ENCYCLICAL LETTER VERITATIS SPLENDOR ADDRESSED BY THE SUPREME PONTIFF POPE JOHN PAUL II TO ALL THE BISHOPS OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH REGARDING CERTAIN FUNDAMENTAL QUESTIONS OF THE CHURCH’S MORAL TEACHING

Addressed to “Venerable Brothers in the Episcopate.”

INTRODUCTION: JESUS CHRIST, THE TRUE LIGHT THAT ENLIGHTENS EVERYONE

1. Christ calls everyone to “obedience to the truth.” This obedience is not always easy.
•	There are temptations to look to idols.
•	Man’s capacity to know the truth is darkened; will to submit to it, weakened.
•	Result: relativism and skepticism and search for freedom apart from truth.

No darkness of error or of sin can totally take away from man the light of God the Creator.
•	There is always a yearning for absolute truth and thirst for full knowledge of it
o	Proof: research
o	Especially search for meaning of life

2. Fundamental questions: “What must I do? How do I distinguish good from evil?”
•	Answer from splendor of truth “deep within the human spirit”
•	Decisive answers from Jesus Christ or is Christ himself
•	The Church offers this answer (the truth about Jesus Christ and his Gospel)

3. Church’s Pastors guide and accompany faithful in this
•	Includes non-Christians: “on the path of the moral life … the way of salvation is open to all”

THE PURPOSE OF THE PRESENT ENCYCLICAL

4. In the last two centuries, the Popes have developed and proposed a moral teaching regarding “many different spheres of human life.”
•	Need to “reflect on the whole of the Church’s moral teaching”
•	New situation “within the Christian community itself” demands this
o	Numerous doubts and objections of a human and psychological, social and cultural, religious and even properly theological nature, with regard to the Church’s moral teachings
o	Overall and systematic calling into question of traditional moral doctrine on the basis of certain anthropological and ethical presuppositions
o	These presuppositions influenced by currents of thought which end by detaching human freedom from its essential and constitutive relationship to truth
•	Result
o	Traditional doctrine regarding the natural law and the universality and the permanent validity of its precepts rejected
o	Certain of the Church’s moral teachings are found simply unacceptable
o	It is claimed the Magisterium should only “exhort consciences” and “propose values,” in the light of which each individual will independently make his or her decisions and life choices
•	Furthermore, “lack of harmony between the traditional response of the Church and certain theological positions…with regard to questions of the greatest importance”
o	Do the commandments of God, which are written on the human heart and are part of the Covenant, really have the capacity to clarify the daily decisions of individuals and entire societies?
o	Is it possible to obey God and thus love God and neighbor, without respecting these commandments in all circumstances?
o	Is there an intrinsic and unbreakable bond between faith and morality?
•	Claim: Membership in the Church and her internal unity from faith alone
•	In morality, pluralism of opinions and of kinds of behavior, these left to the judgment of the individual subjective conscience or to the diversity of social and cultural contexts

5. Pope’s intention: to “clearly set forth certain aspects of doctrine which are of crucial importance in facing what is … a genuine crisis”
•	Encyclical presupposes the Catechism of the Catholic Church
o	Has a complete and systematic exposition of Christian moral teaching
o	Encyclical limited to “certain fundamental questions regarding the Church’s moral teaching
•	Another statement of the purpose of the encyclical: “to set forth, with regard to the problems being discussed, the principles of a moral teaching based upon Sacred Scripture and the living Apostolic tradition, and at the same time to shed light on the presuppositions and consequences of the dissent which that teaching has met.”

CHAPTER ONE: “TEACHER, WHAT GOOD MUST I DO…?” (Mt 19:16): CHRIST AND THE ANSWER TO THE QUESTION ABOUT MORALITY

Verse: “Someone came to him…” (Mt 19:16): The questioner

6. Dialogue of Jesus with the rich young man can serve as a guide “for listening once more” in a lively and direct way to Jesus’ moral teaching.

7. The rich young man is Everyman. 
•	His question “about the full meaning of life”
o	The questioner may ask “unconsciously”
o	Aspiration at the heart of every human decision and action, the quiet searching and interior prompting which sets freedom in motion
o	Appeal to absolute Good who calls to us
•	“In order to make this ‘encounter’ with Christ possible, God willed his Church.”

Verse: “Teacher, what good must I do to have eternal life?” (Mt 19.16): The question

8. “An essential and unavoidable question for the life of every man”
•	implies connection between moral good and fulfillment of destiny
•	“People today need to turn to Christ once again in order to receive from him the answer to their questions about what is good and what is evil.”
•	To grasp profound and unchanging content of Gospel’s moral teaching, we need to understand the question and Jesus’ reply.

Verse: “There is only one who is good.” (Mt 19.17): Introduction to replies

9. Jesus wants the young man to have a clear idea of why he asked his question. “Only God can answer the question about what is good, because he is the Good itself.”
•	The young man’s question is a religious question

10. The “ultimate purpose of man’s life is to live ‘for the praise of God’s glory.’”
•	“What man is and what he must do becomes clear as soon as God reveals himself.”
•	“The moral life presents itself as the response due to the many gratuitous initiatives taken by God out of love for man.”

11. “The good is ‘belonging to God, obeying him.’ Acknowledging the Lord as God is the very core, the heart of the Law, from which the particular precepts flow and towards which they are ordered.”
•	If God alone is the Good, no human effort…succeeds in ‘fulfilling’ the Law. “This fulfillment can come only from a gift of God.”

Verse: “If you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments” (Mt 19.17): First reply

12. Reply from God already exists
•	Natural law
•	The Ten Commandments

Christ points out the close connection “between eternal life and obedience to God’s commandments.”
•	Jesus definitively confirms them and proposes them to us as the way and condition of salvation.
•	Heaven: reward for following them

13. Jesus wishes to draw the young man’s attention to the “centrality” of the Decalogue with regard to every other precept
•	But commandments cited from “second tablet”
•	Commandment of love of neighbor contains a precise expression of “the singular dignity of the human person.”
•	Purpose of commandments: safeguard “the good” of the person…by protecting his “goods”
o	First necessary step on the journey towards freedom

14. Parallel passage with teacher of the Law which ends in parable of the good Samaritan
•	Two major commandments “inseparably united”
•	Both Old and New Testaments explicitly affirm: “without love of neighbor,” made concrete in keeping the commandments, “genuine love for God is not possible.”

15. “Jesus brings God’s commandments to fulfillment…by interiorizing their demands and by bringing out their fullest meaning. Love of neighbor springs from ‘a loving heart’ which…is ready to live out the ‘loftiest challenges.’”
•	Commandments: not a minimum limit, but a path involving a moral and spiritual journey towards perfection, at the heart of which is love

Verse: “If you wish to be perfect” (Mt 19.21): second reply, first part

16. The young man yearns “for something greater, which would transcend a legalistic interpretation of the commandments.”
•	Christ invites him to enter upon the path of perfection
•	The invitation should be understood in light of the New Testament, especially the Beatitudes: invitations to discipleship and to communion of life with Christ

17. “The conditions for the moral growth of man, who has been called to perfection”:
•	Mature human freedom (“If you wish to be perfect”)
•	God’s gift of grace (“Come, follow me”)

Fundamental relationship between freedom and divine law: they appeal one to the other.
•	The precepts are at the service of love.
•	Since the Christian retains his weakness, he needs the precepts.

18. Those who desire to serve others find in God’s Law the fundamental and necessary way in which to practice love as something freely chosen and freely lived out
•	Interior urge not to stop at the minimum demands of the Law but to live them in their “fullness”
•	Invitation to perfection addressed to all
•	Commandments and invitation to perfection at service of charity

Verse: “Come, follow me” (Mt 19.21): second reply, second part

19. The way and at the same time the content of this perfection consist in the following of Jesus, sequela Christi…
•	“Following Christ is the essential and primordial foundation of Christian morality”
•	= “holding fast to the very person of Jesus”

20. “Jesus asks us to follow him and to imitate him along the path of love, a love which gives itself completely to the brethren out of love for God.”
•	Imitate acts of Jesus
•	Imitate degree of Jesus’ love

21. “Following Christ” means “becoming conformed to him”
•	Effect of grace
•	The Christian becomes a member of his Body, which is the Church

Verse: “With God all things are possible” (Mt 19.26): clarification

22. “The Master refers them to God’s power”
•	Man becomes “capable of this love only by virtue of a gift received”
•	“Christ’s gift is his Spirit”

23. Love and life according to the Gospel are possible only as the result of a gift of God who heals, restores and transforms the human heart by his grace.

24. Precisely the awareness of having received the gift, of possessing in Jesus Christ the love of God, generates and sustains “the free response” of a full love for God and the brethren
•	inseparable connection between the Lord’s grace and human freedom
•	“The gift does not lessen but reinforces the moral demands of love”

Epigraph: “Lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age” (Mt 28.20): the dialogue applies to all men

25. Jesus’ conversation with the rich young man continues… ‘in every period of history, including our own.’
•	Christ’s relevance for people of all times is shown forth in his body, which is the Church
•	The moral prescriptions which God imparted in the Old Covenant and which attained their perfection in the New and Eternal Covenant in the very person of the Son of God made man must be “faithfully kept and continually put into practice” in the various different cultures throughout the course of history.

26. The apostles “were vigilant over the right conduct of Christians.”
•	No damage must be done to the “harmony between faith and life”

27. The Church promotes and preserves the faith and moral life
•	“Authentic interpretation of the Lord’s law develops”
•	the Church…is… “the pillar and bulwark of the truth,” including the truth regarding moral action

CHAPTER TWO: “DO NOT BE CONFORMED TO THIS WORLD” (Rom 12.2): THE CHURCH AND THE DISCERNMENT OF CERTAIN TENDENCIES IN PRESENT-DAY MORAL THEOLOGY

Subtitle: Teaching what befits sound doctrine (cf. Tit 2.1)

28. Essential elements of revelation (OT and NT) regarding moral action
•	subordination of man and his activity to God
•	relationship between the moral good of human acts and eternal life
•	Christian discipleship
•	The gift of the Holy Spirit
Church has preserved truths about moral action; doctrinal development

29. Moral theology: a science which accepts and examines Divine Revelation, while at the same time responding to the demands of human reason.
•	The Church invited renewal of moral theology, basing it on Scripture, casting light on the exalted vocation of the faithful in Christ and on their obligation to bear fruit in charity
o	She encouraged theologians to look for a “more appropriate way of communicating” doctrine
o	The faithful should live in the closest contact with others of their time
•	There have been “certain interpretations of Christian morality which are not consistent with ‘sound teaching’” (2 Tim 4.3)

30. The Encyclical wishes to state “the principles necessary for discerning what is contrary to ‘sound doctrine’”
•	The Church Magisterium continues to carry out its task of discernment

Epigraph: “You will know the truth, and the truth will make you free” (Jn 8.32)

31. Crucial issue: human freedom
•	One of the achievements of modernity: heightened sense of dignity of the human person and of his or her uniqueness and of the respect due to the journey of conscience
•	Some expressions diverge from the truth about man as a creature and the image of God

32. Certain currents of modern thought have gone so far as to “exalt freedom to such an extent that it becomes an absolute, which would then be the source of values”
•	Individual conscience = supreme tribunal of moral judgment which hands down categorical and infallible decisions about good and evil
•	One’s moral judgment is true merely by the fact that it has its origin in the conscience
•	Instead of truth: sincerity, authenticity, being at peace with oneself  radically subjectivistic conception of moral judgment

Supported by crisis of truth: when idea of a universal truth about good, knowable by human reason, is gone  notion of conscience changes
•	Conscience independently determines the criteria of good and evil and then acting accordingly

These different notions are at the origin of currents of thought which posit a radical opposition between moral law and conscience, and between nature and freedom.

33. Modern culture questions the very existence of this freedom. 
•	The behavioral sciences point out the many kinds of psychological and social conditioning of human freedom
•	Theories misuse research on the person; deny universal human values or come up with a relativistic concept of morality

34. The question of morality cannot prescind from the issue of freedom. Indeed, it considers that issue central. But what sort of freedom? Genuine freedom.
•	Although each individual has a right to be respected in his own journey in search of the truth, there exists a prior moral obligation…to seek the truth and to adhere to it once it is known
•	Certain tendencies in …moral theology…involve novel interpretations of the relationship of freedom to the moral law, human nature and conscience and propose novel criteria for the moral evaluation of acts
o	They lessen or deny the dependence of freedom on truth

I. FREEDOM AND LAW

Epigraph: “Of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat” (Gen 2.17)

35. Gen 2.16–17: “The power to decide what is good and what is evil does not belong to man, but to God alone.”
•	Human freedom: Man understands and accepts God’s commands
o	He can eat of “every tree of the garden.”
o	But not unlimited: called to accept the moral law given by God
o	Authentic and complete fulfillment precisely in the acceptance of that law
•	God, who alone is good, knows perfectly what is good for man, and by virtue of his very love proposes this good to man in the commandments
•	God’s law protects and promotes human freedom
o	Several currents of thought in ethics claim an alleged conflict between freedom and law
•	Individuals or social groups have the right to determine what is good or evil
•	Human freedom able to create values, creates truth
•	Has moral autonomy

36. This has influenced Catholic moral theology  rethinking of the role of reason and of faith in identifying moral norms with reference to specific “innerworldly” kinds of behavior involving oneself, others and the material world
•	Certain positive concerns have come about
o	Dialogue with modern culture, emphasizing the rational character of moral norms belonging to the sphere of the natural moral law
o	Reaffirmation of the interior character of the ethical requirements deriving from that law: 
•	obligation for the will previously acknowledged by human reason and personal conscience
•	But some people posit a “complete sovereignty of reason” in the domain of moral norms regarding the right ordering of life in this world
o	They deny God is the author of the natural moral law

37. Certain moral theologians introduce a sharp distinction between (a) an ethical order, human in origin and of value for this world alone, and (b) an order of salvation, for which only certain intentions and interior attitudes regarding God and neighbor would be significant
denial of specific and determined moral content in Divine Revelation, universally valid and permanent
•	word of God: exhortation only, generic paraenesis; in contrast, reason: normative directives which are truly “objective,” i.e., adapted to the concrete historical situation
•	denies doctrinal competence of Church and Magisterium re “human good”
Positions here incompatible with Catholic teaching.

Epigraph: “God left man in the power of his own counsel” (Sir 15.14)

38. Gaudium et spes (17) explains the meaning of “genuine freedom.”
•	Sharing in God’s dominion over the world 
•	Autonomy of earthly realities

39. Man has also been entrusted to his own care and responsibility that he might seek his Creator and freely attain perfection, personally building up that perfection in himself
•	But the Council warns against a false concept of the autonomy of earthly realities
o	they depend on God

40. The principle of a ‘rightful autonomy’ of man:
•	the moral law has its origin in God and always finds its source in him
•	at the same time, by virtue of natural reason, which derives from divine wisdom, it is a properly human law

The rightful autonomy of the practical reason means that man possesses in himself his own law, received from the Creator
•	the autonomy of reason cannot mean that reason itself creates values and moral norms

41. “Human freedom and God’s law meet and are called to intersect,” in the sense of man’s free obedience to God and of God’s completely gratuitous benevolence towards man
•	not a heteronomy (denial of man’s self-determination or imposition of norms unrelated to his good)
•	theonomy or participated theonomy: human reason and human will participate in God’s wisdom and providence
o	by submitting to the law, freedom submits to the truth of creation

Epigraph: “Blessed is the man who takes delight in the law of the Lord” (cf. Ps 1.1–2)

42. Only through obedience to the divine law does freedom abide in the truth and conform to human dignity
•	man is able to distinguish good from evil, thanks to the light of natural reason
•	 “natural law” called such, not because it refers to the nature of irrational beings, but because the reason which promulgates it is proper to human nature

43. Natural law is participation of the eternal law in the rational creature.

44. Reason and human law are essentially subordinated to the Wisdom of God and his law.
•	Natural law is itself the eternal law, implanted in beings endowed with reason, and inclining them towards their right action and end
•	…in particular by reason enlightened by Divine Revelation and by faith
•	Israel was called to accept and to live out God’s law as a particular gift and sign of its election and of the divine Covenant

45. The Church gratefully accepts and lovingly preserves the entire deposit of Revelation
•	God’s plan poses no threat to man’s genuine freedom; on the contrary, the acceptance of God’s plan is the only way to affirm that freedom

Epigraph: “What the law requires is written on their hearts” (Rom 2.15)

46. Today, freedom and nature are opposed to one another by people.
•	Even moral facts, despite their specificity, are frequently treated as if they were statistically verifiable data, patterns of behavior which can be subject to observation or explained exclusively in categories of psycho-social processes.
•	Some ethicists…can be tempted to take as the standard for their discipline and even for its operative norms the results of a statistical study of concrete human behavior patterns and the opinions about morality encountered in the majority of people.
•	Other moralists…frequently conceive of freedom as somehow in opposition to or in conflict with material and biological nature, over which it must progressively assert itself.
o	For some, “nature” becomes reduced to raw material for human activity and for its power
o	For others, it is in the untrammeled advancement of man’s power, or of his freedom, that economic, cultural, social and even moral values are established: nature would thus come to mean everything found in man and the world apart from freedom.
•	Nature = the human body, its make-up and its processes; whatever is constructed = culture, the product and result of freedom
o	Human nature = readily available biological or social material
o	Freedom = self-defining; a phenomenon creative of itself and its values

47. “Objections of physicalism and naturalism” have been leveled against the traditional conception of the “natural law,” which is accused of presenting as moral laws what are in themselves mere biological laws.
•	Accusation leveled especially at certain documents of the Magisterium dealing with sexual ethics
•	Sexual act claimed to be understood naturalistically
•	A morally negative evaluation of such acts fails to take into adequate consideration both man’s character as a rational and free being and the cultural conditioning of all moral norms.
•	Claim: Man as a rational being…must freely determine the meaning of his behavior
•	“Love of neighbor” would mean above all and even exclusively respect for his freedom to make his own decisions.
•	The workings of typically human behavior, as well as the so-called “natural inclinations,” would establish at the most a general orientation towards correct behavior, but they cannot determine the moral assessment of individual human acts, so complex from the viewpoint of situations.

48. In response, we must consider the correct relationship existing between freedom and human nature and in particular the place of the human body in questions of natural law
•	Absolute freedom ends up treating the human body as a raw datum, devoid of any meaning and moral values until freedom has shaped it in accordance with its design.
•	Human nature + the body = presuppositions or preambles, materially necessary for freedom to make its choice, yet extrinsic to the person, the subject and the human act.
•	Finalities of natural inclinations = physical goods, pre-moral

This moral theory does not correspond to the truth about man and his freedom.
•	The Church teaches the unity of the human person, whose rational soul is per se et essentialiter the form of his body.
•	Reason and free will are linked with all the bodily and sense faculties: “the person, including the body, is completely entrusted to himself, and it is in the unity of body and soul that the person is the subject of his own moral acts”
•	The person, by the light of reason and the support of virtue, discovers in the body the anticipatory signs, the expression and the promise of the gift of self, in conformity with the wise plan of the Creator
•	It is in the light of the dignity of the human person…that reason grasps the specific moral value of certain goods towards which the person is naturally inclined
•	And since the human person cannot be reduced to a freedom which is self-designing, but entails a particular spiritual and bodily structure, the primordial moral requirement of loving and respecting the person as an end and never as a mere means also implies, by its very nature, respect for certain fundamental goods, without which one would fall into relativism and arbitrariness

49. A doctrine which dissociates the moral act from the bodily dimensions of its exercise is contrary to the teaching of Scripture and Tradition.
•	Body and soul are inseparable

50. True meaning of the natural law: man’s proper and primordial nature, the “nature of the human person,” which is the person himself in the unity of soul and body; in the unity of his spiritual and biological inclinations and of all the other specific characteristics necessary for the pursuit of his end.
•	This law cannot be thought of as simply a set of norms on the biological level; rather it must be defined as the rational order whereby man is called by the Creator to direct and regulate his life and actions and in particular to make use of his own body.
o	Example: absolute respect for human life because of dignity proper to person. Human life thus acquires a moral significance in reference to the good of the person
•	Only in reference to the human person in his “unified totality”…can the specifically human meaning of the body be grasped
•	Natural inclinations take on moral relevance only insofar as they refer to the human person and his authentic fulfillment, a fulfillment which …can take place always and only in human nature.
•	The natural law thus understood does not allow for any division between freedom and nature. These two realities are harmoniously bound together, and each is intimately linked to the other

Epigraph: “From the beginning it was not so.” (Mt 19.8)

51. The natural law involves universality.
•	In order to perfect himself in his specific order, 
o	the person must do good and avoid evil, 
o	be concerned for the transmission and preservation of life, 
o	refine and develop the riches of the material world, 
o	cultivate social life, 
o	seek truth, 
o	practice good and 
o	contemplate beauty.
•	This universality does not ignore the individuality of human beings. 
•	By submitting to the common law, our acts build up the true communion of persons and, by God’s grace, practice charity…

52. Positive precepts…which order us to perform certain actions and to cultivate certain dispositions are universally binding; they are ‘unchanging.’
•	The negative precepts of the natural law are universally valid.
o	The choice of this kind of behavior is in no case compatible with the goodness of the will of the acting person, with his vocation to life with God and to communion with his neighbor.

On the other hand, the fact that only the negative commandments oblige always and under all circumstances does not mean that in the moral life prohibitions are more important than the obligation to do good indicated by the positive commandments
•	The commandment of love of God and neighbor does not have in its dynamic any higher limit, but it does have a lower limit, beneath which the commandment is broken.
•	What must be done in any given situation depends on the circumstances, not all of which can be foreseen; on the other hand, there are kinds of behavior which can never, in any situation, be a proper response—a response which is in conformity with the dignity of the person
•	It is always possible that man, as the result of coercion or other circumstances, can be hindered from doing certain good actions; but the can never be hindered from not doing certain actions, especially if he is prepared to die rather than to do evil.

Last has always been Church teaching. It was taught by Christ.

53. The great concern of our contemporaries for historicity and for culture has led some to call into question “the immutability of the natural law” itself, and thus the existence of “objective norms of morality.” 
•	Man always exists in a particular culture, but not exhaustively defined by that same culture
•	The very progress of culture demonstrates that there is something in man which transcends those cultures
o	This is human nature: the measure of culture and the condition ensuring that man does not become the prisoner of any of his cultures, but asserts his personal dignity by living in accordance with the profound truth of his being

To call into question the permanent structural elements of man which are connected with his own bodily dimension would not only conflict with common experience, but would render meaningless “Jesus’ reference to the ‘beginning,’” precisely where the social and cultural context of the time had distorted the primordial meaning and the role of certain moral norms. (cf. Mt 19.1–9)
•	Christ is the “Beginning” who, having taken on human nature, definitively illumines it in its constitutive elements and in its dynamism of charity towards God and neighbor.

There is a need to seek out and to discover “the most adequate formulation” for universal and permanent moral norms in the light of different cultural contexts
•	It should ceaselessly express their historical relevance
•	It should make them understood
•	It should authentically interpret their truth

Truth of the moral law: unfolds down the centuries
•	Norms expressing that truth remain valid in their substance
•	But must be specified and determined “eodem sensu eademque sententia” in the light of historical circumstances by the Magisterium
o	Its work preceded and accompanied by the work of interpretation and formulation characteristic of the reason of individual believers and of theological reflection

II. CONSCIENCE AND TRUTH

Subtitle: Man’s sanctuary

54. The relationship between man’s freedom and God’s law is most deeply lived out in the “heart” of the person: his moral conscience
•	The way in which one conceives the relationship between freedom and law is thus intimately bound up with one’s understanding of the moral conscience
•	Cultural tendencies lead to a “creative” understanding of moral conscience, divergent from Magisterium

55. Opinion of some theologians:
•	General moral norms cannot be expected to foresee and to respect all individual concrete acts of the person in all their uniqueness and particularity
•	Useful for a correct “assessment” of the situation” but cannot replace individual personal “decision” on how to act in particular cases

Certain authors:
•	General moral norms not a binding objective criterion for judgments of conscience, but a “general perspective” which helps man tentatively to put order into his personal and social life
•	These authors stress “complexity” typical of the phenomenon of conscience
o	Related to psychology and emotions
o	Numerous influences exerted by social and cultural environment
•	They stress the value of conscience 
o	Leads not so much to a meticulous observance of universal norms as to a creative and responsible acceptance of the personal tasks entrusted to person by God

Some authors: the Church’s interventions are the cause of unnecessary “conflicts of conscience.”

56. As justification, double status of moral truth claimed: (a) precept which is valid in general and (b) the norm of the individual conscience, which would…make the final decision about what is good and what is evil
•	The latter, by taking account of circumstances and the situation, could legitimately be the basis of certain “exceptions to the general rule” and thus permit one to do in practice and in good conscience what is qualified as intrinsically evil by the moral law
•	This is an attempt to legitimize 
o	“pastoral” solutions contrary to the teaching of the Magisterium and
o	“creative” hermeneutic according to which the moral conscience is in no way obliged, in every case, by a particular negative precept

These approaches pose a challenge to the “very identity of the moral conscience.”

Subtitle: The judgment of conscience

57. Rom 2.14–15 will help clarify “the biblical understanding of conscience, especially in its specific connection with the law.”
•	Conscience confronts man with the law
•	It is a witness for man—of his faithfulness or unfaithfulness with regard to the law
•	The only witness: no one else sees; talks only to person
•	The person is the only one who knows what the conscience has said

58. Conscience is also a dialogue of man with God, the author of the law. Conscience is the witness of God himself

59. Rom. 2.15 clarifies the precise nature of conscience: it is a “moral judgment about man and his actions”
•	Practical judgment which applies to a concrete situation the rational conviction that one must love and do good and avoid evil
o	First principle of practical reason, part of the natural law
•	Conscience formulates “moral obligation” in the light of the natural law
•	The universality of the law and its obligation are acknowledged, not suppressed, once reason has established the law’s application in concrete present circumstances

60. The judgment of conscience has an imperative character
•	It is the proximate norm of personal morality
•	It is called to listen to and express the “truth” about moral good and evil
o	This truth indicated by the “divine law,” the universal and objective norm of morality

61. The truth about moral good, as that truth is declared in the law of reason, is practically and concretely recognized by the judgment of conscience, which leads one to take responsibility for the good or the evil one has done
•	If a man does evil, the just judgment of his conscience remains within him as a witness to the universal truth of the good, as well as to the malice of his particular choice
•	But the verdict of conscience remains in him also as a pledge of hope and mercy: ask forgiveness, do good, cultivate virtue constantly

In the practical judgment of conscience, the link between freedom and truth is made manifest
•	Conscience judges; it does not decide
•	Maturity and responsibility of these judgments not measured by liberation from objective truth in favor of autonomy in personal decisions, but by an insistent search for truth and by allowing oneself to be guided by that truth in one’s actions

Subtitle: Seeking what is true and good

62. In the judgments of our conscience the possibility of error is always present; invincible ignorance does not detract from the dignity of conscience

63. It is always from the truth that the dignity of conscience derives
•	Correct conscience: objective truth
•	Erroneous conscience: subjective truth

It is never acceptable to confuse a “subjective” error about moral good with the “objective” truth rationally proposed to man in virtue of his end, or to make the moral value of an act performed with a true and correct conscience equivalent to the moral value of an act performed by following the judgment of an erroneous conscience.
•	Evil done as a result of invincible ignorance does not cease to be an evil
•	Good act not recognized as such does not contribute to the moral growth of the person who performs it

Conscience compromises its dignity when it is “culpably erroneous”: accustomed to sin.

64. We must “form our conscience.”
•	It is the “heart” converted to the Lord and to the love of what is good which is really the source of “true” judgments of conscience. A “connaturality between man and the true good” is necessary.
•	Such a connaturality is rooted in and develops through the virtuous attitudes of the individual himself
•	The Church and her Magisterium help in the formation of conscience.
o	Magisterium does not bring to the Christian conscience truths which are extraneous to it; it brings to light the truths which the conscience ought already to possess
o	Church at the service of conscience

III. FUNDAMENTAL CHOICE AND SPECIFIC KINDS OF BEHAVIOR

Epigraph: “Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh” (Gal 5.13)

65. Freedom: not only the choice for one or another particular action; it is also, within that choice, a “decision about oneself” and a setting of one’s own life for or against the Good, for or against the Truth, and ultimately for or against God.
•	Certain choices “shape” a person’s entire moral life and serve as bounds within which other particular everyday choices can be situated and allowed to develop

Some authors: fundamental freedom, deeper than and different from freedom of choice, which needs to be considered if human actions are to be correctly understood and evaluated
•	Key role in the moral life: fundamental option
o	Person makes an overall self-determination, not through a specific and conscious decision on the level of reflection, but in a “transcendental” and “athematic” way
o	Particular acts: only partial and never definitive attempts to give it expression. Signs or symptoms.
•	Immediate object: not absolute Good, but particular (categorical) goods
•	None of these goods, which by their nature are partial, could determine the freedom of man as a person in his totality, even though it is only by bringing them about or refusing to do so that man is able to express his own fundamental option
•	Distinction between the fundamental option and deliberate choices of a concrete kind of behavior
o	Some authors: this division, a separation. Moral good and evil limited to fundamental option; right or wrong choices to particular “innerworldly” kinds of behavior
•	Rightness or wrongness based on technical calculation of the proportion between the “premoral” or “physical” goods and evils which actually result from action
•	Concrete kind of behavior, even freely chosen ones, a merely physical process

Properly moral assessment reserved to person’s fundamental option, prescinding in whole or in part from his choice of particular actions, concrete kinds of behavior.

66. Christian moral teaching, even in its biblical roots, acknowledges the specific importance of a fundamental choice which qualifies the moral life and engages freedom on a radical level before God
•	Obedience of faith (Rom 16.26)
•	But demands truth and obligation of acts of faith and of decisions which can be described as involving a fundamental option
o	Freedom always threatened by slavery: as when an act of faith (fundamental choice) is separated from choice of particular acts

67. These tendencies contrary to the teaching of Scripture itself.
•	Fundamental option is a genuine choice of freedom and links that choice profoundly to particular acts
•	This capacity actually exercised in the particular choices of specific actions, through which man deliberately conforms himself to God’s will, wisdom and law.
•	“The so-called fundamental option, to the extent that it is distinct from a generic intention” and hence one not yet determined in such a way that freedom is obligated, “is always brought into play through conscious and free decisions.” Precisely for this reason, “it is revoked when man engages his freedom in conscious decisions to the contrary, with regard to morally grave matter.”

To separate the fundamental option from concrete kinds of behavior means to contradict the substantial integrity or personal unity of the moral agent in his body and in his soul.
•	A fundamental option understood without explicit consideration of the potentialities which it puts into effect and the determinations which express it does not do justice to the rational finality immanent in man’s acting and in each of his deliberate decisions.
•	The morality of human acts is not deduced exclusively from one’s intention, orientation or fundamental option, understood as an intention devoid of a clearly determined binding content or as an intention with no corresponding positive effort to fulfill the different obligations of the moral life.
•	Judgments of morality cannot be made without taking into consideration whether or not the deliberate choice of a specific kind of behavior is in conformity with the dignity and integral vocation of the human person.
•	Every choice always implies a reference by the deliberate will to the goods and evils indicated by the natural law as goods to be pursued and evils to be avoided.
o	Positive moral precepts: prudence always has the task of verifying that they apply in a specific situation
o	Negative precepts: do not allow for any legitimate exception. No room for “creativity.”

68. Man does not suffer perdition only by being unfaithful to that fundamental option. With every freely committed mortal sin, he offends God as the giver of the law. 
•	He loses sanctifying grace, charity, and eternal happiness.

Subtitle: Mortal and venial sin

69. Some theologians, reflecting on the fundamental option, undertake a basic revision of the traditional distinction between mortal and venial sins.
•	Mortal sin only exists in the rejection of God, carried out at a level of freedom which is neither to be identified with an act of choice nor capable of becoming the object of conscious awareness
•	It is difficult, at least psychologically, to believe that a Christian, who wishes to remain united to Jesus Christ and to his Church, could so easily and repeatedly commit mortal sins
•	It would be hard to believe that man is able in a brief lapse of time to sever radically the bond of communion with God and afterwards be converted to him by sincere repentance
•	The gravity of sin ought to be measured by the degree of engagement of the freedom of the person performing the act rather than by the matter of that act.

70. This position rejected by the Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Reconciliatio et Paenitentia.
•	The fundamental orientation can be radically changed by particular acts.
•	“Clearly, situations can occur which are very complex and obscure from a psychological viewpoint, and which influence the sinner’s subjective imputability. But from a consideration of the psychological sphere one cannot proceed to create a theological category, which is precisely what the ‘fundamental option’ is, understanding it in such a way that it objectively changes or casts doubt upon the traditional concept of mortal sin.”

IV. THE MORAL ACT

Subtitle: Teleology and teleologism

71. Human acts do not produce a change merely in the state of affairs outside of man but, to the extent that they are deliberate choices, they give moral definition to the very person who performs them, determining his “profound spiritual traits.”

72. The rational ordering of the human act to the good in its truth and the voluntary pursuit of that good, known by reason, constitute morality.

73. The moral life has an essential “teleological” character, since it consists in the deliberate ordering of human acts to God, the supreme good and ultimate end (telos) of man.
•	This ordering to one’s ultimate end is not something subjective, dependent solely upon one’s intention.
•	It presupposes that such acts are in themselves capable of being ordered to this end, insofar as they are in conformity with the authentic moral good of man, safeguarded by the commandments.

74. “Teleological” ethical theories: concerned for the conformity of human acts with the ends pursued by the agent and with the values intended by him.
•	Criteria for moral rightness of an action: from weighing of the non-moral or pre-moral goods to be gained and the corresponding non-moral or pre-moral values to be respected.
•	Concrete behavior right or wrong according as whether or not capable of producing a better state of affairs for all concerned.
o	Right conduct maximizes goods and minimizes evils
•	Catholic moralists who follow in this direction seek to distance themselves from utilitarianism and pragmatism, where morality of human acts judged without any reference to the man’s true ultimate end.

75. But there exist “false solutions, linked in particular to an inadequate understanding of the object of moral action.”
•	Some authors do not take into sufficient consideration the fact that the will is involved in the concrete choices which it makes (these choices are a condition of its moral goodness and its being ordered to the ultimate end of the person)
•	Others are inspired by a notion of freedom which prescinds 
o	from the actual conditions of its exercise
o	from its objective reference to the truth about the good
o	from its determination through choices of concrete kinds of behavior
•	free will (according to them) neither morally subjected to specific obligations nor shaped by its choices, while remaining responsible for its own acts and for their consequences
•	This “teleologism” can be called
o	Consequentialism: draws the criteria of the rightness of a given way of acting solely from a calculation of foreseeable consequences deriving from a given choice
o	Proportionalism: by weighing the various values and goods being sought, focuses on the proportion acknowledged between the good and bad effects of that choice, with a view to the “greater good” or “lesser evil”

The acting subject responsible for attaining the values pursued in two ways:
•	Values or goods of the moral order (in relation to properly moral values, such as love of God and neighbor, justice, etc.)
•	Values or goods of the pre-moral order (in relation to the advantages and disadvantages accruing both to the agent and to all other persons possibly involved, such as, for example, health or its endangerment, physical integrity, life, death, loss of material goods, etc.)

Morality of an act judged in two different ways: 
•	Moral goodness judged on the basis of the subject’s intention in reference to moral goods
•	Its rightness on the basis of a consideration of its foreseeable effects or consequences and if their proportion
o	An act which, by contradicting a universal negative norm, directly violates goods considered as “pre-moral” could be qualified as morally acceptable if the intention of the subject is focused, in accordance with a “responsible” assessment of the goods involved in the concrete action, on the moral value judged to be decisive in the situation.

Evaluation of the consequences of the action, based on the proportion between the act and its effects and between the effects themselves, would regard only the pre-moral order.
•	Moral specificity of acts determined exclusively by the faithfulness of the person to the highest values of charity and prudence, without this faithfulness necessarily being incompatible with choices contrary to certain particular moral precepts
•	Even when grave matter is concerned, these precepts should be considered as operative norms which are always relative and open to exceptions.

Deliberate consent to certain kinds of behavior declared illicit by traditional moral theology would not imply an objective moral evil.

Subtitle: The object of the deliberate act

76. These theories seek to provide liberation from the constraints of a voluntaristic and arbitrary morality of obligation which would ultimately be dehumanizing. But they are not faithful to the Church’s teaching when they believe they can justify as morally good deliberate choices of kinds of behavior contrary to the commandments of the divine and natural law.
•	Not grounded in Catholic moral tradition
•	Catholic tradition of casuistry concerned only cases in which the law was uncertain.
•	Love of God and of one’s neighbor cannot be separated from the observance of the commandments of the Covenant.

77. Consideration of intentions and consequences not enough for judging the moral quality of a concrete choice.
•	This method blind to goodness or evil of a concrete kind of behavior
•	Besides, it is impossible to evaluate all good and evil consequences and “pre-moral” effects of one’s own acts

78. “The morality of the human act depends primarily and fundamentally on the ‘object’ rationally chosen by the deliberate will.” (cf. Thomas ST 1-2.18.6)
•	In order to be able to grasp the object of an act which specifies that act morally, it is necessary to place oneself “in the perspective of the acting person.”
•	Object of an act = freely chosen kind of behavior
•	When in conformity with the order of reason
o	Cause of goodness of the will
o	Perfects us morally
o	Disposes us to recognize our ultimate end in the perfect good, primordial love
•	Object of an act ≠ a process or an event of the merely physical order, to be assessed on the basis of its ability to bring about a given state of affairs in the outside world
•	The human act depends on its object, whether that object is “capable or not of being ordered” to God and thus brings about the perfection of the person
•	If the human act is good according to its object, then it is also “capable of being ordered” to its ultimate end (= teleology of acting)

Subtitle: “Intrinsic evil”: it is not licit to do evil that good may come of it (cf. Rom 3.8)

79. “One must therefore reject the thesis…which holds that it is impossible to qualify as morally evil according to its species”—its “object”—“the deliberate choice of certain kinds of behavior or specific acts, apart from a consideration of the intention for which the choice is made or the totality of the foreseeable consequences of that act for all persons concerned.”
•	Primary and decisive element for moral judgment: object of the human act, which establishes whether it is “capable of being ordered to the good and to the ultimate end, which is God.”
•	This capability is grasped by reason in the very being of man, considered in his integral truth, and therefore in his natural inclinations, his motivations and his finalities, which always have a spiritual dimension as well.
•	Object of the human act = contents of the natural law, that ordered complex of “personal goods” which serve the “good of the person”
o	The good which is the person himself and his perfection

80. Reason attests that there are objects of the human act which radically contradict the good of the person.
•	Intrinsically evil acts: they are such always and per se (see GS 27 and Humanae Vitae 16)

81. This teaching from Scripture (e.g., 1 Cor 6.9–10) and the Fathers (e.g., Saint Augustine).
•	Circumstances or intentions can never transform an act intrinsically evil by virtue of its object into an act “subjectively” good or defensible as a choice

82. Respect for norms which prohibit such acts and oblige semper et pro semper, that is, without any exception, not only does not inhibit a good intention, but actually represents its basic expression.
•	Without the “rational determination of the morality of human acting” as stated above, it would be impossible to affirm the existence of an “objective moral order” and to establish any particular norm the content of which would be binding without exception.
o	To the detriment of human fraternity and the truth about the good
o	Injurious to ecclesial communion

83. What is at issue here: the integral truth about man
•	Bishops should show faithful the inviting splendor of that truth which is Jesus Christ himself: in him man can understand fully and live perfectly, through his good actions, his vocation to freedom in obedience to the divine law
•	Takes place through the gift of the Holy Spirit: in him we are enabled to interiorize the law, to receive it and live it as the motivating force of true personal freedom

CHAPTER THREE: “LEST THE CROSS OF CHRIST BE EMPTIED OF ITS POWER” (1 Cor 1.17): MORAL GOOD FOR THE LIFE OF THE CHURCH AND OF THE WORLD

Epigraph: “For freedom Christ has set us free” (Gal 5.1)

84. “Fundamental question” posed by moral theories today: the “relationship between freedom and truth”
•	According to Christian faith and the Church’s teaching, “only the freedom which submits to the Truth leads the human person to his true good. The good of the person is to be in the Truth and to do the Truth.”
•	The Church must develop an intense pastoral effort precisely with regard to this fundamental question
o	This essential bond between Truth, the Good and Freedom has been largely lost sight of by present-day culture
o	The question “What is truth” reflects the distressing perplexity of a man who often no longer knows “who he is,” “whence” he comes and “where” he is going
o	According to some: one no longer need acknowledge the enduring absoluteness of any moral value
o	Man is no longer convinced that only in the truth can he find salvation
o	This relativism becomes, in the field of theology, a lack of trust in the wisdom of God, who guides man with the moral law

85. The Church seeks to help all the faithful to form a moral conscience which will make judgments and lead to decisions in accordance with the truth
•	The secret of the Church’s educative power, not in doctrinal statements and pastoral appeals to vigilance, but “constantly looking to the Lord Jesus”
•	It is “in the Crucified Christ” that “the Church finds the answer” to the question troubling so many people today: how can obedience to universal and unchanging moral norms respect the uniqueness and individuality of the person, and not represent a threat to his freedom and dignity?
o	“The Crucified Christ reveals the authentic meaning of freedom; he lives it fully in the total gift of himself”

86. Human freedom:
•	Rational reflection and daily experience demonstrate the weakness which marks man’s freedom
•	absolute and unconditional origin of freedom not in itself, but in the life within which it is situated and which represents for it, at one and the same time, both a limitation and a possibility
•	human freedom belongs to us as creatures; a gift to be received like a seed and to be cultivated responsibly
•	within that freedom: an echo of the primordial vocation whereby the Creator calls man to the true Good, and even more, through Christ’s Revelation, to become his friend and to share his own divine life
•	Freedom = inalienable self-possession and openness to all that exists
•	Freedom rooted in the truth about man and ultimately directed towards communion
•	In some mysterious way inclined to betray this openness to the True and the Good
•	Within his errors and negative decisions, man glimpses the source of a deep rebellion, which leads him to reject the Truth and the Good in order to set himself up as an absolute principle unto himself
•	“Freedom itself needs to be set free. It is Christ who sets it free.”

87. Christ reveals: the frank and open acceptance of truth is the condition for authentic freedom.
•	Worship of God and a relationship with truth are revealed in Jesus Christ as the deepest foundation of freedom
•	Jesus reveals by his whole life, and not only by his words, that freedom is acquired in “love,” that is, in the “gift of self.”
•	Full meaning of freedom: the gift of self in “service to God and one’s brethren.”

Subtitle: Walking in the light (cf. 1 Jn 1.7)

88. The attempt to set freedom in opposition to truth, and indeed to separate them radically, is the consequence, manifestation and consummation of “another more serious and destructive dichotomy, that which separates faith from morality.”
•	Many people think and live “as if God did not exist.”
•	Christians should rediscover the “newness of the faith and its power to judge” a prevalent and all-intrusive culture.
•	Faith: not simply a set of propositions to be accepted with intellectual assent; a lived knowledge of Christ, a living remembrance of his commandments, and a “truth to be lived out.”

89. Faith also possesses a moral content. Through the moral life, faith becomes “confession,” not only before God but also before men: it becomes “witness.”

Subtitle: Martyrdom, the exaltation of the inviolable holiness of God’s law

90. The relationship between faith and morality shines forth with all its brilliance in the “unconditional respect due to the insistent demands of the personal dignity of every man.”
•	Christian martyrdom confesses the unacceptability of “teleological,” “consequentialist” and “proportionalist” ethical theories.

91. Examples of martyrdom: Susanna, John the Baptist, Stephen, James the Greater: the love of God entails the obligation to respect his commandments, even in the direst of circumstances, and the refusal to betray those commandments, even for the sake of saving one’s own life.

92. Martyrdom reveals an act morally evil in itself as a violation of man’s humanity.

93. Martyrdom is an outstanding sign of holiness of the Church. This witness helps ward off in civil society and within the ecclesial communities themselves “confusion between good and evil.”
•	All Christians must daily be ready to make, even at the cost of suffering and grave sacrifice, a consistent witness.
•	They are sustained by the virtue of fortitude.

94. In this witness to the absoluteness of the moral good, Christians are supported by the moral sense present in peoples and by the great religious and sapiential traditions of East and West.

Subtitle: Universal and unchanging moral norms at the service of the person and of society

95. Church accused of intransigence because of her teaching and her firmness in defending the universal and permanent validity of the precepts prohibiting intrinsically evil acts
•	The Church’s motherhood can never be separated from her teaching mission
•	Genuine understanding and compassion must mean love for the person, for his true good, for his authentic freedom. And this does not result from concealing or weakening moral truth, but rather from proposing it in its most profound meaning as an outpouring of God’s eternal Wisdom and as a service to man.
•	Still, a clear and forceful presentation of moral truth can never be separated from a profound and heartfelt respect

96. Because there can be no freedom apart from or in opposition to the truth, the categorical—unyielding and uncompromising—defence of the absolutely essential demands of man’s personal dignity must be considered the way and the condition for the very existence of freedom
•	This service directed to every man, considered in the uniqueness and singularity of his being and existence
•	Directed to all mankind
o	Unshakable foundation and solid guarantee of a just and peaceful human coexistence, and hence of genuine democracy
o	When it is a matter of the moral norms prohibiting intrinsic evil, there are no privileges or exceptions for anyone.

97. In this way, moral norms, and primarily the negative ones, those prohibiting evil, manifest their “meaning and force, both personal and social.”
•	They should be specified and made more explicit in a detailed code of behavior to which both public authorities and citizens are required to pay heed

Subtitle: Morality and the renewal of social and political life

98. Situations of injustice in the world today
•	Causes which are properly “cultural”
•	But at the heart of the issue of culture, “moral sense”
•	Moral sense rooted and fulfilled in “religious sense”

99. Only God, the Supreme Good, constitutes the unshakable foundation and essential condition of morality, and thus of the commandments. The Supreme good and the moral good meet in “truth”: the truth of God and the truth of man.
•	Only upon this truth is it possible to construct a renewed society and to solve the complex and weighty problems affecting it, so as to make way for the authentic “freedom” of the person
o	Totalitarianism arises out of a denial of truth in the objective sense
•	The inseparable connection between truth and freedom is extremely significant for the life of persons in the socio-economic and socio-political sphere

100. The Church’s presentation of commandments governing economic life.
•	Virtues
•	Commandments

101. The Church’s presentation of commandments governing political life
•	Virtues
•	Practices
•	Risk of an alliance between democracy and ethical relativism

Subtitle: Grace and obedience to God’s law

102. The Lord gives us the possibility of keeping the commandments.

103. Man has the help of divine grace and should cooperate with his freedom.
•	Saving Cross of Jesus
•	Gift of the Holy Spirit
•	Sacraments

Only in the mystery of Christ’s Redemption do we discover the concrete possibilities of man.
•	Mistake to think Church’s teaching is merely an ideal
•	Christ has redeemed us: this means he has given us the possibility of realizing the entire truth of our being
•	God’s command is proportioned to man’s capabilities, but to the capabilities of the man to whom the Holy Spirit has been given and who, though he has fallen into sin, can always obtain pardon

104. Understanding human weakness never means compromising and falsifying the standard of good and evil in order to adapt it to particular circumstances
•	Someone who makes his own weakness the criterion of the truth about the good so that he can feel justified is unacceptable

105. Be careful about cultivating the attitude of the Pharisee: eliminate awareness of one’s own limits and of one’s own sin. 
•	Seeing disproportion between the law and human ability kindles the desire for grace and prepares one to receive it

Subtitle: Morality and the new evangelization

106. Dechristianization involves not only the loss of faith or its becoming irrelevant for everyday life, but also “a decline or obscuring of the moral sense.”
•	Comes from a loss of awareness of the originality of Gospel morality
•	Comes from an eclipse of fundamental principles and ethical values themselves
o	Subjectivism, utilitarianism and relativism not just pragmatic attitudes or patterns of behavior, but approaches having a basis in theory and claiming full cultural and social legitimacy.

107. Evangelization also involves the proclamation and presentation of morality.
•	Best witness, life of holiness
o	Saints and Virgin Mary important

108. At heart of new evangelization and new moral life, the Spirit of Christ

Subtitle: The service of moral theologians

109. The “vocation” of the theologian in the Church is specifically at the service of this “believing effort to understand the faith.”
•	Theology has a profound and vital connection with the Church, her mystery, her life and her mission
o	Flourishes and develops only through a committed and responsible participation in and “belonging” to the Church as a “community of faith.”

110. Everything said about theology applies perforce to moral theology.
•	Moral theology: a scientific reflection of the Gospel as the gift and commandment of new life
•	The Magisterium intervenes in the sphere of morals
o	Discerns which acts conform to faith and those intrinsically evil
o	Teaches specific particular precepts and requires faithful to consider them as morally binding
o	Warns the faithful of possible errors
•	Teachers of moral theology
o	Instruct the faithful about all those commandments and practical norms authoritatively declared by the Church
o	Develop a deeper understanding of the reasons underlying the Magisterium’s teachings and to expound the validity and obligatory nature of the precepts it proposes
o	Set forth the Church’s teaching and give the example of loyal assent, both internal and external, to the Magisterium’s teaching
o	Clarify biblical foundations, ethical significance and anthropological concerns which underlie the moral doctrine and the vision of man set forth by the Church

111. Moral theologians must highlight that dynamic aspect which will elicit the response that man must give to the divine call which comes in the process of his growth in love within a community of salvation.
•	Because the Church’s morality necessarily involves a normative dimension, moral theology cannot be reduced to a body of knowledge worked out purely in the context of the so-called “behavioral sciences.”
o	Behavioral sciences concerned with the phenomenon of morality as a historical and social fact
•	Moral theology does not rely on the results of formal empirical observation or phenomenological understanding alone
•	The relevance of the behavioral sciences for moral theology must always be measured against the primordial question: What is good or evil? What must be done to have eternal life?

112. Moral principles are not dependent upon the historical moment in which they are discovered
•	The affirmation of moral principles is not within the competence of formal empirical methods
•	Moral theology takes into account first and foremost “the spiritual dimension of the human heart and its vocation to divine love”
•	While the behavioral sciences, like all experimental sciences, develop an empirical and statistical concept of “normality,” faith teaches that this normality itself bears the traces of a fall from man’s original situation
o	Only Christian faith points out to man the way to return to the “beginning”
•	The behavioral sciences, despite the great value of the information which they provide, cannot be considered decisive indications of moral norms.
•	It is the Gospel which reveals the full truth about man and his moral journey and thus enlightens and admonishes sinners

113. Dissent is opposed to ecclesial communion and to a correct understanding of the hierarchical constitution of the People of God.

Subtitle: Our own responsibilities as Pastors

114. Christ’s answer to the question about morality has been entrusted by him in a particular way to the Pastors of the Church

115. What the Pope has done in the encyclical:
•	Briefly recalled the essential characteristics of freedom
•	As well as the fundamental values connected with the dignity of the person and the truth of his acts
•	So as to be able to discern in obedience to the moral law a grace and a sign of our adoption in the one Son
•	Specifically, he has evaluated certain trends in moral theology today 

The reaffirmation of the universality and immutability of the moral commandments, particularly those which prohibit always and without exception intrinsically evil acts, is important for the whole of society.

116. Duty of bishops to “be vigilant that the word of God is faithfully taught.”
•	Aided by theologians, but theological opinions constitute neither the rule nor the norm of bishops’ teaching
•	Bishops have the grave obligation to be personally vigilant
•	In cases of a serious failure in Catholic institutions, take away title “Catholic.”

117. When people ask the Church the questions raised by their consciences, the Church’s reply contains the voice of Jesus Christ, the voice of the truth about good and evil.

CONCLUSION

Subtitle: Mary, Mother of Mercy

118. Redemption is the mercy of God and reaches its fullness in the gift of the Spirit
•	No matter how many and great the obstacles put in his way by human frailty and sin, the Spirit, who renews the face of the earth makes possible the miracle of the perfect accomplishment of the good.

119. Christian morality consists, in the simplicity of the Gospel, in following Jesus Christ, in abandoning oneself to him, in letting oneself be transformed by his grace and renewed by his mercy, gifts which come to us in the living communion of his Church.
•	By the light of the Holy Spirit, the living essence of Christian morality can be understood by everyone, even the least learned, but particularly those who are able to preserve an “undivided heart.”

120. Jesus entrusts his Church and all humanity to Mary.
•	Mary is the radiant sign and inviting model of the moral life
•	Mary shares our human condition, but in complete openness to the grace of God
•	She understands sinful man and loves him with a Mother’s love: she recalls always and to everyone the demands of morality