The Catechism on conscience

I think the Catechism's treatment of conscience is very useful. The relevant sections are 1776-1803. Particularly instructive are the sections dealing with the formation of conscience and with erroneous judgment. Too often, I believe, one hears people (I am not referring to any person on this blog) say that their conscience leads them to believe "x," when "x" happens to depart from the longstanding teachings of the Church. But, when the discussion is pursued, it turns out that that person hasn't read the relevant documents and also hasn't been to The Sacrament of Reconciliation in decades and also doesn't have a regular prayer life, etc. The Catechism states, in section 1792 with regard to erroneous judgments, "Ignorance of Christ and his Gospel, bad example given by others, enslavement to one's passions, assertion of a mistaken notion of autonomy of conscience, rejection of the Church's authority and her teaching, lack of conversion and of charity: these can be at the source of errors of judgment in moral conduct."    

On the charge that the Church has gotten it flat-out wrong in many instances. I have written a short piece on this in the context of a critique of John Noonan's appraoch to development of doctrine. My paper, and maybe this is its only redeeming feature, refers to some of the literature on this topic.

Richard