Second Vatican Council
Extracts from conciliar documents concerning conscience
Apostolicam Actuositatem, 18 November,
1965
5. The work of Christ's redemption concerns
essentially the salvation of men; it takes in also,
however, the renewal of the whole temporal order.
The mission of the Church, consequently, is not only
to bring men the message and grace of Christ but
also to permeate and improve the whole range of the
temporal. The laity, carrying out this mission of
the Church, exercise their apostolate therefore in
the world as well as in the Church, in the temporal
order as well as in the spiritual. These orders are
distinct; they are nevertheless so closely linked
that God's plan is, in Christ, to take the whole
world up again and make of it a new creation, in an
initial way here on earth, in full realization at
the end of time. The layman, at one and the same
time a believer and a citizen of the world, has only
a single conscience, a Christian conscience; it is
by this that he must be guided continually in both
domains.
Dignitatis Humane, 7 December, 1965
3. This becomes even clearer if one considers
that the highest norm of human life is the divine
law itself - eternal, objective and universal, by
which God orders, directs and governs the whole
world and the ways of the human community according
to a plan conceived in his wisdom and love. God has
enabled man to participate in this law of his so
that, under the gentle disposition of divine
providence, many may be able to arrive at a deeper
and deeper knowledge of unchangeable truth. For this
reason everybody has the duty and consequently the
right to seek the truth in religious matters so
that, through the use of appropriate means, he may
prudently form judgements of conscience which are
sincere and true. . . It is through his conscience
that man sees and recognizes the demands of the
divine law. He is bound to follow this conscience
faithfully in all his activity so that he may come
to God, who is his last end. Therefore 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. The
reason is because the practice of religion of its
very nature consists primarily of those voluntary
and free internal acts by which a man directs
himself to God. Acts of this kind cannot be
commanded or forbidden by any merely human
authority. But his own social nature requires that
man give external expression to these internal acts
of religion, that he communicate with others on
religious matters, and profess his religion in
community. Consequently to deny man the free
exercise of his religion in society, when the just
requirements of public order are observed, is to do
an injustice to the human person and to the very
order established by God for men.
11. . . .Taught by Christ's word and example the
apostles followed the same path. From the very
beginnings of the Church the disciples of Christ
strove to convert men to confess Christ as Lord, not
however by applying coercion or with the use of
techniques unworthy of the Gospel but, above all, by
the power of the word of God. They steadfastly
proclaimed to all men the plan of God the Saviour,
"who desires all men to be saved and to come to the
knowledge of the truth" (1 Tim. 2:4). At the same
time, however, they showed respect for the weak even
though they were in error, and in this way made it
clear how "each of us shall give an account of
himself to God" (Rom. 14:12) and for that reason is
bound to obey his conscience. Like Christ, the
apostles were constantly bent on bearing witness to
the truth of God and they showed the greatest
courage in speaking "the word of God with boldness"
(Acts 4:31) before people and rulers. With a firm
faith they upheld the truth that the Gospel itself
is indeed the power of God for the salvation of all
who believe. They therefore despised "all worldly
weapons" and followed the example of Christ's
meekness and gentleness as they preached the word of
God with full confidence in the divine power of that
word to destroy those forces hostile to God and lead
men to believe in and serve Christ. Like their
Master, the apostles too recognized legitimate civil
authority: "Let every person be subject to the
governing authorities...he who resists the
authorities resists what God has appointed" (Rom.
13:1-2). At the same time they were not afraid to
speak out against public authority when it opposed
God's holy will: "We must obey God rather than men
(Acts 5:29). This is the path which innumerable
martyrs and faithful have followed through the
centuries all over the world.
13. . . . . At the same time the Christian
faithful, in common with the rest of men, have the
civil right of freedom from interference in leading
their lives according to their conscience. A harmony
exists therefore between the freedom of the Church
and that religious freedom which must be recognized
as the right of all men and all communities and must
be sanctioned by constitutional law.
14. . . . However, in forming their consciences the
faithful must pay careful attention to the sacred
and certain teaching of the Church. For the Catholic
Church is by the will of Christ the teacher of
truth. It is her duty to proclaim and teach with
authority the truth which is Christ and, at the same
time, to declare and confirm by her authority the
principles of the moral order which spring from
human nature itself.
Gaudium et Spes, 7 December, 1965
16. Deep within his conscience man discovers a
law which he has not laid upon himself but which he
must obey. Its voice, ever calling him to love and
to do what is good and to avoid evil, tells him
inwardly at the right moment: do this, shun that.
For man has in his heart a law inscribed by God. His
dignity lies in observing this law, and by it he
will be judged. His conscience is man's most secret
core, and his sanctuary. There he is alone with God
whose voice echoes in his depths. By conscience, in
a wonderful way, that law is made known which is
fulfilled in the love of God and of one's neighbour.
Through loyalty to conscience Christians are joined
to other men in the search for truth and for the
right solution to so many moral problems which arise
both in the life of individuals and from social
relationships. Hence, the more a correct conscience
prevails, the more do persons and groups turn aside
from blind choice and try to by guided by the
objective standards of moral conduct. Yet it often
happens that conscience goes astray through
ignorance which it is unable to avoid, without
thereby losing its dignity. This cannot be said of
the man who takes little trouble to find out what is
true and good, or when conscience is by degrees
almost blinded through the habit of committing sin.
26. . . . At the same time, however, there is a
growing awareness of the sublime dignity of the
human person, who stands above all things and whose
rights and duties are universal and inviolable. He
ought, therefore, to have ready access to all that
is necessary for living a genuinely human life: for
example, food, clothing, housing, the right freely
to choose his state of life and set up a family, the
right to education, work, to his good name, to
respect, to proper knowledge, the right to act
according to the dictates of conscience and to
safeguard his privacy, and rightful freedom even in
mattes of religion.
43. . . . But it is no less mistaken to think
that we may immerse ourselves in earthly activities
as if these latter were utterly foreign to religion,
and religion were nothing more than the fulfilment
of acts of worship and the observance of a few moral
obligations. One of the gravest errors of our time
is the dichotomy between the faith which many
profess and the practice of their daily lives. As
far back as the Old Testament the prophets
vehemently denounced this scandal, and in the New
Testament Christ himself with greater force
threatened it with severe punishment. Let there,
then, be no such pernicious opposition between
professional and social activity on one hand and
religious life on the other. The Christian who
shirks his temporal duties shirks his duties towards
his neighbour, neglects God himself, and endangers
his eternal salvation.
. . . It is to the laity, though not exclusively
to them, that secular duties and activity properly
belong. When, therefore, as citizens of the world,
they are engaged in any activity either individually
or collectively, they will not be satisfied with
meeting the minimum legal requirements but will
strive to become truly proficient in that sphere.
They will gladly cooperate with others working
towards the same objectives. Let them be aware of
what their faith demands of them in these matters
and derive strength from it; let them not hesitate
to take the initiative at the opportune moment and
put their findings into effect. It is their task to
cultivate a properly informed conscience and to
impress the divine law on the affairs of the earthly
city.
50. . . . Married people should realize that in
their behaviour they may not simply follow their own
fancy but must be ruled by conscience- and
conscience ought to be conformed to the law of God
in the light of the teaching authority of the
Church, which is the authentic interpreter of divine
law. For the divine law throws light on the meaning
of married love, protects it and leads it to truly
human fulfilment.
76. . . . It is of supreme importance, especially
in a pluralistic society, to work out a proper
vision of the relationship between the political
community and the Church, and to distinguish clearly
between the activities of Christians, acting
individually or collectively in their own name as
citizens guided by the dictates of Christian
conscience, and their activity acting along with
their pastors in the name of the Church.
Gravissimum Educationis, 28 October, 1965
6. The public authority, therefore, whose duty it
is to protect and defend the liberty of the
citizens, is bound according to the principles of
distributive justice to ensure that public subsidies
to schools are so allocated that parents are truly
free to select schools for their children in
accordance with their conscience.
8. . . . The sacred Synod therefore affirms once
more the right of the Church freely to establish and
conduct schools of all kinds and grades, a right
which has already been asserted time and again in
many documents of the Magisterium. It emphasizes
that the exercise of this right is of the utmost
importance for the preservation of liberty of
conscience, for the protection of the rights of
parents, and for the advancement of culture itself.
Lumen Gentium, 21 November, 1964
16. . . . Those who, through no fault of their
own, do not know the Gospel of Christ or his Church,
but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart,
and, moved by grace, try in their actions to do his
will as they know it through the dictates of their c
onscience- those too may achieve eternal salvation.
36. . . . Because of the very economy of
salvation the faithful should learn to distinguish
carefully between the rights and the duties which
they have as belonging to the Church and those which
fall to them as members of human society. They will
strive to unite the two harmoniously, remembering
that in every temporal affair they are to be guided
by a Christian conscience, since not even in
temporal business may any human activity be
withdrawn from God's dominion. In our times it is
most necessary that this distinction and harmony
should shine forth as clearly as possible in the
manner in which the faithful act, in order that the
mission of the Church may correspond more fully with
the special circumstances of the world today.