Day 238: Our Moral Conscience

Man has the right to act in conscience and in freedom so as personally to make moral decisions. "He must not be forced to act contrary to his conscience. Nor must he be prevented from acting according to his conscience, especially in religious matters." CCC 1782

Today's reading from the Catechism is about our moral conscience. That is, the interior voice we all have calling for us "to love and to do what is good and to avoid evil" and where we are "alone with God whose voice echoes in [our] depths" (CCC 1776). Those who truly exhibit a lack of conscience would be a sociopath or psychopath, something I presume the Church would classify as being disordered. 

The Catechism Compendium summarizes what a moral conscience is:

Moral conscience, present in the heart of the person, is a judgment of reason which at the appropriate moment enjoins him to do good and to avoid evil. Thanks to moral conscience, the human person perceives the moral quality of an act to be done or which has already been done, permitting him to assume responsibility for the act. When attentive to moral conscience, the prudent person can hear the voice of God who speaks to him or her. (#372)

I know that CCC 1782 quoted above has been used and abused by some folks to challenge Church moral teachings, usually erroneously citing the "spirit of Vatican II" or some such nonsense. Yet, as the Catechism Companion, Vol II notes:

Just because we have a sense that something is right or wrong does not make it so. Our conscience can be malformed, numbed, or deafened. God wants us to have a well-formed conscience... Conscience reminds us that we need to seek to be forgiven and that there are good things to be chosen. (p. 240)

If we wish to become virtuous, we need above all "a well-formed conscience" (p. 241).