62. Conscience, as the judgment of an act, is not exempt from the possibility of an error.
As the Council puts it, "not infrequently conscience can be mistaken as a result of
invincible ignorance, although it does not on that account forfeit its dignity; but this
cannot be said when a man shows little concern for seeking what is true and good, and
conscience gradually becomes almost blind from being accustomed to sin".* In these brief
words the Council sums up the doctrine which the Church down the centuries has developed
with regard to erroneous conscience.
Certainly, in order to have a "good conscience" (1 Tim 1:5), man must seek the truth and
must make judgments in accordance with that same truth. As the Apostle Paul says, the
conscience must be "confirmed by the Holy Spirit" (cf Rom 9:1); it must be "clear" (2 Tim
1:3); it must not "practise cunning and tamper with God's word", but "openly state the truth"
(cf 2 Cor 4:2). On the other hand, the Apostle also warns Christians: "Do not be conformed
to this world but be tranformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may prove what is the
will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect" (Rom 12:2).
Paul's admonition urges us to be watchful, warning us that in the judgments of our
conscience the possibility of error is always present. Conscience is not an infallible
judge; it can make mistakes. However, error of conscience can be the result of an
invincible ignorance, an ignorance of which the subject is not aware and which he is
unable to overcome by himself.
The Council reminds us that in cases where such invincible ignorance is not culpable,
conscience does not lose its dignity, because even when it directs us to act in a way not
in conformity with the objective moral order, it continues to speak in the name of that truth
about the good which the subject is called to seek sincerely...
*(107)-SECOND VATICAN ECUMENICAL COUNCIL, Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern
World Gaudium et Spes, 16.
...H.C.?...