Clear conscience – updated

I think that it was Joan of Arc that got me thinking about this. She was burned at the stake after being condemned by an ecclesial court and not too long after, declared a saint by the same church that executed her.  (CORRECTION: It took a long time, my initial source was apparently incorrect. Joan was not beatified until 1909 and canonized in 1920.) She followed her conscience and the Church caught up to her, albeit late. That is conscience formation!

What is it to form our conscience? I’m not speaking in general, but rather as a Roman Catholic today. This is an important question and one that I fear is not well addressed in contemporary American Catholic circles. Like everything having to do with God, it is not a matter of transactional information, but

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Seamless, shredded

When the soldiers had crucified Jesus, they took his clothes and divided them into four shares, a share for each soldier. They also took his tunic, but the tunic was seamless, woven in one piece from the top down.
– John 19:23

Of all the many things dividing the Church these days, it boggles the mind to imagine that disagreement over when it is appropriate to kill someone would be the thing to do it. And that it would be a fight from a seemingly more-ardent self-proclaimed “pro-life” right that led the way… the way to saying that we should indeed preserve the right to, well – kill someone.

Although it is probably not the best use of my time, and even less