From: 15942@brahms.udel.edu (Stephen Barr)
Subject: submission to teaching, conscience, ... sigh.
Organization: University of Delaware
Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1993 18:51:47 GMT

      We seem to have gotten stuck in a thicket. Partly
my fault. I would like to go back to the original
issues, which are of great importance to many people,
and try to restate my position.

      The basic question which started off all this 
stuff on railroads was the following. What should be
the attitude of the faithful Catholic when confronted
by authentic but non-infallible teaching of the Church?

      "Conservatives", like me, are fond of quoting 
section 25 of the document Lumen Gentium of the 
Second Vatican Council:
    "In matters of faith and morals, the bishops speak
    in the name of Christ and the faithful are to accept
    their teaching and adhere to it with a religious
    assent [obsequium religiosum]. This religious submission
    of mind and will must be shown in a special way to 
    the authentic magisterium of the Roman Pontiff, even 
    when he is not speaking ex cathedra;...."
                                
       Now, two very pertinent questions arose in connection
with this text.
    (1) What is the best way to translate "obsequium"? In the
translation I have been quoting above it is translated "assent".
However, it was pointed out that this is misleading and in-
accurate." In my view, the best translation is "submission"
and also good are "obedience" and "compliance".  

    (2) Must one *always* submit to (obey, comply with, ...)
non-infallible teachings of the bishops and pope? What about
conscience?

    I have already given an answer to this, but it may be
more helpful to state my answer in the form of a general
principle:
    My principle. If something is an *authentic* teaching of
    the bishops or pope on faith and morals one must submit
    to it (not necessarily 'assent' internally) *unless*
    to do so would involve doing something one's conscience
    clearly judged to be immoral (or not doing something
    that one's conscience judged to be a moral duty).

I leave aside the question of the attitude one should take
to commands of the pope or a bishop that are not "teaching".
That is a separate issue.

    I was asked about several "hard cases". (a) The Bull
Ad Extirpanda, in which a pope in the Middle Ages 
authorized the use of torture on heretics. (That is my
understanding. It may be that he did more, even commanded
it.)  (b) The Encyclical Humanae Vitae teaching that
artificial means of contraception are immoral. (c) The
papal "condemnation" of railways and gas lighting.
   I was not asked but considered for illustration two
other cases. (d) One's own bishop teaches something
clearly at odds with the teaching of the pope and of
the whole college of bishops, as, say, that fornication
is not immoral. (e) The Church condemns some scientific
proposition.

   Let us see what my principle implies.

   (e) is teaching but not on faith and morals.

   (d) is teaching on faith and morals but not authentic.
      Or, shall we say, the teaching of the whole college           
      of bishops and of the pope is more authentic.

   (a) depends on what Ad Extirpanda said. If it merely
      authorized (or commanded) either the civil 
      authorities or the Roman Inquisition to use torture
      that is not teaching. (Even so it may raise an
      issue of conscience for me, especially if I am
      one of the civil authorities or Inquisitors involved.
      But I am only discussing here submission owed or
      not owed to *teachings* of the Magisterium. So I
      will not deal with this other question here.)
        If Ad Extirpanda or some other Bull teaches as
      a doctrine which all the faithful are to accept
      the proposition that "it is morally good to 
      torture recalcitrant heretics", then I am indeed
      confronted with a teaching on faith and morals.
      I did not discuss this before. But the implication
      of my principle is clear: I may not submit to this
      teaching insofar as it involves an act (or failure
      to act) that is against a clear dictate of my
      conscience.       

   (b), Humanae Vitae, is clearly an authentic teaching
      of the pope on faith and morals. Therefore, I must
      submit unless to do so would violate a clear
      judgment of conscience. In this case one's conscience
      would have to judge it immoral to use natural family
      planning rather than contraceptives. ie. In a 
      specific situation one's conscience would have to 
      say "I must have sexual intercourse now with my 
      spouse using a contraceptive rather than wait until 
      an infertile period. And if I don't I am sinning
      before God". (I don't know about you. But my
      *conscience* never said anything like that to me. :) )

   (c), the dreaded case of the "condemnation" of railways!
      I won't waste much time on this. Again, it depends
      on what is said. If (as I believe, given all evidence
      I have seen) the pope merely prohibits (forbids, bans,
      refuses to allow, nixes, refuses to countenance, ...   
      supply your own equivalent expression) the construction
      of railway lines (or gas lighting facilities) in his
      Papal States that is not teaching on faith and morals.
      It therefore is quite irrelevant to this discussion.
      If the pope uses the expression "not roads of iron
      but roads to Hell" to express in a mordant French pun
      his personal hatred, loathing, detestation, abomination
      of these things, as explanation of his unwillingness
      to allow them in his Papal States, that is still not 
      "teaching" nor is it a "condemnation" in the only sense
      that is relevant to this discussion, namely a doctrinal
      condemnation. (Pope Innocent X "condemned" five propositions
      of the Jansenists in 1653. Pope Pius X "condemned" 65
      propositions of the Modernists,...)
 
        Now: what if it proves to be the case that ol' Gregory XVI
      "condemned" railway travel. For example, he issued an
      Encyclical "Chemins d'enfer" addressed to his Venerable
      Brethren the Patriarchs, Archbishops, Bishops,.. and all
      the faithful and men of good will explaining that it is
      against the natural law and the constant tradition of the
      Church that a person should travel by railroad, whether
      coach or first class, with or without a valid ticket, etc.
      Well, of course, the obvious conclusion is that he is
      bonkers. But let's suppose he isn't. The answer is simple.
      I would submit only insofar as it did no violence to
      my conscience.                 
        This is not a "hard case", it is a childishly absurd  
      case. 


        Is my principle itself absurd? I will quote Newman
     "And, further, obedience to the Pope is what is called
     'in possession;' that is, the onus probandi of establishing
     a case against him lies, as in all cases of exception,
     on the side of the conscience. Unless a man be able to
     say to himself, as in the Presence of God, that he must
     not, and dare not, act upon the Papal injunction, he is
     bound to obey it, and would commit a great sin in 
     disobeying it."

       I believe my analysis and the principle I have employed
     are the only ones consistent with the teaching of Lumen
     Lumen Gentium on the Magisterium, the teaching of 
     Gaudium et Spes on conscience, and the teaching of 
     Newman on both. 
                           I will be willing to discuss
                           this or related questions
                           with any serious person. Steve Barr.
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