UNITED STATES
Crux
By Jacob Lupfer
Religion News Service October 15, 2014
Pope Francis has engineered a lively debate at the Synod of Bishops about gays and lesbians, divorced and remarried Catholics, and couples who live together before getting married. Yet through these discussions about Catholic life runs a theme that is as old as the Reformation: the role of individual conscience.
The conflict between conscience and authority is the pre-eminent battle underlying the synod’s debates. Even the dramatic turn from language such as “living in sin” and “intrinsically disordered” is a tacit nod to conscience over authority.
If there is a common thread among issues as diverse as contraception, divorce, premarital sex, and homosexuality, it may be the limits of the Church’s authority over Catholics’ behavior and consciences.
Protestant denominations vary in how much they have abandoned traditional teaching on these matters. Evangelicals have mostly accommodated birth control and divorce, but not premarital or gay sex. Mainline Protestants rarely enforce what weak prohibitions on premarital sex remain, and are more rapidly accepting gays and lesbians in the life and ministry of their churches.
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