Church Teaching

A. The Gift of Human Dignity

The Catechism of the Catholic Church 27 explains: For if man exists, it is because
God has created him through love, and through love continues to hold him in existence.
Thus, we can relate in a loving way with our creator and respond to Him in love and faith.

Our inherent dignity, as rooted in God’s love, is inalienable. Inalienable means it

cannot be taken away from us. Even our sinfulness cannot take away our human dignity
from God’s love, and grace can restore us to God’s friendship. This intrinsic, inalienable
gift of human dignity morally implies respect, defense, and promotion of human
wellbeing. It does not count some other human values or functions as more important
than being human. (Wostyn, 2004)

As God’s creatures created in God’s image and given stewardship over all of
creation, we have the responsibility to build up one another by recognizing and valuing
the dignity of the other, but also by deciding to cooperate with God’s grace to live a
fully human life.

Catechism for Filipino Catholics (CFC) 683 adds that “the inviolable dignity of
every human person is the most precious possession of the individual, whose value comes
not from what a person ‘has’ as much as from what a person ‘is’ “(CL. 37).

Although we tend to take these characteristics of our own person for granted, we
nevertheless need to become more conscious of them to gain true knowledge of self
and of our relationship to others and to God (CFC 686).

All these show that we should thank God for the gift of being human - made in His
image and likeness. Let us show our gratitude to Him for endowing us with dignity, talents,
and skills and for giving us dominion over His creation by choosing to live a moral life; we
must choose the good that unites us with God’s will. The idea of choosing the good brings
us to another element of human existence which is freedom.

B. The Gift of Freedom

Many people in today’s world still understand freedom as choosing and doing
what they want even if it means breaking civil or moral laws. But our freedom to act does
not mean we are completely free to do whatever we want. We have to follow civil and
moral laws. This means we can do what we want as long as we do not negatively affect
the freedom of others around us.
 CFC 694 states that it is so easy to confuse human freedom with simply “doing
what I want.” Authentic freedom is not “the right to say and do anything,” but to “do the
good” (cf. Catechism of Catholic Church [CCC] 1740). It is not my own individual private
possession, but shared freedom with others in the community. It is not found in prejudice,
deceit, or ignorance, but in truth. Vatican II also reminds us of a more authentic
understanding of freedom. Freedom is an exceptional sign of the image of God in us. It
is in the freedom that we can turn ourselves towards what is good.

Unlike animals that are at the mercy of stimuli, we have the freedom of self-
determination and choice. It is a part of human existence that we are thinking, conscious,
and responsive to the world, and that with freedom, we can choose what is good.
Through this gift of freewill or the freedom to choose and do what is good, man is rational,
and therefore, like God, he is created with free will and is master over his acts (GS.17).
Our dignity as persons to whom God gives His love requires that we act out of conscious
and free choice, moved and drawn, in a personal way, from within. As persons related
to God, we cannot be moved by blind impulses or limited by mere external constraints.
Freedom of self–determination, sometimes called fundamental posture or orientation
toward the ultimate good of human life, is in our human power and is our responsibility.
Freedom is realized, therefore, in both our choices as well as in our self – disposition.

Because we are free to choose the kind of life we shall have, we are encouraged
to use this freedom wisely. This is the type of freedom St. Paul tells the Galatians when he
calls on them to live in freedom, “…not a freedom that gives reign to the flesh but out of
love, place yourselves at one another’s service ( Gal. 5:13). When we are able to put our
inner drives or passions under the control of our mind and will, we are exercising our
freedom from passion. Since these inner desires, by themselves, are neither good nor
bad, we can control them to our favor, not allowing them to rule our lives to prevent
making poor decisions. Thus. We can be what God wants us to become.

The exercise of freedom carries with it corresponding duty to respect the same
freedom in others. Each of us has the right, as human beings, to be recognized and
respected as a free and responsible person. As we exercise our freedom towards true
self-becoming, we must be guided by the aspects of freedom for and freedom from.

CFC 696 tells us that authentic freedom involves, first of all, freedom from interior
and exterior obstacles. Interior obstacles are ignorance, disordered passions, fear,
personality defects, bad habits, prejudice, or psychological disturbances. External forces
include violent force or even threats to violence. All these factors diminish our freedom,
but the greatest single obstacle to authentic freedom is sin. If we are to achieve the goals
we have set for ourselves, it is necessary to make responsible decisions as guided by
God’s gift of freewill as well as our conscience.

C. Conscience
 A clear definition of conscience is presented in Gaudium et Spes, Pastoral
Constitution on the Church in the Modern World:

In the depths of his conscience, man detects a law which he does not
impose upon himself, but which holds him to obedience. Always
summoning him to love good and avoid evil, the voice of conscience can
when necessary speak to his heart more specifically: do this, shun that. For
man has in his heart a law written by God. To obey it is the very dignity of
man; according to it, he will be judged. Conscience is the most secret core
and sanctuary of a man. There he is alone with God, whose voice echoes
in his depths. (GS 16)

Catholic tradition has long attested to the primacy, dignity, and inviolability of the
moral conscience. We have in our hearts a law written by God. This law, our conscience,
guides us to love, do good, and avoid evil.

Three Senses of Conscience

In his book, Principles for a Catholic Morality, Timothy E O’Connell presents the
“three senses of conscience.” He states that a full sense of conscience includes three
senses: the sense of responsibility, the sense of the exercise of moral reason, and the sense
of judgment of the moral action.

The first is the basic sense of responsibility that characterizes the human person.
Synderesis is the inner drive to the good. Everyone has this drive to do good, but it is often
obscured by the complexities and distortions of life today (a characteristic).

The second is the exercise of moral reasoning as a person searches for objective
moral values. We need to ask: What is good? This is the realm of the formation and
examination of conscience, wherein we seek to grasp moral truth by making use of
sources of moral wisdom wherever they may be found, and then through a process of
reflection, analysis, and accurate perception, come to an enlightened decision. The
Magisterium of the Catholic Church is a necessary component in the formation of
conscience for Catholics (a process).

The third sense of conscience is the judgment by which we evaluate a particular

action. Making a moral decision based on “my” personal perception and grasp of values
is the actual judgment. This is the conscience that “I” must obey to be true to myself. Thus,
O’Connell points out; we can see the proper formation of conscience is essential to make
a proper judgment. One can only choose the good if one knows what the good is (an
event). Therefore, the third sense of conscience is determined by the second sense of
conscience. That is why, O’Connel believes, the formation of conscience is so important.

God’s law is indeed written in our hearts, but it needs constant formation and
nourishment to grow in strength and power. Our conscience is not something
“automatic.” It is gradually and continuously shaped throughout our journey in life,
through our family upbringing and the wisdom of parents, elders, teachers, friends, and
mentors. Our conscience is further formed by teachings and stories from the Sacred
Scriptures, education and catechesis in the Faith, the Church, the Church’s traditions, our
cultural attitudes and values, and our social environment. The development of our
conscience is always interrelated with what is happening to us and around us, in people
and events. This is the “relational dimension” of our conscience.

Richard Gula correctly points out that forming one’s conscience is not simply a
matter of answering the question “What ought I to do?” We should take into account not
only the question “What sort of person am I?” but also “What sort of person ought I to
become?” What is the sort of person that God wants me to be? Our whole moral outlook
and character is important. Our way of seeing and approaching moral matters is, in fact,
the background against which we make moral judgments (Gula, 1989).

It is the responsibility of every Christian and the Church to help transform such
erroneous consciences into correct consciences. These consciences are guided by the
inner voice of God, resulting in actions and decisions that will bring that person closer to
God.

A question frequently heard is: If we are morally obliged by God’s law in our hearts
to do good, then where does our freedom come in? According to CFC 703, the truth is
that freedom of conscience carries with it a corresponding duty to respect the same
freedom in others… Whenever we try to free ourselves from the moral law and
independent of God, far from gaining genuine freedom, we destroy it. Therefore, “God
calls us to serve Him in spirit and in truth. ”Hence, we are bound in conscience but stand
in no compulsion… we are to be guided by our own judgment and to enjoy freedom (DH
11).

A problem arises if one’s conscience remains in ignorance of what is good and

true or is blinded by the habit of committing sin. The Catechism of the Catholic Church
(# 1790 -1794) tells us that the sources of such an erroneously formed conscience include
ignorance of Christ and his Gospel, bad examples given by others, the enslavement of
one’s passions, and rejection of the experience anchored in Christian charity. If a person
chooses to remain ignorant and refuses to form his conscience properly, he is culpable
for whatever wrong moral decisions and evil he commits. He cannot claim ignorance as
an excuse mechanism for doing whatever he thinks may be right. Ian Knox also adds, “To
act against our conscience would be to do violence to our true selves, to the person God
wants us to be; we damage our relationship with God, we sin.” By allowing ourselves to
become immersed in the selfishness of sin we damage the ability to make sound moral
judgments (Knox, 2011). “The worst thing in the world,” said the well-known writer and
broadcaster Bishop Fulton Sheen, “is not sin; it is the denial of sin by a false conscience -
for that attitude makes forgiveness impossible.”