The politics of conscience

The politics of conscience

We have come to live in a society where conscience is a stranger. Instead of having a society ruled by people with conscience, we have a society that is governed by dishonorable men and women who don’t seem to have conscience. They rule our society with arrogance and deceit and they supplant our individual consciences with their own rules and interests. Unfortunately, we also have some of our people who make moral choices independent of conscience and the teachings of the Church such that their moral choices are anchored on what is politically convenient.

The Catholic Church has long upheld the significance of informed conscience especially in making moral decisions. We make moral decisions on the basis of the authoritative teachings of the Church, the values of the Gospel, and the will of God. Informed conscience does not invent the truth. It discovers and evangelizes the truth based on the teachings of the Church. Only an informed conscience then can make good moral judgments. Conversely, uninformed conscience is always prone to make erroneous moral judgments.

Nowadays our leaders are so much engrossed with the issue on constitutional change. And as early as this, some presidentiables and other would-be political candidates for the 2010 general elections are busy positioning themselves in the political field to ensure their electoral victories. Lies, deceits, and dishonesty of these leaders and politicians horribly creep into the very political fiber of our society in order to protect their selfish interests and promote their ulterior motives. We naturally expect that all of these petty concerns would end up into compromises which would sidestep once more moral decisions based on the used of informed conscience.

We are challenging the Catholic politicians to lead by their informed conscience. We challenge them to become proxies of the living Church and be moral exemplars and leaders of our times. We ask them to stand on the commitment of the Church regarding moral issues besetting our society. Their political actions and decisions should be reflective of their enlightened faith and the teachings of the Church.

It is about time that we should catalogue the performance of our Catholic politicians especially on how they stand on issues of the day. If their public life shows clearly that they do not side with the Church and they morally judge on the basis of their uninformed conscience, then it is proper that we dismiss them as not fitting to any public office. We would rather go electing a protestant politician who lives a public life with an informed conscience reflecting the Gospel values than a Catholic politician who opposes the teachings of the Church.