Conscience

Elections, Conscience, and Catholics.

By John M. Grondelsky.

Many commentators identify the origin of politicians, especially Catholic Democrats, personally opposed Butt approach to abortion as John F. Kennedy's 1960 presidential campaign, particularly his September address to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association.

Carl Anderson, former Supreme Knight of the Knights of Columbus, insists that's not quite right, at least not in a straight line, though there are similarities.

His book, Conscience as a Political Problem, helpfully explains why.

Kennedy knew that there was a Catholic vote, Democrats needed it, and JFK could deliver it.

The problem was that the United States had never had a Catholic president.

believers To a mind endowed with the higher qualities of reason, there can be no more interesting thought than that noticed in a previous demonstration, which was that a man's

conscience is guided by his faith.

Conscience is the highest moral faculty, or rather

the governing moral

power of the soul,

it will enforce whatever faith dictates as the character and will of god whether

right or wrong

faith is in itself blind it does not know truth from error and reason has never had power without revelation to correct its false affirmations the highest effort of reason is to produce doubt see chapter one it cannot substitute truth for falsehood Conscience is blind.

And I definitely wanted to spell it with just a single N, but it's both.

So word nine is conscience.

That's C-O-N-S-C-I-E-N-C-E. There's a science at the end of conscience.

So it's that SC in the middle is what gets everyone.

Word number 10, our last word, was bureaucracy, and that's B-U-R-E-A-U-C-R-A-C-Y.

The term that's frequently used for this basic awareness of first principle.

I mean, Thomas' term for it is going to be first principles of practical reason, but this term that's usually associated with this inborn sense of right is conscience, right? Thomas uses the term sunderesis.

Conscience involves a basic inborn awareness of a moral law.

Thomas suggests that the conscience is as fundamental to human reasoning as the first principles of theoretical reasoning are to it.

So as much as the principle of contradiction, the same thing, cannot be and not be, the same time in the same way, As much as that is fundamental to our ability to reason about things, to reason about theory, so also the principle that good is to be done and evil is to be avoided and that those things have the quality of obligations is fundamental to our practical

In our awareness of our own sinfulness is contained an awareness that God cares about what we do.

The voice that condemns us, that we know is not only our own voice, suggests to us that God is invested in who we become and how we act and how we lived.

As Newman puts it in that same discussion that I have been pulling from, quote, Conscience is a connecting principle between the creature and his creation.

then lyre ran quickly away and lurked in the lanes and was pulled hither and thither by many a one because of his many lies he was nowhere welcome but everywhere he was hooted at and bidden pack off until the pardoners had pity on him and pulled him indoors they washed him and wiped him and clothed him in old raiment and sent him with seals to churches on sunday and he gave pardons for pence everywhere by pounds at a time then the leeches began to lour and sent letters for lyre to dwell with them to inspect waters sellers of spices spoke with him to look at their wares for he understood their trade and knew many spices but minstrels and messengers once met him and kept him half a year and eleven days and then friars with fair speech brought him thence and clothed him as a friar that strangers might not know him but he hath leave to go out as oft as pleaseth him and when he will stay is welcome and he dwelleth often with them all fled away for fear and escaped into corners save meed the maid none others durst abide But to tell truly, she was trembling for fear, and she wept also and wrung her hands when she was taken.

section six of the vision of piers the ploughman by william langland translated by kate m warren this librivox recording is in the public domain passes three me is brought to the king's presence who bids that she be well lodged the justices and others visit her she is shriven The king proposes that she shall marry conscience.

Conscience refuses and exposes her.

She retaliates and conscience refutes her.

now with beadles and bailiffs mead the maid and none other of them all is brought before the king and the king called a clerk whose name i know not to take mead the maid and lodge her in comfort i will try her myself and truly question her what man on earth might be dearest to her and if she do after my counsel and follow my will i will forgive her this guilt so god help me then the clerk did as the king bade and took meed courteously by the waist and brought her to a chamber and there was mirth and minstrelsy to please they that dwell in westminster all honoured her and some of the justices by the leave of learning went gladly and graciously to the chamber where the lady dwelled that they might comfort her kindly and said mourn not meed nor be sorrowful for we will counsel the king and make way for thee that thou mayest be wedded at thy will and where it pleaseth thee notwithstanding all device or craft of conscience as i trow Then Mead thanked them all humbly for their great goodness, and gave to each of them goblets of pure gold, and cups of silver, and rings with rubies, and many other rich things, and she gave the least man of their train a coin of gold, and then these lords took their leave of Mead.

and have pity on these sinners that here sorely repent them that ever they angered thee in this world in word thought or deeds then hope seized a horn of deus tu conversus vivicabis nos o god thou hast converted us and wilt quicken us and blew it with beati quorum remissae sunt iniquitates blessed are they whose iniquities are remitted so that all the saints in heaven sang at once homines et jumenta salvabis quem admodum multiplicasti misericordiam tuam deus thou wilt save man and beast even as thou hast multiplied thy mercy o god c and then thronged together a thousand men who cried upward to christ and his pure mother for grace to go with them to seek truth but there was no man so wise among them who knew the way thither and they wandered over banks and hills groping like beasts for a long time until it was late when they met a man dressed as a paynum in a pilgrim's guise he bare a staff bound with a broad list wound around it in the manner of bindweed a bowl and a bag he bare by his side a hundred ampules were placed upon his hat tokens of sinai and shells of galicia and many a cross and keys of rome on his cloak and the vernicle in front so that men should know and see by his tokens whom he had sought the people asked him first from whence he came from sinai he said and from our lord's sepulchre I have been both in Bethlehem and Babylon, in Armenia, in Alexandria, and in many other places.

Ye may see by my tokens on my hat that I have walked full far, in wet and dry, and have sought good saints for my soul's health.

Knowest thou aught of a saint that men call Truth? Couldst thou at all show us the way to his dwelling? nay so god help me said the man then i never saw palmer with staff or with scrip ask before about him till now in this place peter said a ploughman and thrust forward his head i know him as well as a clerk doth his books Conscience and mother wit showed me his dwelling, and made me promise faithfully to serve him forever, both in sowing and planting, as long as I could labor.

And so you've got a very intelligent people.

But Bonhoeffer said you're abdicating on your moral judgment.

just to go along with the third reich which is the ideology of the day which is a terrible evil organization in other words he was saying what we see in the united states today good people that abdicate on their moral judgment that say it's okay for transgender individuals to you know compete against women and get changed in the same rooms for men to identify as women and all kinds of lunacy that's out there.

If Bonhoeffer was alive, he would call it stupidity, not in the rude sense, but in the sense of you're abdicating on your God-given moral thought.

So that's what I see in the country.

I want to read, said Helen.

Eddie is such a dear little brother, said Conscience.

And the end of it all was that she put away her book and went downstairs.

Cleveland, in the library, heard the tired little boy talking to himself and had carefully replaced the handsome bookmark in his Bible as he arose to go to him.