Tag Archives: virtue

The Erroneous Conscience

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The Erroneous Conscience is the last post in a series that I have been writing the past couple of weeks. Technically, this should be Conscience Formation 104, but I chose the title from the theme. I have given my readers and anyone else that stops by the blog some good things to think about over the past three posts. Today, I will discuss the characteristics of an erroneous conscience as well as what the Catechism of the Catholic Church gives us in regards to this subject. At the end, I will use the film, The Emperors Club, to clarify my points.

The first characteristic of an erroneous conscience is ignorance. Ignorance can occur if someone bypassed an important point or was never taught the truth about a moral issue. A young person may never have been raised to know that stealing property that belongs to another is a serious moral issue. I speak of this particular issue because I’ve seen this first hand and have dealt with students that did not understand why it was wrong to take the property of others. In this case, I am speaking of the stealing of cell phones and IPODS/MP3 players.  These individuals had a distorted view of freedom since they thought freedom allowed them to do whatever they wanted to do at that moment. Stealing for the sake of stealing destroyed their relationship with God, although they may not have seen it at the time. Stealing not only violates freedom but also destroys the dignity of the person doing the stealing and the dignity of those who lose their belongings. Just ask St. Augustine of Hippo who writes about stealing in The Confessions. He talks about how he would steal apples from other orchards just for the sake of stealing, even though his family had plenty of apples in their orchards.

The second characteristic of an erroneous conscience is insincerity. This is where an individual makes no effort to learn the importance of truth or goodness when it comes to moral issues. Idleness and intellectual stubbornness dominate this person. Let’s say someone tells this person something in secret about a moral action, instead of speaking to a mentor or someone that has experience in this particular situation, this person pulls out his megaphone and tells everyone what he knows. This person should have taken the time to figure out a good course of action instead of doing what he did.  If insincerity is not corrected, the person can fall into bad habits that increase in magnitude, often leading to some very evil actions. Let’s take the same scenario from above – a person who perpetually steals has turned into a thief. The stealing has become a habit and the person has no recompense to even correct the behavior. He will say – that’s what I do. This habitual sin leads to greater sins and will potentially destroy the individual. However, there is the chance that the person can repent and do the good (as in the case of St. Augustine).

Paragraph 1792 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church states that that these factors can also lead to poor conscience decisions: “Ignorance of Christ and his Gospel, bad example given by others, enslavement to one’s passions, mistaken notion of autonomy [“No one can tell me what to do…I am my own law”], rejection of Church’s authority and her teaching, lack of conversion and lack of charity (love).”

To clarify the erroneous conscience, I now turn to the film, The Emperors Club. The film is about an educator, William Hundert (Kevin Kline) who teaches Greek and Roman Philosophy at St. Benedict’s School for Boys. It’s an elite school where many of the students go on to Ivy League institutions upon graduating. Mr. Hundert clearly loves to teach and has a passion for Ancient Philosophy.  During the early part of the film, a student transfers into the school and begins to give Mr. Hundert a difficult time about the subject matter. The name of the student is Sedgewick Bell (Emile Hirsch) and he is an overall nuisance to the classroom. Because he seems to be “cool” and pushes the authority of the school, his fellow classmates like him and follow him blindly.

It seems that Mr. Hundert eventually gets through to Sedgewick (his father is a US Senator who never has time for his son).  There is an interesting dialogue between Mr. Hundert and Senator Bell about education and formation in this film as well. Sedgewick’s attitude and grades improve so much that he is chosen to be one of three boys in the “Mr. Julius Caesar” contest that assesses knowledge on Roman History. Now there is moral dilemma on the part of Mr. Hundert, but you are going to have to watch the film to see it…I can’t give the whole story away. During the “Mr. Julius Caesar” contest, Mr. Hundert realizes that Sedgewick is cheating and tells the headmaster. The headmaster tells Hundert to ignore it (another moral dilemma…Senator Bell is in the audience). Mr. Hundert eventually asks Sedgewick a question that does not pertain to Roman History and knocks Sedgewick out of the contest.  After one of the other boys wins the contest, Mr. Hundert proceeds to Sedegwick’s dorm room to question him. Watch how Sedgewick admits to cheating (starts at 00:58).

It’s very clear from what we have discussed above, that this boy was never properly taught the importance of forming his conscience. He is clearly insincere in his attitude towards his teacher and the actions that he committed. He knows that he can get away with it because of who is and his position in life.

As the film moves on, 20 years later, Mr. Hundert is asked by the school (they are going to receive a big donation) to re-do the contest that Sedgewick Bell competed in as a boy. Actually, it’s Sedgewick Bell that wants to “regain his intellectual integrity.” By this time, he is a very successful businessman and decides to hold the contest at a country club that he owns. All the boys from the graduating class are found and invited. They are all very successful men by this time in life. Once again, the contest is held, and once again, Mr. Hundert realizes that Sedgewick is cheating. Hundert fools him again with another question and the boy who lost it as a child again loses it as a man. To make matters worse, Sedgewick announces after the contest that he is going to make a run for the same Senate seat that his father once served in. He uses Mr. Hundert for his virtue, principles, and integrity.  As you can see, Sedgewick Bell never developed a well formed conscience and continued to cheat and lie later in life. He remained ignorant and insincere although he made it seem that he discovered the errors in his decisions as a boy.  His cheating becomes so habitual that his entire moral code is a distortion of truth and goodness. Sedgewick Bell is the poster child for the erroneous conscience.

This clip is the scene between Mr. Hundert and Sedgewick after the second contest…but Sedgewick gets a surprise he never intends to receive…someone overhears the conversation. Can you figure out who it is?

Our conscience is important and it must be developed well. This will not happen over night – it’s a life long process. It will also make mistakes since it’s not infallible. As Catholic Christians, we must do all that we can to form our conscience.  We must strive to have an upright conscience by acting virtuously, using our God-given reason and freedom, look to others as models of holiness and virtue, hold each other responsible in a community and pray that with God’s grace we are given the necessary tools to have a pure and good conscience.

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Conscience Formation 103

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In the previous two posts, I spoke about what conscience is not (see CF 101 – below) and what conscience is (see CF 102 – below). Now I want to focus my attention on how the conscience works. In our daily lives, most of the decisions we make come very easily; they are habitual. A virtue, according to CCC 1803,  “is an firm and habitual disposition to do the good.” Not only will a person perform acts well, but also the best of who he is will come through.  On the flip side of virtue, we have vice. A vice is a bad habit that pushes us to bad/evil choices.

Virtue and vice can slightly be compared to the Jedi and Sith philosophies in the Star Wars films. The Jedis were the more virtuous of the two since most of their decisions were well thought out, they lived for others, and they always tried to choose the good in all situations. The Sith were ones of vice and often chose evil things such as killing all the Jedis or conquering the entire universe. They were always about themselves as we see clearly in Return of the Jedi and how the Emperor has no concern for Vader or Luke. Not all Jedis were virtuous such as the case of Anakin Skywalker (see Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith). Anakin Skywalker was never virtuous, struggled with his many vices, and they eventually lead him to Darth Vader.  Anakin was given chance again and again to mend his ways, but chose not to and ended up in vice rather than virtue. Many of his choices contradicted the Jedi philosophy and he could never conform his behavior to do the good.

Although most of our decisions tend to be habitual, there is an importance for us to learn how to be virtuous in all that we do (let me tell you…it’s not easy). The virtues are like “spiritual muscles” that help us grow in responsible acts without any effort at all. Our bad habits, which we must learn to identify first, have to be avoided at all cost. Our bad habits will only be overcome with the grace of God. For us Catholics, we have the great Sacrament of Reconciliation (and the other sacraments, especially the Holy Eucharist) that dispense grace upon us. Learning to be virtuous and avoiding vices are part of our spiritual training at Catholic Christians and a major characteristic of forming our Christian consciences.

Most of our daily decisions are made with ease habitually, but what about those major decisions, those important decisions that take time to deliberate and could have a monumental impact on our conscience? What do we do then?

When making those major decisions we must deliberate, choose, perform, and assess. As I stated in CF 102 (see below), Blessed John Paul II said that conscience is not a decision, but a judgment made with the intellect. Our conscience is about the discovery of objective truth, not about feelings and emotions. Emotions and feelings come and go. A fundamental element of Catholic morality is to inform our consciences and to continue inform them by careful deliberation. Before we make a major decision, we must gather all the information about the decision at hand and consider all the good and bad consequences that will stem from this decision. We should keep in account the Golden Rule, love your neighbor as yourself, and understand that evil actions will not produce a good result. In deliberation, we should look towards those individuals that have mentored us in the past as well as the teachings of Jesus Christ that are safeguarded in the Magisterium of the Catholic Church. Our decisions as Catholic Christians should be in conformity with that of Jesus Christ and his Church.

After deliberation, we should then choose the best course of action that reflects Jesus Christ and person that we are as God’s creation. A key factor in the choosing step is PRAYER. Prayer allows us to communicate with God and He with us. Prayer aids us to remember that we are created in God’s image and dignity. It also slows us down to focus on him and the decision at hand. Listening to God helps us make rational decisions and not just go with our gut or what feels good at the moment. There is an old saying – God gave us one mouth and two ears. Its is so we will listen twice as much than we talk. We should that the Holy Spirit will direct us towards God’s will for our lives.

Once a choice has been established, we must now perform the action. In this step, we see the importance of responsibility coming into play. Listening to our conscience is important because if we go against our conscience, we sin. We should never react here. Temperance (self-control) is a fundamental aspect of this step. We must always be as mature as possible. Being responsible and staying the course is the most difficult part of this entire process.

The last step in our conscience formation process is to assess our actions. Our conscience is not just about deliberating, choosing, and performing the actions we will perform, but it also aids in the actions that we have already committed. When we follow the steps given above, our conscience will be clear for we know we made good choices, the virtuous choices. If we have not made the correct decision, our conscience will let us know by calling us to reconciliation and penance.

If you pray the Liturgy of Hours (official prayer of the Catholic Church), Night Prayer includes an Examination of Conscience. It’s here where we can review the day and examine our good decisions and actions that contrasted those decisions. You don’t have to pray the Liturgy of Hours to do this either. Making a simple examination a “habit” will ensure that your day was reviewed before you laid your head to rest. It will also help you to grow in holiness and to do God’s will in your life.

As Christians with God’s help, we must form our conscience, continue to form it and to follow it. The formation of our conscience is a life long process and it is not always correct. Blessed John Paul II in Veritatis splendor said, “conscience is not an infallible judgment, it can make mistakes.”

After this post, you should understand more clearly why the HHS Mandate from the Obama Administration is such an evil proclamation that violates our religious freedom (this is the BIG issue).  As Catholics, we know by our consciences that sterilization, contraceptives, and abortifacients are intrinsically evil – that means they are always wrong! How does the Obama Administration want us to violate our consciences when we clearly see these methods as evil?! This is what Cardinal-Elect Timothy Dolan meant when he said that the President has given us a year to violate our consciences. As Catholics who should be forming our consciences, we must stand up against this tyranny that is upon us. Thomas J. Olmsted, Bishop of Phoenix said in his letter to the Diocese of Phoenix, “We cannot- we will not – comply with this unjust law.”