A matter of conscience? (1)

When Mgr Anton Gouder was asked by a journalist about divorce and he answered by giving the Church’s teaching, he was reminded by former Labour minister Joe Brincat that saying that those who vote for divorce would be committing a sin is an offence under the Corrupt Practices Act.

I am not a lawyer, but would I be wrong to say that our Constitution gives the right to the Catholic Church to teach what is right and what is wrong without any hindrance?

As if this attack from the outside was not enough, a few days later this unfortunate priest was attacked again, this time from the inside, by a theologian who said Mgr Gouder should not ‘play God’.

I am sure Mgr Gouder is quite capable of defending himself, but I am put off by supposedly learned people who label others while being themselves guilty of that same offence.

Suddenly the word ‘conscience’ has become very fashionable. Everyone is defining it according to their own whims. It is quite true that everybody has (or should have) a conscience, but then conscience has to be formed and informed. This formation depends on the family and the environment one is brought up in.

Is invoking ‘conscience’, for example, acceptable at law to justify some action or other? I do not think so. What kind of conscience is it when one first says that one does not agree with divorce and, a few weeks later, that divorce is necessary for some.

I am against divorce, but divorce will come one day; however, when that happens I am sure we will have people pressing for euthanasia and abortion. No doubt they will find the support of lawyers, philosophers, and perhaps even theologians and priests who would be undermining the Church from the inside.