Customer Reviews

On Conscience (Bioethics & Culture)

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To the best of my knowledge, these essays were presented in English (both were keynote addresses to bishops' workshops.) and it may partly this fact - their lack of translation by a second party - that makes the texts so wonderfully approachable. Having studied a great amount of Ratzinger's work from his more than forty-year career, I feel that I have a decent grasp of his world-view, approach and theological method. Absolutely consistent with his previous and following work, the essays reprinted in "On Conscience" (one from 1984, the other 1991) are real gems.

What is perhaps the most interesting and significant feature of these texts is the insider's view one obtains from the 1991 address. Written just under a year before the publication of the new Catechism of the Catholic Church, of which Ratzinger was primary editor, this address highlights almost verbatim much of what is written in the CCC under the heading of conscience. I have to wonder whether or not the bishops at the time really appreciated the preview they were privy to.

Both texts and the introduction total around 85 pages, so this is a very short read. I highly recommend it, especially for it's clear language and well articulated views.

On Conscience is an essential book for anyone trying to figure out how to know the right thing to do in any given situation. Today there are many who -- while continuing to recognize that acting rightly (whatever that means) is still important -- a large number seem also to believe that anything is right as long as they sincerely think it is right. Cardinal Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI) shows very clearly, and very dramatically and convincingly, that this can not be true. While continuing to honor the ancient tradition that a certain conscience must be followed, he shows that there also must be a serious effort to form a correct conscience, and illustrates from recent human history what can happen if this effort to cultivate a correct conscience is not taken. This book deals directly with the apparent conflict between individual conscience and external authority. The only shortcoming of the book is that some of the explanations are unduly long, and make for dry reading as a result. Well worth the effort anyhow.

This small book ought to be near the top of the list for people who want to begin reading Pope Benedict. It has three distinct advantages as such an introductory text. First, the two talks on conscience are close to the center of his overall message, distinguishing personal subjective concepts of conscience and morality from objective truth. This of course has been restated many times since his papacy, but the second advantage here is its brevity and concentration on essences.

But the real advantage here is the third -- these are 2 talks originally in English, no translation is necessary. Benedict's English is clear, direct and thereby modern -- also subtly colored without sounding merely academic, an effect sometimes left even after the best of translations. It is one of the best Benedict items in the Ignatius Press catalog, and amply speaks for itself and in rich dimensionality, belying its length.

The contemporary man is so often tempted to interpret the prophetic words of "do what your heart tells you" as meaning that his heart is the sole arbiter of his morality. Of course, this forgets that the
"heart" may desire one thing but also realize that it may be wrong, thereby judging that the person needs to probe deeper into the matter in order to really know what is in consonance with his heart. Implicitly, Truth is involved in the formation and direction of the conscience, thereby eliminating the wholly subjectivist interpretation of "conscience," a term which should be remembered as being con-science, knowing with, thereby presupposing the greater community of humanity and the world.

Cardinal Ratzinger's consideration of the Conscience in these two talks is well timed in an age which as forgotten that the conscience is more than a relativistic term. Both essays aim to reunite the subjective conscience with its orientation to the objective Truth and the whole of the community from whence it takes its promptings and toward which it provides growth. In the consideration of what seems to be a human anamnesis of conscience which points mankind with fits and starts toward the same Truth, the conscience already shows itself to have an orientation to the objective. In addition, one can talk of the conscience changing over time, of becoming more formed or deformed with the making of choices. Once again, Ratzinger points out that this is this points to something outside of oneself. This also provides a direction for how to understand the place of the Church in relation to academic theologians, a subject considered in the second essay. The community of the Church takes on the character of the moral arbiter which passes along the experience which grows from the struggle of the Church through the ages. In order to completely understand this struggle, it must remain in dialogue with "scientific" theologians who help shape the moral dialogue in each age. These theologians remain in service to the community and thereby stand both as a shaper as well as a subject to the moral tradition which informs the Catholic conscience.

Like the other works of Ratzinger (or later as Pope Benedict XVI), this text is insightful yet very accessible to readers of varied levels of theological and philosophical acumen. It is marked by the character of a man who has a deep love of that communion of faith in which he has been formed and which he now leads as spiritual father. In a world which has forgotten the necessary relationship of the conscience to objective truth (and therefore the community of Church, mankind, and world), this text is a gentle introductory corrective which is insightful and fruitful.

I have nothing to say but that every single time I find a book by Pope Benedict XVI or "Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger," I must have it.

His clear, unobstructed writing and thinking give me hope for our Church.

Thank God the Cardinals listened to the Holy Ghost!

An eloquent essay on the Conscience. Helps to explain our responsibility, and how to know what it is, as children of God. Essential reading for the aspiring Saint.

-Jeremy Smalling