right or wrong about the death penalty, and as I wrote in “Can ‘Offer it Up’ Apply to the Novus Ordo Mass?” I “offer up” my discomfort/disappointment with the Novus Ordo.
The key, I found, to accepting Church teaching is humility. Like I said in the article, I think the devil puts a lot of wrong ideas in our heads and works on our sense of pride. We can easily get off the narrow path through pride or with a poorly formed conscience. But we can’t go wrong if we humbly accept Church teaching. Many of the saints were ordered by their superiors to not do things the saints felt they should be doing. They humbly acquiesced even though they felt the orders were poorly thought out. Can we do any less?
Thank you for your thoughtful response.
I asked the same question of Leila Miller, who said she was always a political conservative, and she also mentioned the death penalty teaching as something she had trouble with. She had been pro, but after having converted, she became anti.
I wish that every catholic (and protestant) would read your article. I believe that we can strengthen or weaken our conscience by the way we use it; that is, by listening to it, it becomes stronger; by “rejecting” it, it becomes weaker.