Further comment on the Pell position on Primacy of Conscience...... (Main Forum)

by Brian Coyne , LINDEN, NSW, Saturday, May 05, 2012, 19:27 (381 days ago) @ Letter to the Editor

The position George Pell seems to take on this whole Primacy of Conscience question appears to be this. In the sense that then Cardinal Ratzinger wrote at the time of the discipline imposed on Hans Küng — "The Christian believer is a simple person: bishops should protect the faith of these little people against the power of intellectuals."[1] — George Pell seems to think that all of this Primacy of Conscience stuff is too difficult for the "simple people" and the "little people" to reason through. He seems to postulate that because of that "The doctrine of the primacy of conscience should be quietly ditched, at least in our schools"[2].

I think my own constant criticism of George Pell is more centred on his misleading of the people on this issue of Primacy of Conscience than on any other single matter I am critical of George Pell on. I deeply believe that if we (the church or the people) were to follow George Pell down this rabbit hole he proposes it effectively aborts what the entire Christian moral endeavour is about. Effectively the Catholic Church ought to "shut up shop" and even cease to be any moral authority in the world if it allows the Pell position to go unchallenged. I don't doubt that teaching people how to make an informed moral position by their own conscience is a necessarily easy task. It is NOT easy trying to educate a child, or the average beer-swilling yobbo in the front bar of my late father's pub, how to reach an informed moral position through their own conscience, and how to distinguish that from fleeting feelings, emotional pressures, insecurities, peer-group and ego appeals, yet that is the necessary challenge any religion or moral system has to take on. The very process of a people becoming more civilised IS the process of the ordinary people learning how to make intelligent moral choices through their own consciences and abilities to reason rather than through authority figures (such as bishops and politicians) who will tell them what to think for their (the bishops' or politicians') own temporal gain.

Conscience was not elevated to a position of PRIMACY by the far-sighted people who thought to make that elevation just for the hell of it. This, I believe, is a critical and deeply fundamental Catholic insight — it drives to the core of what the entire Catholic endeavour is about. Part of the reason why I feel so strongly about the matter is that, after long reflection on the catastrophe that struck my own life, I believe the failing of a couple of other members of my own wider family arose because of their deep failing to understand how to use their own consciences. (The uncle who caused the most destruction in my life died last Friday week at the age of 91 years and 10 months — without contrition, without apology and still essentially totally ignorant of the effect of his "opinions" on the lives of other people.) What we are presently seeing in the institution — most particularly through the documentary aired on the BBC in recent days concerning Cardinal Sean Brady in Ireland — is that self-evidently there is a deep failing to understand the role of conscience and how it should inform a person's behaviour in the very highest corridors of power in the Roman Institution.

I believe that if this insight or teaching on Primacy of Conscience had been more effectively understood and practised at the highest episcopal levels of the institution we simply would never have had this constant shuffling of paedophile priests and other abusing priests around from parish-to-parish or diocese-to-diocese or country-to-country in an effort to try and bolster or protect the reputation and "authority" of the institution. Between Crimen Sollicitationis and Primacy of Conscience it should have been Primacy of Conscience that informed these bishops around the world that moving offending priests to new locations where they could obtain more victims was deeply offensive and immoral behaviour.

Footnotes:
[1] Primary Source of quote: John L. Allen's book "Pope Benedict XVI" p130 available online in Google Books HERE.
[2] See for example George Pell's opinion quoted about two thirds the way down Dr Anne O'Brien's recent commentary "The doctrine of the primacy of conscience should be quietly ditched, at least in our schools" www.catholica.com.au/specials/catholiceducation/005_ce_310312.php.
See also his address, "From Vatican II to today", to the Catalyst for Renewal Bishops Forum on 30th May 2003 available on the Archdiocese of Sydney website:
www.sydneycatholic.org/people/archbishop/addresses/2003/2003530_62.shtml.
See also his address, "Conscience: 'the aboriginal Vicar of Christ'", the 2004 Fisher Lecture delivered to the Fisher Society, University of Cambridge available on the Archdiocese of Sydney website: www.sydneycatholic.org/people/archbishop/addresses/2004/200433_853.shtml
See also his address, "Cardinal Newman on Conscience", to Thomas Moore [sic] Forum, St Thomas Moore [sic] Parish Canberra on 20 Sep 2005 available on the Archdiocese of Sydney website:
www.sydneycatholic.org/people/archbishop/addresses/2005/2005920_1841.shtml

REQUEST FOR CLARIFICATION FROM THE VATICAN:
See also the article in Online Catholics "Australian Catholics seek CDF clarification on Cardinal's comments" (includes a copy of the letter sent to the Vatican on 12 November 2005): http://onlinecatholics.acu.edu.au/issue92/news1.html
To date there has still been no response from the Vatican!

Brian Coyne
[Editor & Publisher]

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George Pell on Primacy of Conscience