Some additional thoughts on conscience…

 

 

Friends of the Mirror of Justice will recall that I have participated in past discussions on the matter of conscience. Today I do not plan on getting into a prolonged discussion; however, I would like to offer a few observations on some of the recent thread that has developed over the past several days.

 

The first point I would like to make is that both at home (via the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops) and abroad (the Holy See), Catholic thought on the matter of conscience must distinguish between “conscience,” which can be prone to subjective determination, and the “well-formed conscience.” This distinction is essential to our task. While we may debate the meaning or definition of the term the “well-formed conscience,” we ought not to proceed too far on the matter of conscience without first acknowledging that this distinction is vital to Catholic social thought, the Catholic intellectual tradition, and, therefore, the development of Catholic legal theory.

 

The second point I shall make involves several of the illustrations used by some of my MOJ friends to supplement their arguments and positions. I would like to first of all consider the case of the executioner and his or her “right” to conscientious objection. I am more than a bit surprised by this illustration. The post of executioner has been around for a long time. An executioner has one mission in life: to take the life of another person. Usually, but not always, this taking of life exists within the context of a state-sanctioned execution. In all manifestations of the duties, however, the executioner is called upon to terminate the life of another human being. That is what the job is all about, and anyone who takes the post ought to understand this. I think the candidates for the post are aware of this principal function, and to make the argument that an executioner has some kind of right and or argument against doing what he or she was hired to do is problematic. If a person becomes a firefighter and later claims that he or she conscientiously objects to fighting fires, I would think a sensible person would say that this firefighter’s argument is specious. Similarly, a candidate who wishes to be a dog catcher but who thinks dogs should remain free to roam as they please ought to rethink his or her vocational plan. I would of course make an exception to this last conclusion if the post of dogcatcher were advertised as “canine relations officer.”

 

I now come to the second case of the justice of the peace who refuses to marry opposite sex couples, each member of who is from a different racial background. It seems clear from this example used over the past several days that the justice of the peace is now conscientiously objecting to having to perform the marriage that he or she is obliged to perform. This JP would now be contesting forty-three years of judicial precedent, i.e., Loving v. Virginia. If the person is seeking to become a JP, he or she would be like the firefighter, the dog catcher, or the executioner whom I have just treated. The JP would be expected to marry interracial opposite sex couples. JPs marry opposite sex couples regardless of race. Dog catchers catch dogs. Executioners lawfully execute other people under the law of the state. If the JP took his or her office prior to Loving being decided, I would think it fair to ask this person why he or she did not object to performing an interracial marriage of a man and a woman during these past forty-three years.

 

But mandating a JP to now marry same sex couples is substantively different. JPs have long married a couple consisting of a man and a woman. Mandating pharmacists to sell “emergency contraception” is different. Pharmacists are in the profession of compounding and selling medications that sustain life, not destroy it. Mandating doctors to perform abortion is different. Doctors are called upon to save lives, not take them. The “mandates” requiring these actions that contravene the purpose of the office are new or are emerging. Moreover, they are catching good, moral people by surprise. In addition, these budding “mandates” are akin to the questionable and totalitarian mandates of almost eighty years ago that caught by surprise many good people in

Germany

who found that they could no longer do what they once could do as a matter of legal right that understood and respected the well-formed conscience.

 

RJA sj