The Catechism in a Year (with Fr. Mike Schmitz) - Day 238: Our Moral Conscience (2026)

Episode Date: August 26, 2026

Together, with Fr. Mike, we explore the moral conscience. Fr. Mike emphasizes that even though our intellect has been weakened by sin, we still have some sense, our conscience, that tells us that there is a right and wrong. He also emphasizes the difference between our conscience and our passions. Today's readings are Catechism paragraphs 1776-1782. This episode has been found to be in conformity with the Catechism by the Institute on the Catechism, under the Subcommittee on the Catechism, USCCB. For the complete reading plan, visit ascensionpress.com/ciy Please note: The Catechism of the Catholic Church contains adult themes that may not be suitable for children - parental discretion is advised.

Hi, my name's Father Mike Schmitz, and you're listening to the Catechism in a Year podcast, where we encounter God's plan of sheer goodness for us, revealed in Scripture, and passed down through the tradition of the Catholic faith. The Catechism in the Year is brought to you by Ascension. In 365 days, we'll read through the Catechism of the Catholic Church, discovering our identity in God's family as we journey together toward our heavenly home. This is day 238. We're reading paragraphs 1776, 1776 to paragraph 1782. As always, I'm using the Ascension edition of the catechism, which includes a foundations of faith approach, but you can follow along with any recent version of the catechism of the Catholic Church. You can also download your own catechism

in your reading plan by visiting ascensurepress.com slash cI. And lastly, you can click follow or subscribe in your podcast app for daily updates and daily notifications today. Day 238, paragraphs 1776, New York City. Sorry, that's a reference to Hamilton. It's a whole thing. Parish 1776, which is also kind of a significant year. I don't know if you know anything about that, but it was kind of a big deal. Anyway, 177, back to the Categism, 1776 to 1782. We're talking about moral conscience. Today, yesterday we talked about the passions and the morality of the passions.

Today before that, we talked about what it is to make a moral decision. Today, we're talking about the conscience, the moral conscience. And there is this, here is this quote. Rough starts from the beginning. It's from Gaudi Metz-Pez. The whole paragraph 1776, no more references to the, that. Barograph 1776 has this quote from Gaudium at Spes, and it says, deep within his conscience, man discovers a law which he has not laid upon himself, but which he must obey.

And it's a voice ever calling him to love and to do what is good and avoid evil. It sounds in his heart at the right moment, goes on to talk about this, that in our hearts, we have a Jiminy Cricket, basically, that unlike Pinocchio, who had to be given a conscience, we have deep within us a conscience. And that conscience is placed upon us, a voice, it says, ever calling us to love and to do what is good and to avoid what is evil. Now, we're going to talk about that not only today, but the next couple of days because it's a technical topic. In fact, Dr. Mary Healy mentioned this in the interview we had how difficult it is to understand because once you talk about conscience being what we'll say today, the aboriginal vicar of Christ, right, the pre-original voice

of Jesus in our human heart, then people say, well, what does that even mean? What kind of authority does my conscience have when it goes against what God has said? You know, all those kinds of things. We're going to talk about those in the days to come. But today we just want to get a handle on what is our conscience and what is a judgment of conscience. So we're talking about that today. So as we launch, let's pray. Every time before we launch, we got to pray. Let's pray now. Father in heaven, we give you praise. We give you glory. We thank you. We ask you to please receive us. Lord, we are here to learn. We are here as disciples. We are not here to tell you how you should be. We're not here to tell you how you should look at us, how you should treat us, how you should make us.

We're not here to tell you anything. We're just simply here to learn. We're here to be formed by you. We're here to be taught by you. We're here to be changed and transformed by you. So Lord God, we ask, we bring before you our conscience, our conscience that has been in some ways malformed, our conscience that's been wounded, our conscience that's been deafened, our conscience that's been hardened and in rebellion in so often ways we need to be softened, we need to be taught. Lord God, transform our conscience, transform our inner world, transform our heart so we can be more and more like you this day and every day. In Jesus name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, amen. It is day 238. We're reading

paragraphs 1776 to 1782. Article 6, Moral Conscience. Deep within his conscience, man discovers a law which he has not laid upon himself, but which he must obey. Its voice, ever calling him to love and to do what is good and to avoid evil, sounds in his heart at the right moment. For man has in his heart a law inscribed by God. His conscience is man's most secret core and his sanctuary. There, he has, he is a law. He is a is alone with God whose voice echoes in his depths. The judgment of conscience. Moral conscience, present at the heart of the person, enjoins him at the appropriate moment to do good and to avoid evil.

It also judges particular choices approving those that are good and denouncing those that are evil. It bears witness to the authority of truth in reference to the supreme good to which the human person is drawn and it welcomes the commandments. When he listens to his conscience, the prudent man, can hear God's speaking. Conscience is a judgment of reason, whereby the human person recognizes the moral quality of a concrete act that he is going to perform, is in the process of performing, or has already completed. In all he says and does, man is obliged to follow faithfully what he

knows to be just and right. It is by the judgment of his conscience that a man perceives and recognizes the prescriptions of the divine law. John Henry Colonel Newman wrote, Conscience is a law of the mind. Yet Christians would not grant that it is nothing more, I mean that it was not a dictate, nor conveyed the notion of responsibility, of duty, of a threat and a promise. Conscience is a messenger of him

who both in nature and in grace speaks to us behind a veil and teaches and rules us by his representatives. Conscience is the aboriginal vicar of Christ. It is important for every person to be sufficiently present to him. himself in order to hear and follow the voice of his conscience, this requirement of interiority is all the more necessary as life often distracts us from any reflection, self-examination,

or introspection. As St. Augustine said, Return to your conscience. Question it. Turn inward, brethren, and in everything you do, see God as your witness. The dignity of the human person implies and requires a uprightness of moral conscience. Conscience includes the perception of the principles of morality, cinderesis, their application in the given circumstances by practical discernment of reasons and goods, and finally, judgment about concrete acts yet to be performed or already performed. The truth about the moral good, stated in the law of reason, is recognized practically and concretely by the prudent judgment of conscience. We call that man prudent who chooses in conformity

with this judgment. Conscience enables one to assume responsibility for the acts perform. If a man commits evil, the just judgment of conscience can remain within him as the witness to the universal truth of the good at the same time as the evil of his particular choice. The verdict of the judgment of conscience remains a pledge of hope and mercy. In attesting to the fault committed, it calls to mind the forgiveness that must be asked, the good that must still be practiced, and the virtue that must be. be constantly cultivated with the grace of God. As the first letter of St. John states,

we shall reassure our hearts before him whenever our hearts condemn us, for God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything. Man has the right to act in conscience and in freedom, so as personally to make moral decisions. He must not be forced to act contrary to his conscience, nor must he be prevented from acting according to his conscience, especially in religious matters. Okay, we are in paragraphs 1776 to 1782, all about conscience. You guys, oh my goodness gracious. Okay, so what is this? Within himself, within his conscience, man discovers a law which he has not laid upon

himself, which he must obey. This is a voice, basically St. Paul writing to the Romans, in Romans chapter one. St. Paul highlights us. He highlights that there is something good in us still, right? Remember, we're making God's image and likeness. So we do have an intellect, we do have a will. So even though that will has been darkened and that will has been weakened, we still recognize that we have the ability, the capacity to realize there are some things that are always good,

some things that are always wrong. We have a sense of right and wrong. This thing that tells us that, this is the Jiminy Cricket, right? This is our conscience that has this sense that there's, again, that sense. I keep you using that word term sense because this conscience tells us, this way of knowing, tells us that there is a right and there is wrong now. Just because I think something is right or because I think something is wrong, just because I have that sense, it doesn't make it right or doesn't make it wrong. In fact,

there's a lot of things that we disagree on when it comes to our conscience. So we have to have a well-formed conscience. But here's the thing. 1778 states, conscience is a judgment of reason whereby the human person recognizes the moral quality of a concrete act that he's going to perform is in the process of performing or has already completed. So essentially, conscience is a judgment of reason. Now, too often, I think, too often we associate conscience with yesterday, yesterday's lesson. Yesterday was the passions. It's that feeling. But we're taught today that conscience is a judgment of reason. And this is going to be a really big difference because I think that I could be wrong on this one, but like many things. But I believe that the world around us will see

conscience as that that gut feeling that we get. The conscience is that like I just really, I think this is okay or I think this is not okay. But we really are referring to our passions. like that seems fine or that seems off as opposed to what the church is saying. Now, you could have that feeling too. You could have that feeling of queasiness. You could have that feeling of like, no, this seems confirmed. But 1778 is going to highlight this being so important. Conscience is a judgment of reason.

That means the work of our intellect is necessary here. Now, why is this important? Because our intellect is still there right. And our intellect has the ability to apprehend truth. Our reason, our intellect has the ability to see, okay, this is good, this is not good. This is true. This is false. And we have to use that tool, right?

That tool we've been given called the intellect, called the brain, our mind, our reason, we have to use that in order to form our conscience. Our conscience can be malformed. We have to understand this. This is so important. Our conscience can be numbed. Our conscience can be deafened. And one of the reasons why we need to have a well-formed conscience is because, man, the

louder and louder the world around us becomes, the harder and harder it becomes to actually attend to the voice of conscience. That's why paragraph 1779, it underscores this so critically. It says, it's important for every person to be sufficiently present to himself in order to hear and follow the voice of his conscience. How many of us are present to ourselves? What do you mean by that? Well, here's one of the things I mean by that is, do I have the ability? to stand in line and not look at my phone. Do I have the ability to drive in my car for long distance and not turn on the radio, a podcast, anything else?

Do I have the ability to sit in silence without immediately driving myself crazy or without immediately having a thousand different distractions? Am I adequately present to myself or do I find myself constantly distracting myself from what the catacism calls interiority? We live in a culture not only that devotes itself to the passions, right, devotes itself to if it feels good, do it, but also we live in a culture that is incredibly distracted. Sometimes I don't even know what I think. I don't even know what I'm feeling. And so in a world of constant distraction, we rarely stop.

You know, how many times you've gone to the fridge because you're bored? Okay, wait a second. I'm not hungry. I'm bored. But I am, I'm not even know myself. I don't know. that I'm bored or how many times have we felt angry about something when it's like, oh, I'm not angry. I'm just nervous. I'm not mad at anyone. I'm just actually scared. I'm afraid. We don't often attend to ourselves. You don't necessarily know what we're thinking, know what we're feeling. If we have that interiority, we become closer and closer to that. Now, not only do we need interiority for a good conscience, the paragraph 1780 goes on to say that conscience includes the perception of the principles of morality. So, okay, what is that? Remember, Christian Smith, who had stated the conclusion was a big majority of American young adults

have neither the ability nor the categories to make moral decisions. So that's what we're talking about. The principles of morality will be those categories. Like how do I even understand the right and wrong? How do I even understand good and evil? So first we need understanding of the principles of morality. We also need to have their application in given circumstances by practical discernment of reasons and goods. Because sometimes we have conflicting goods, right, we'll talk more about that later. Finally, judgment about the concrete acts yet to be performed or already performed. There has to be some kind of judgment, some kind of assessment. Now, all of those need to be present for a person to have prudent judgment of conscience.

And that's just the beginning. There's other things that are necessary when it comes to that prudent judgment of conscience. But these on their own are some of the basics, right? So interiority. Am I even present to myself? Later beyond that, do I have principles of morality? That's what we're going to talk about, you know, in this whole section, this whole pillar of the catechism. We'll talk about those principles of morality. How do we apply those principles in given circumstances? How do we practically discern between goods and competing goods and other reasons? And then finally, how do we judge well?

We need that to have prudent judgment. We need to be able to judge well. Okay, two last things. Paragraph 1781. Conscience enables one to assume responsibility for the acts performed. Okay, that's wonderful. That's good because we remember we, we. we have responsibility. When we have freedom, we need responsibility. But there's something

that the Catechism says right after this and says, okay, even if a person, well, I'll read it here, then I'll break it down. If a man commits evil, the just judgment of conscience can remain within him as the witness to the universal truth of the good at the same time as the evil of his particular choice. So here is a person and they do the wrong. And yet the judgment of conscience can be in there. they can actually both at the same time still know the universal truth of the good and as a witness of the evil of his particular choice. And because of that, the verdict of the judgment of conscience remains a pledge of hope and mercy. And that's just so remarkable. It's that what does that even mean? It means that sometimes when I reach my hand out to the evil, I don't automatically

become evil. The voice of conscience remains in me saying that was wrong. When I do the evil, the voice of conscience remains in me saying, that was evil. You knew the good and you did the evil thing. Even in the midst of my particular choices of choosing evil, the judgment of conscience convicts me of that choice and reminds me of the good. That's why it says then, the verdict of the judgment of conscience remains a pledge of hope and mercy because calls to mind the reality, I need to ask for forgiveness. There is a good to be chosen.

There is a good that still needs to be practiced. Now, the last note before we conclude, in 1782. This is often misunderstood. He says this, man has the right to act in conscience and in freedom so as personally to make moral decisions. Of course, that every person has the right to act in conscience and in freedom. Being made in God's image or likeness, you've been made as a being that can will to choose, so you can be able to choose. Goes on to say, he must not be forced to act contrary to his conscience, nor must he be prevented from acting according to his conscience, especially in religious matters.

So a person can never be forcibly converted. Like that, that is, the church stands directly against that, right? So a person can never be forced to act contrary to their conscience, nor must they be prevented from acting according to their conscience. Okay, keep that in mind. Now,

what this doesn't mean is that just because I don't want to do something, that doesn't mean that if I have to do it, it's a violation of my conscience. So like a kid to say, like, I don't want to eat my green beans. And mom and dad, you're violating my conscience by,

making me eat my green beans. Okay, that's not the same thing. What the church is saying here in this distinction is if the child believe that eating the green beans would be the wrong thing to do. Like if they believe that eating green beans would actually be a sin. If eating the green beans or they're poisoned, I really believe they're poisoned, that kind of situation. Where it's to do this thing would be the wrong thing and then for parents to force them to do that. Okay, that would be to violate someone's conscience. But just to say, oh, I don't want to do that. Therefore, I have to act in according to my conscience. Like, that is not the same thing.

Now, that's at the level of green beans, but also there can be a more serious level, obviously. But the principle remains the same. A person cannot be forced to act contrary to their conscience. For example, if you came across someone who said, no, I know all about Christianity and I don't accept Jesus. To forcibly baptize them would be wrong. That would be the wrong thing to do. Or even to course them into baptism would be the wrong thing to do to force them

act contrary to their conscience would be the wrong thing. And we may never do that. We may never force someone to act contrary to their conscience or we can't prevent someone from acting according to their conscience, especially in religious matters. So we'll talk more and more about this as the days unfold because tomorrow we're going to talk about the formation of conscience and how important it is to form our consciences. Remember, I had mentioned earlier today that conscience is a judgment of reason. I kind of beat that in quite vehemently. Conscience is a judgment of reason. Because of that, we can get things wrong. Because our reason, our intellect can be misled. Our intellect can be mistaken. Our intellect can be malformed. Therefore, our conscience can be

malformed. Therefore, our conscience needs to be formed. So we'll talk about that more tomorrow. Man, oh man, you guys, we'll get going. If you knew all the outtakes behind this one, you would have a day. Speaking of having a day, I hope you have a great day. I am praying for you. Please pray for me. My name is Father Mike. I cannot wait to see you tomorrow. God bless.