On Conscience: Two Essays
Overview
Prepared and co-published by the National Catholic Bioethics Center in Philadelphia, this book is a combination of two lengthy essays written by Cardinal Ratzinger and delivered in talks when he was head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Both talks deal with the importance of conscience and its exercise in particular circumstances.
Ratzinger’s reflections show that contemporary debates over the nature of conscience have deep historical and philosophical roots. He says that a person is bound to act in accord with his conscience, but he makes it clear that there must be reliable, proven sources for the judgment of conscience in moral issues, other than the subjective reflections of each individual.
The always unique and profound insights that the new Pope Benedict XVI brings to perennial problems reminds the reader of his strong warning before the recent papal conclave of the great dangers today of the “dictatorship of relativism.”
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Save more when you purchase this book as part of the Select Works of Joseph Ratzinger/Pope Benedict XVI (21 vols.).
Key Features
- Combines two essays dealing with the importance of conscience
- Reflects on the historical and philosophical roots regarding the nature of conscience
- Provides profound biblical teaching for both Protestants and Catholics
Contents
- Conscience and Truth
- Biships, Theologians, and Morality
Top Highlights
“First, conscience is not identical to personal wishes and taste. Second, conscience cannot be reduced to social advantage, to group consensus, or to the demands of political and social power.” (Page 26)
“For Newman, the middle term—which establishes the connection between authority and subjectivity—is truth” (Page 24)
“morality requires not the specialist, but the witness” (Page 69)
“What characterizes man as man is not that he asks about the ‘can’ but about the ‘should,’ and that he opens himself to the voice and demands of truth.” (Page 29)
“that man’s capacity for truth is a limit on all power and a guarantee of man’s likeness to God.” (Pages 29–30)
Product Details
- Title: On Conscience: Two Essays
- Author: Joseph Ratzinger
- Publisher: Ignatius Press
- Publication Date: 2007
- Pages: 95
- Christian Group: Catholic
- Resource Type: Collected Essays
- Topic: Creeds, Councils, Confessions, and Catechisms
About Joseph Ratzinger
Joseph Ratzinger is one of the most revered Catholic prelates, scholars, theologians, teachers, and authors of our time. He has spoken on many crucial subjects, including sexual consumerism, roles of men and women today, marriage, the priesthood, and the future of the world. On June 29, 1951, Joseph Ratzinger was ordained to the priesthood in the Cathedral of Freising on the Feast of Saints Peter and Paul. He also received his doctorate in theology in 1953 from the University of Munich. Starting in 1959, Ratzinger taught theology at the University of Bonn.
After many years of teaching at several German universities, Ratzinger was appointed by Pope Paul VI as Archbishop of Munich and Freising in March 1977, and was elevated to cardinal in June 1977. In November 1981, Ratzinger was summoned by Pope John Paul II to Rome, where he was named Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, President of the Pontifical Biblical Commission, and President of the International Theological Commission.
On April 19, 2005, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was elected to be the 265th pope. He took the name Benedict XVI, after St. Benedict of Nursia. As pope, he received worldwide respect and was a spiritual influence to Christians and non-Christians alike. In 2013, he resigned the papacy, becoming the first pope to do so in since the fifteenth century. He retired to a monastery in the Vatican Gardens, where he continues to study and write.