TCCW 2: The Right to Act in Conscience

*Originally published by Sojourners on October 10, 2010. It has since been removed.

When I was an undergrad, Christian social justice was the focus of my final, capstone course. A self-defined practicum, the course granted academic credit for helping a couple guys found Honolulu's first Catholic Worker house, Saint Damien House of Hospitality. Ever since, Catholic Social Teaching (CST) has been the central lens through which I understand Christian social justice.

The most important contributions of CST to the conversation on selective conscientious objection (SCO) are the twin imperatives of the sanctity of life and the dignity of the human person. The Catechism of the Catholic Church affirms that people have "the right to act in conscience and in freedom so as personally to make moral decisions." Thus, the official teaching of the largest single denominational body in the United States suggests that "autonomy of conscience" be recognized as a right exercised personally, and that to deny such a right directly affects the human dignity of the person so denied.

Autonomy of conscience is based on the very nature of the dignity of the human person, since for even a legitimate authority to refuse moral agency is to impose psychological slavery upon the person refused. American Christians interested in social justice have been struggling against this imposition since at least 1971, when the petition of Louis Negre, a young Catholic draftee, reached the Supreme Court.

Originally published in Sojourners. Archived at https://civilianally.com/vita/20101013-sojo