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The Catholic tradition on conscience is very extensive, while being quite unified. One may wonder, if the teaching is so unified, why there would be so much to say. The reason is because the tradition is unified on a tension. The first pole of the tension is that under no circumstances should one violate one's conscience – one must always follow even an erring conscience. The other pole of the tension is that, at the same time, a rightly formed conscience is expected to concur with Catholic teaching. These two moral requirements, that one should follow one's conscience and that one should follow Church teachings, are potentially in conflict. The requirements may not align, and if so, then a point of tension has appeared between an individual's conscience and the Church's teachings.

Historical Background

Catholicism, Conscience, and…

I’ve always admired Bob. When he sees people treated unfairly at work, he speaks up. Recognizing an unjust policy, he works to reform it. Yet Bob’s behavior is rare. Most people live with what Thoreau called “quiet desperation” (1999).They either complain in the hallways and do nothing or ignore the issue as long as it doesn’t affect them personally.What makes the difference? Moral courage—the ability to confront abuse and injustice, risking our own well-being to affirm our deepest values and the rights of others.

Moral courage involves compassion, concern for the lives of others. In their study of people who rescued Jews during the Holocaust, Fagin-Jones and Midlarsky (2007) found that the rescuers were more than three standard deviations above bystanders in empathic concern, social responsibility, and altruistic moral reasoning. But research has also shown that concern for others can be undermined by an atmosphere of chronic stress. People can become too busy, too rushed, too overwhelmed, to care (Darley & Batson, 1973). Have you ever found yourself too busy with demands and deadlines to respond to the needs of someone you know?

Yet research has shown that people with moral courage have greater self-efficacy, which contributes to greater emotional and physical health (Bandura, 1997, 1999). And acts of moral courage can produce a ripple effect, transforming the people and conditions around us. Haidt (2000) has found that the elevation we experience when witnessing acts of moral courage makes us want to help others and become better people ourselves.