The Role of the Conscience in Building a Culture of Life
By Alex Schadenberg

On February 23 - 24, 2007; I attended the International Congress on: The Christian Conscience in Support of the Right to Life that was organized by the Pontifical Academy for Life and held at the Vatican. I attended the Congress because I am convinced that people of faith need to become more concerned about issues related to the conscience. The Sanctity of Human Life has not only been attacked by the post-modern secular ideology, but in many ways the cultural mores of Western nations have changed to the point where reversing the culture of death is becoming more difficult.
    
The question that I sought an answer was: "How should people of faith act in relation to unjust laws that are an attack on the dignity of human life." Christian medical professionals are constantly challenged to conform to the culture of death.  The purveyors of the culture of death are also demanding adherence to their immoral ideology. The people of faith are not only being challenged in the current culture but will face an ever increasing pressure to conform to the ever increasing acts that destroy human life. This pressure to conform is not only faced by medical professionals, but more and more everyone is being challenged or silenced by the demands of the culture of death on their conscience.

The Conscience as a witness to truth:
           
The current post-modern attitudes that we face in our culture are most effectively challenged when a person conscientiously refuses to accept or take part in something that is morally wrong. These types of challenges are particularly distressing to the post-modern ideologue because the central tenet of post-modernism is that there is no absolute truth. The fact that a person would steadfastly refuse to be part of something based on it being right or wrong is a real challenge to our current culture.
           
The difficulty with conscientious objection is that it requires a level of courage and strength of character that many people lack. The other reality is that people will naturally fear that the consequences of ones courage may be greater than that person can accept.

Pope Benedict commented on the problem in this way: "In these situations the conscience, sometimes overwhelmed by the powerful collective media, is insufficiently vigilant concerning the gravity of the problems at play, and the power of the strongest weakens and seems to paralyze even people of good will."

Carl Anderson, the Knights of Columbus - Supreme Knight astutely points out that John Paul II observed that: "democratic society is imperiled by the insistence that such objectively disordered acts, however subjectively mitigated, must be transformed from crimes to "legitimate expressions of individual freedom... and protected as actual rights. It is this inversion of "wrong" actions into "right" actions that John Paul II insisted to constitute "a direct threat to the future of democracy because it establishes "a perverse idea of freedom" at the very heart of democracy."
Pope John Paul II in his encyclical Evangelium Vitae therefore called for: "a general mobilization of consciences and a united ethical effort to activate a great campaign in support of life." (#95) John Paul II correctly recognized that cultural evangelization in building a culture of life is essentially the witness of the human conscience not only in opposition to evil, but motivated to the good of building a culture of life.
           
We will need an united effort of individuals and groups who are willing to stand together with individuals who have the courage to oppose the culture by acting in relation to their conscience. We will only enable individuals to become examples of truth in a culture that rejects truth when we agree to support them in their courageous service to our society and to the building of a culture of life.

Formation of the Conscience in building a Culture of Life:
           
Another problem that is faced by people of faith in our current culture is the lack of spiritual formation. The need for the individual to seek and receive formation, to understand truth, is central to the building of a culture of life.
           
The human conscience is the witness to truth that is needed for building a culture of life. The formation of the human conscience is therefore the necessary prerequisite to common action of building a culture of life.
           
Pope Benedict responds to the culture of death by calling on the Church and its people to become truly formed in their conscience. He stated: "One must be re-educated to the desire to know authentic truth, to defend one’s own freedom of choice in regard to mass behaviour and the lures of propaganda, to nourish passion for moral beauty and a clear conscience. This is the delicate duty of parents and educators who assist them; and it is the duty of the Christian community with regard to its faithful."

Conclusion:
           
The message to the world that was brought out by the International Congress on The Christian Conscience in Support of the Right to Life was that the conscience is the instrument that enables people of goodwill to challenge the culture of death and build a culture of life. What is necessary is the formation of the human conscience to know truth and the courage to live out that truth in witness to others. The witness of the conscience is a necessary means to building a culture of life.
    
To adhere to one’s conscience, not only acts as a witness to the culture of life, but extols the reality of the false teaching that has created a culture of death. Only when the general society becomes open to the concept of truth, then the seeds of destruction in the culture of death will be able to grow.

Finally, the conscience is our means to living our Christian truth in the secular culture. We must be willing to oppose by our actions the culture of death. The witness of the brave and loving person who is unwilling to waver in his/her opposition to the culture of death allows others to recognize that truth not only exists, but has meaning in the lived life.  

In becoming "a people of life and a people for life" people of faith will bear witness most truly to the truth, to the conscience and to the possibility of building a culture of life."

Alex Schadenberg is the executive director of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition.