Conscience and Creative Responsibility Anne E. Patrick
Pope Francis is opening up new lines of thought regarding conscience, responsibility, and creativity.
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HE SECOND VATICA N Council’s criterion of practical benefit to the world suggested that past emphasis in moral theology had been too preoccupied with the state of believers’ souls to take sufficient notice of its effects on the well-being of persons within and beyond the Catholic community.1 Fifty years after the council, Pope Francis voiced a similar desire for practical benefit to the world when he proclaimed a special Jubilee of Mercy, so that the witness of believers might grow stronger and more effective. His rhetoric bypasses discussions of how to form consciences, and simply says, “Let us open our eyes and see the misery of the world, the wounds of our brothers and sisters who are denied their dignity, and let us recognize that we are compelled to heed their cry for help” (Misericordiae Vultus (MV no. 3, 15) . . . For Pope Francis, the Jubilee invites intense reflection on the “corporal and spiritual works of mercy,” and “will be a way to reawaken
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our conscience, too often grown dull in the face of poverty” (MV no. 15). He employs metaphors of dullness and awakening for conscience, and emphasizes the fact that God’s disposition toward us is one of friendliness and mercy, which should have the effect of freeing us for significant action, indeed for carrying forward Jesus’ own mission. Our focus should be on the physical and spiritual needs of our neighbors, and not on a misguided quest for innocence. God’s mercy provides the context in which we can accept our sinfulness, and while striving to observe to the commandments we can be aware that “the rule of life for [Jesus’] disciples must place mercy at the center, as Jesus himself demonstrated by sharing meals with sinners” (MV no. 20). With consciences thus consoled by the assurance of God’s mercy, revealed as love like “that of a father or a mother, moved to the very depths out of love for their child” (MV no. 6), we can act