Conscience/Dissent, III

            In response to Richard, I concede that Veritas Splendor, for example, takes the objective conscience position, but I wonder what significance should be attached to the widespread willingness of faithful Catholics to reject some moral teachings of the Church. As Eduardo observes, this is most conspicuously true of birth control (not only in the U.S. and Europe, but also in Latin America from my reading (I would guess that support for the Church’s position in Africa is also weak though I have not seen any data on this). Even if the teaching of the magisterium is thought to be settled (instead of mixed, as I, rightly or wrongly, believe it is) on the issue of conscience, it seems clear that there is not acceptance of the claim of objective conscience by the faithful.

 Of course, whatever the degree of authoritativeness of the objective conscience view, it does not purport to be an infallible teaching of the Church, and the issue before us is the degree to which one is required to assent to such teachings. There is a pastoral issue here that I think is of great importance. Father Sullivan, Magisterium: Teaching Authority in the Catholic Church 171-72, makes this point extremely well in my opinion:

 “I am convinced that it is important for Catholics to be aware of the difference between infallible and non-infallible teaching by the magisterium, and of the corresponding difference between the kinds of assent that each of them calls for. Ignorance of these differences can have several unhappy consequences. One is that Catholics who have actually fulfilled their obligation to practice docility regarding such teaching, and have been really unable to give their interior assent to it, may still feel themselves guilty of disobedience to the pope because they do not follow his teaching on a particular point. Another is that Catholics who do accept such teaching may judge all others who do not, to be disobedient or disloyal, and may be scandalized to know that even priests or theologians have reservations about certain points of ordinary papal teaching.

    “The tendency to obscure the difference between the infallible and the non-infallible exercise of magisterium, by treating papal encyclicals as though they were practically infallible, has, I believe, been largely responsible for the fact that many people, when they learn that encyclicals are not infallible after all, jump to the conclusion that one need pay no attention to them. If people have been led to think of the infallibility of the pope as the basic motive for giving their assent to his teaching, it is not surprising that when this motive is no longer available, their assent will fail as well.”
        As to some of the points made about dissent, I agree with Michael that the question of whether to publicly dissent is different from the question whether to privately disagree. In my view, it may be morally wrong, morally permissible, or morally obligatory to dissent. It depends on the situation. I also agree with Patrick and Father Araujo that it is logically possible to have a tradition which corrects error without dissent. I just do not think human institutions successfully work that way. We have a whole free speech tradition that speaks to the contrary. I do not understand Patrick and Father Araujo to be recommending the absence of dissent in political democracies. (If they are I hope they will come lecture to my class of first amendment students, who, at least, seem to start out as knee jerk cheerleaders for the first amendment on any and all issues). My guess, however, is that Patrick and Father Araujo are recommending limiting dissent on many, but by no means all subjects, within the Church, because of the role of the Holy Spirit guiding Church leaders, and they believe it works well. Our difference may be an assessment of Church history in terms of what accounts for the errors and corruption that have been a part of its past. I believe it more likely and more attractive to consider that the work of the Holy Spirit best thrives in a community of discourse in which subjective consciences are not stifled, in which dissent is encouraged, in which difference is respected, and the search for truth is an ongoing collaborative effort that takes full account of the collective experience and wisdom of the People of God.