From the bulletin of September 20, 2020
Blessed Pius IX, in his long pontificate (1846-1878), wrote on a wide variety of subjects and was a significant figure in the Church’s response to the development of the modern world. This also means he is a controversial figure. Though he is beatified, there have been and still are people in the Church who are ashamed of his leadership and who try to minimize or reject his teachings. As is often the case in such controversies, the problem is more often than not a matter of misunderstanding and miscommunication. One such example of this is Pope Pius IX’s teaching on conscience, which follows the teaching of his predecessor Gregory XVI (1831-1846).
To be frank, what these popes are saying is not perfectly clear and is a little shocking to our modern sensibilities at first glance. They call it “insanity” to say that “liberty of conscience and worship is each man’s personal right… and that a right resides in the citizens to an absolute liberty, which should be restrained by no authority whether ecclesiastical or civil, whereby they may be able openly and publicly to manifest and declare any of their ideas whatever, either by word of mouth, by the press, or in any other way.” As modern Americans, and even as Catholics, we recoil at the idea that anyone would oppose freedom of conscience. Right now in our country, we are fighting for the freedom of conscience to opt out of immoral procedures like abortion, sex-change surgeries, and funding contraceptives. This quote makes it look like Popes Gregory XIV and Pius IX would disagree with out fight to protect our conscience. Additionally, one of the documents at the Vatican II, called Dignitatis Humanae, seems to go the opposite direction when it says human beings “possess the civil right not to be hindered in leading their lives in accordance with their consciences.”
So, do we just toss out the teachings of these two popes as their personal opinion? Well, these are encyclicals and the Popes both use pretty direct language to condemn this idea. They are also not coming up with this on their own, but following certain traditions in the Church. While not guaranteed to be infallible, this kind of teaching is still part of the ordinary magisterium which does have some force. The solution here, as in so many places, is to look at context. More specifically, it is important to consider the fact that the meaning of words can shift some over time and in different contexts. As St. John Henry Newman (1801-1890) put it, “the Popes of our century have been misunderstood… as if they really were speaking against conscience in the true sense of the word, when in fact they were speaking against it in the various false senses, philosophical or popular, which in this day are put upon the word.”
Apparently, people were arguing that “freedom of conscience” was absolute to the point of denying anyone’s right to punish people for doing evil things if the ones doing them were following their conscience. This was being used specifically to deny the Church’s authority to establish doctrines and punish Catholics who taught against them. But the Church has the right and the duty to condemn heresies and to punish Catholics who teach them (usually with warnings and minor penalties, but up to excommunication if necessary). In some places and times in the history of the world, Catholic kings and queens used their civil authority to help the Church in her mission of proclaiming and defending the truth and, yes, this often led to excesses, crimes, and various forms of hypocrisy. There’s too many factors and complicated details in that issue to deal with here, but the point is that the Church has always taught that the Church has authority to defend the truth.
What is true is that human beings have free will, which means they have the right to make their own decisions. What is also true is that that freedom does not allow people to commit evil without consequences. “Evil” includes physical and spiritual things. To teach someone that God is not real is evil because it is not true. Doing so has natural and supernatural consequences for the person teaching and the one being taught. In some cases, it is good for the Church to enforce consequences for such evils. There are a lot of judgment calls to make about where the line is and how much enforcement is too much or too little, but the basic principle remains. Popes Gregory XVI and Pius IX are defending that principle against an exaggerated idea of “freedom of conscience.” More recent teachings are defending conscience against an exaggerated idea of “defending the truth.” There’s still some work to do on sorting out the truth in the middle and applying it in our lives, but we should not fall for the trap of saying the Church’s teaching is erratic and unreliable.
In Christ,
-Fr. Albert