Conscience and its Counterfeit, Part 2

Last week’s post considered the relevance of Newman’s teaching on conscience for our world today. In this post, examining the particular context that gave rise to Newman’s famous and explicit reflections on the conscience in relation to Catholic faith, we will be able to understand how this relevance relates to our own practice of the moral life and the life of faith.

In 1874, the Anglican statesman William Gladstone was drawn out of retirement to weigh in on a controversy over the use of ritual and liturgy in the Church of England. Some members were concerned that ritualism represented a drift toward “Romanism,” which many associated with not just superstition and error, but also suspicious obedience to a foreign Italian prelate. In trying to defend the use of ritualism as not a slide toward Rome, Gladstone revealed his erroneous, but sincere, impression that “no one can become her [the Roman Catholic Church’s] convert without renouncing his moral and mental freedom, and placing his civil loyalty and duty at the mercy of another” (Gladstone, Ritualism and Ritual, p. 674). 

A group within the Catholic Church, called the “ultramontanes,” did not make it easy for Englishmen to overcome this false assumption. They fell prey to what some have called “hyper-papalism,” an exaggerated view of the Pope’s authority, as if he were a kind of spiritual monarch whose infallible authority extended over temporal, judicial, and practical judgments. Newman was concerned that the declaration of the dogma of papal infallibility at the First Vatican Council (1870) would be interpreted as having too broad a scope. It would seem that Protestants, and even some Catholics, viewed papal authority as so strong as to replace or abrogate intellectual freedom, natural obedience to civil authorities, and freedom of conscience. Although he agreed with the doctrine, Newman rightly feared that it was not the right time to define it, and that more education was necessary for Christians to understand it properly.

Newman responded to Gladstone’s views in a long (170 pages!) “Letter to the Duke of Norfolk (1875), clarifying the true Catholic position on conscience and Church authority. The question he addressed, burning in the minds of his fellow Englishmen, was practical: “Can Catholics be trustworthy subjects of the state?” Newman’s “Letter” chronicles how the authority of bishops and popes, as well as the First Vatican Council and its teachings on papal authority, are by no means at odds with loyal obedience to civic rulers or natural laws, but are authentic and biblical developments of the spiritual authority Christ himself invested in his Apostles and their successors (cf. Luke 22:30, Matthew 16:18-19). A middle section of the letter, titled “Conscience,” is of special importance.

Newman clarifies that the authority of popes, bishops and councils, as well as Scripture and Christian tradition, assists, nourishes, and enlightens the individual conscience with the fullness of truth. The “voice of God” speaks in our hearts, but our ability to listen to it requires discernment, aid, development, and healing, and God himself has established other external authorities that guide and inform the internal authority of conscience. God’s “Divine Law” is the absolute standard of “right and wrong,” and he has appointed channels to disclose that law to us. As Newman puts it, conscience is “dutiful obedience” to this divine standard which God speaks within us, and this voice points us to, and is clarified by, sources of authoritative teachings which we should heed, and which God himself has appointed for our instruction. This helps us avoid private errors.

This is important to stress, because it seems that Newman saw a problem which continues today. Gladstone’s erroneous impression about papal infallibility arose from an erroneous impression about the conscience: that it is merely the mechanism with which we obey or don’t obey this or that human authority, whether it be a Pope or a politician. Newman, on the other hand, stresses the divine orientation of the conscience, at length:

“The rule and measure of duty is not utility, nor expedience, nor the happiness of the greatest number, nor State convenience, nor fitness, order, and the pulchrum [the beautiful or elegant]. Conscience is not a long-sighted selfishness, nor a desire to be consistent with oneself; but it is a messenger from Him, who, both in nature and in grace, speaks to us behind a veil, and teaches and rules us by His representatives. Conscience is the aboriginal Vicar of Christ, a prophet in its informations, a monarch in its peremptoriness, a priest in its blessings and anathemas, and, even though the eternal priesthood throughout the Church could cease to be, in it the sacerdotal principle would remain and would have a sway.”

Note how Newman very strongly stresses the conscience as the seed of the “sacerdotal principle,” the “universal priesthood” of all believers. The conscience gives us the fuel with which we make our lives a total offering to God. To follow one’s conscience is to perseveringly seek God’s ultimate truth, wherever it may be found, and be willing to give up all personal preference, human esteem, or comfort for its sake. Church, and papal, authority assists us in this enterprise.

Bearing in mind Newman’s strong emphasis on the authority of the conscience, next week’s post will conclude with Newman’s explanation of why the dogma of papal infallibility does not oppose, but supports, the role of the conscience in matters of faith and morals.