The Final Arbiter of Conscience applied to Abortion.

 I am sure that my former Post in which I compared the conscience of a Holocaust perpetrator to the conscience of a follower of the New Way of judging morality, would have brought derision from those who support Fr James Martin.    'An informed conscience is the final arbiter of a moral life' said Fr James Martin in his letter..    There are four words to note "informed conscience' and 'final arbiter'.  He then goes on to tell you to make your own study and draw your own conclusions, but do not let any bishop, priest, interfere with your conclusions.    In other words be and adult and make up  your own mind.

Now when Hitler took power in Germany, a purge of the Universities and Schools started, and safe and sound people were installed to educate the young in Hitler's viewpoint that the Jews were scum who had betrayed the German people.  But even worse, they were a throwback in evolution and just animals without humanity.    So hate was sown in the hearts of the young and their consciences were formed into the belief that  killing Jews was a good thing for Germany.   It was so easy then to gas the Jews in the extermination camps, for they were following the 'final arbiter' of conscience.   "No, No" , you answer, "that is taking this discussion to a ridiculous lever.  We are informed adults"   But so were these Germans.   "But we would never exterminate human beings!"

Now that is a very interesting reply,  especially from those 'informed' adults who will be voting for Joe Biden.    Mr Biden is quite happy to pass a Bill that will dispose of babies the mothers wants to kill, up to the time of birth.   And as Fr Martin will tell you, he has an informed conscience and he is using this as the 'final arbiter' of the moral life.  So Joe is a Good Catholic.

So let us justify the conscience of Joe Biden.   In late term killings, there is a process called 'partial birth abortion' where we are told that the baby is killed when part of it is out of the womb.   What often happens, and there are plenty of recorded cases, is that the baby is born gasping for breath, then put on a nearby sink to die as it fights for its life.      But let us not condemn Joe, after all the baby 'is not human'   Joe Biden has a conscience that tells him so.   Perhaps if it had been a natural birth of a baby of the same age, we would have called it human, but the baby was meant to die and die it must.   But Joe has weighted up all these factors and has an 'informed conscience'. 

James 2.26 tells us "..the body without the spirit is dead.."    The soul is the life principle of the body, what makes it alive   Since from the time of conception the child's body is alive, as is shown by the fact that it is growing, the unborn child must already have its soul.   

But I could quote so many of the Early Fathers speaking out against Abortion.   The Didache or teachings of the Apostles, Letter of Barnabas, Athenagoras of Athens, Tertullian of Carthage, St Hippolytus of Rome, St Jerome, St John Chrysostom.   But let me quote from the Council of Akara, AD 314   "Concerning women who commit fornication and destroy what they have conceived, or who are employed in making drugs for abortion, a former decree excluded them until the hour of death, and to this some have assented.   Nevertheless, being desirous of using somewhat greater leniency, we have ordained that they fulfill ten years of Penance, according to the prescribed degrees."

Pope John Paul II in 1995 said the following "I declare that direct abortion, willed as an end or as a means, always constitutes a grave moral disorder, since it is the deliberate killing of an innocent human being.   This doctrine, based upon the Natural Law and upon the written word of God, is transmitted by the Church's tradition and taught by the Ordinary and Universal Magisterium.  No circumstances, no purpose, no law, whatsoever can ever make licit an act which is intrinsically illicit, since it is contrary to the law of God which is written in every human heart, known by reason itself, and proclaimed by the Church.  (Evangelium Vitae 62)

The promoters of Abortiion also themselves testify to the injustice of their position.   Take their slogan "My Body, My Choice" and note that it is not "My Body, My Baby, My Choice".   They try so desperately to ignore the presence of the baby in the womb.    Then there is this irrational statement that the baby 'is not human'.   Such a statement cannot be justified, but they believe if you keep lying you will convince people that it is the truth, and I must confess that they have told so many lies and that this strategy is working.

But back to Fr Martin and the final arbitration of Conscience.   A bishop, a priest, the Church does have the right to protect their laity from falling into error and unleashing evil into the world.   Abortion arose from the Sexual Revolution, when so many young people were indulging in sex,  getting pregnant, and becoming single mothers or choosing abortion.  True it is that up to the late fifties thee were many deaths from backstreet abortions, women who were desperate not to have a child in an already overcrowded home, or a young girl facing shame at being pregnant.   But society and the Church have moved on from those days, though in different ways.  The Church offers life while the state offers death.     It all comes back to what Pope Paul VI wrote about contraception in Humanae Vitae   It will destroy morals, it will destroy  families,  there will be more divorces and unfaithfulness.   And at the end of the day the young finding the pleasures and temptations of sex too much, will desert the Church and what they see as its backward teaching.   All sense of responsibility will go, as young men make young women pregnant and desert them and their offspring, desiring only pleasure and not responsibility.

All these facts are not what Fr James Martin want you to discover as he refers you to the Bible and Church Teaching.   Most of what I wrote will be new to most of my readers.   But why?  What is needed in the Church is the witness of the Early Fathers, and a good Bishop must start encouraging this among his clergy.   When Tradition is mentioned priests and people need to be informed as to what the tradition is in any teaching.   What did the Church teach two thousand years ago?