Jimmy Akin

SDG here with some thoughts on conscience and authority sparked by the combox from my last post.

Every man is bound absolutely to follow his own conscience. Hopefully, if and when a man finds that his judgments of conscience are contradicted by competent authority, he will take that fact into account in informing and revising his judgments of conscience.

But this doesn’t mean blindly following competent authority. Sometimes, competent authority is wrong, and good men can honestly conclude that competent authority is wrong — sometimes when it is, sometimes when it isn’t.

So there is still the possibility of contradiction. What happens then is … tricky.

If a man’s conscience tells him that something is morally licit, and competent authority tells him otherwise, he will often be well advised to refrain from the activity in question in deference to competent authority.

If, on the other hand, a man’s conscience tells him that something is morally obligatory — or morally illicit — and competent authority tells him the opposite, he must not act against his conscience in deference to authority.

If he is in sufficient doubt as to the rightness of his own judgment, and is swayed by the weight of authority, then he may arrive at a new judgment of conscience, putting his faith in authority to guide him. Assuming he is honest in this process, the responsibility for his actions now lies to a significant degree with that authority. If authority has led him astray, there are millstones for such things. If it has led him aright, there are rewards.

Conversely, if he remains confident enough of his own judgments as to reject the guidance of authority, then he himself incurs a new burden of responsibility for his actions. In that case, he had better hope and pray that he is right. Just as following authority can mitigate one’s responsibility, flouting authority can aggravate it. That doesn’t mean you can never, or should never, do it. It does mean you take your head in your hands.

If one is instructed by one’s bishop not to present oneself for communion, there is an obligation to honor that instruction, even if one is privately convinced that the bishop’s instruction is unjustified. If the bishop is right, he has saved a sheep from (hopefully unwitting) sacrilege. If he’s wrong, a soul has suffered unecessarily, but with merit before God for sumbitting humbly to authority and meekly accepting unjust punishment.

However, even in such a case I don’t think the obligation is necessarily absolute. Take the case of a couple — a pair of converts, let’s say — whose marriage is not recognized by the Church because of a previous union for which the tribunal could not find evidence of nullity. And let’s say the couple has appealed to Rome, attempted every recourse, all to no avail.

And now let’s say that the couple knows, with great moral certitude, that even though they weren’t able to prove it to the tribunal, the previous marriage was not valid, and so their current marriage is valid. In such a case, it seems to me, they are not morally obliged either to refrain from conjugal union or to refrain from receiving communion.

If they can do so without scandal — if, say, they attend a parish where the circumstances of their marriage are not known and no one has reason to suspect that their marriage isn’t recognized by the Church — then I think it is possible for them to continue to live together as man and wife and to receive communion with a clear conscience.

Now, if the tribunal was right and the couple are wrong, their moral culpability is all the greater. When you rely on the internal forum, you accept a greater weight of judgment, just as you do when you presume to instruct or lead another.

Conversely, if a tribunal judges wrongly, and gives a couple a clean bill of marital health when in fact there is no marriage because of an existing impediment, if the couple acts in good faith in following the tribunal, the moral responsibility is the tribunal’s, not the couple’s. (It’s also worth noting that there is an obligation to try to work things out through the external forum, not just settle for the internal forum from the get-go. One might possibly choose, with fear and trembling, to disregard the wrongful verdict of a marriage tribunal, but this doesn’t mean that you don’t have to bother petitioning for a decree of nullity in the first place.)

SDG here with no time to comment on encouraging developments on Canon 915 noted by Deal Hudson at Inside Catholic (hat tip to an AmP combox reader – I don’t think AmP has picked up on this yet).

The bishops of Washington, D.C., and Arlington, Virginia, confirmed publicly they would uphold the declaration of her ordinary, Archbishop Joseph Naumann of Kansas City, stating that Governor Sebelius should not present herself for communion.

Good news for supporters of the application of canon 915 to pro-abort politicians. Give it four more years, and we may have a growing consensus that the canon means what it says (nuance from Ed Peters), and pro-abort politicians should be denied communion (you know, if necessary, after being counseled on the gravity of the issue, urged to abstain from communion, etc.).

Also, USCCB president Cardinal George found the guts to say something about the Notre Dame Obama scandal — an “extreme embarrassment” to Catholics, in his words. (Obligatory AmP hat tip.)

There's something about sci-fi writers getting sudden inspiration in the shower. Don't know what it is.

UPDATE (3/27): Just posted my review of Bolt, now available on DVD. If you haven’t seen it, trust me: It’s better than you think!

Coming soon: Gulliver’s Travels and Slumdog Millionaire.

SDG here with two quick notes:

1. My review of Monsters vs. Aliens is up at Decent Films.

2. Tune in tonight to my appearance on Catholic Answers Live!

Updates coming soon.

SDG here with nothing much to add to AmP’s typically insightful commentary on Obama’s invitation to speak at the Notre Dame commencement … just a reiteration of his invitation (and Archbishop Chaput’s) to sign the petition launched by the Cardinal Newman Society — and to otherwise contact university president Fr. Jenkins (contact info at the Newman Society website) expressing your objections.

There is also an open letter from ND students; I don’t know whether that means current students only or also alumni. The letter is, I think, too modest in scope: It says “There has been overreaction on both sides, and it is important to keep the discussion civil – Uninviting Pres. Obama would be a disrespectful move, and having students turn their back on his speech, as some have called for, would be an immature gesture” and then goes on to ask Fr. Jenkins to make a strong statement affirming the Church’s pro-life stance when Obama comes. I can maybe see settling for this if it’s the best you can get, but I don’t think I’d sign off on the idea that disinviting him would be inappropriately “disrespectful.”

The outcome here may depend in part on how the faculty responds. Remember when Pope Benedict canceled his scheduled speech at Sapienza University in response to protests? Is it impossible (like AmP, I argree it’s unlikely) that orthodox Catholics might score a victory this time?

A short and belated Decent Films update:

First, this coming Thursday, at 6:00pm EDT / 3:00pm PDT, I’ll be appearing on Catholic Answers Live. Tune in and listen!

Second, my review of the 1953 biblically-themed epic The Robe, now available in a new DVD edition (DVD | Blu-ray), is up at Decent Films.

Earlier this week we got an email from some friends at church with a prayer request from their sister, who sometimes comes to our church when she’s in town. Her employer, Natasha, was seriously injured in a skiing accident.

Later in the day we heard news reports that actress Natasha Richardson, wife of Liam Neeson, had been seriously injured in a skiing accident. It was a little surreal to realize that we had gotten a prayer request from Neeson and Richardson’s nanny, with Richardson simply identified as “Natasha.” (I’m not entirely sure that our friends, pious Irish Catholics, necessarily fully appreciate how famous their sister’s employers are, even their fellow countryman Neeson.)

That personal connection made the news last night of Richardson’s death more real to me than another news story about a tragedy involving famous people. Two young boys, 14 and 12, have lost a mother. Their nanny is a devout Catholic whom we’ve seen around our church. Neeson isn’t devout, though I’ve read that he’s been drawing closer to the Church. He seems to be impressed with the Church’s good works, and has talked about telling his sons about Jesus. He’s narrated CDs on “The Birth of Christ” and, this year for Lent, “The Way of the Cross” to benefit Catholic charities.

Last night we prayed our family rosary for their family. My children certainly know who Neeson is, both as Qui-Gon from The Phantom Menace and the voice of Aslan in the Narnia films. We’ve been praying for Amy Welborn and her sons, so they’re also aware of the recent death of Michael Dubriel. The possibility of losing a parent has become very real to them.

Their uncle, Suz’s brother, died only two years ago, not much older than I am. Their grandmother died the year before.

Recently, when someone asks me “How are you?” I’ve sometimes been tempted to reply, “Employed.” Right now, I’m tempted to reply, “Alive.”

P.S. I see I’ve written about at least one of Richardson’s films, in a review for the USCCB Office for Film & Broadcasting. Other people have told me they know her from the remake of The Parent Trap.