Theologian Matteo Gagliardi: "John Paul & Benedict...promote[d] the moral supremacy of the Church’s teachings....primacy of conscience...[says] it can be fallible & challenged by human conscience, as Pope Francis...show[ed]"
Pope Francis reaffirms primacy of conscience amid criticism of ‘Amoris Laetitia’
VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis on Saturday reaffirmed the “primacy” of using one’s conscience to navigate tough moral questions in his first comments since he was publicly accused of spreading heresy by emphasizing conscience over established church teaching. [https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2017/11/11/pope-francis-reaffirms-primacy-conscience-amid-criticism-amoris-laetitia/]
Pope John Paul II explained where this teaching leads to: "individual conscience is accorded the status of a supreme tribunal of moral judgment which hands down categorical and infallible decisions about good and evil... But in this way the inescapable claims of truth disappear."
An ad absurdum reductio (reduction to absurdity) of the primacy of conscience demonstrates that if individual conscience is the ultimate moral authority, it leads to logical contradictions and a collapse of objective morality.
Here is a part of a ad absurdum reductio satire piece on "conscience..[being] dropped" called "Catholics For Genocide":
"Some bigoted traditionalists have suggested that genocide is not something that Catholics can support with a clear "conscience" (may we remind them that the idea of a conscience was dropped from Catholic teaching at the time of Vatican II?) Our answer to that is simple: very few senior bishops have criticised our movement, and Pope Francis certainly hasn't! Many of his best friends in China like nothing better than rampaging across the country wiping out people from the wrong team"
"Is it really worth upsetting my friends in China for the Uyghurs?" [https://ecclesandbosco.blogspot.com/2021/01/catholics-for-genocide.html]
"Previous Popes – including John Paul and Benedict – tried to quash
the views of theologians who didn’t tow the party line and promote the moral supremacy of the Church’s teachings...If Pope Francis is indeed promoting the Catholic teaching of the primacy of conscience... It may show people that it’s OK to be both Catholic and part of, say, the LGBT community – because that is what God is instructing them to do in their hearts... The primacy of conscience is the idea that God’s voice lies in your soul, and it is a sin not to listen to it. It is reconcilable with the notion that the Church is a moral authority, though only if it can be fallible and challenged by human conscience, as Pope Francis himself is showing." [https://www.google.com/amp/s/matteogagliardi.com/2014/04/02/the-primacy-of-conscience-the-only-way-forward-for-the-catholic-church/amp/#ampshare=https://matteogagliardi.com/2014/04/02/the-primacy-of-conscience-the-only-way-forward-for-the-catholic-church/]
- Francis:
"[T]he primacy of conscience, which must always be respected."[https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2017/11/11/pope-francis-reaffirms-primacy-conscience-amid-criticism-amoris-laetitia]
Conscience Supremacists, who apparently holds the new Gnostic heresy of the primacy of conscience or the supremacy of conscience, tell
Francis's recent words against homosexuality and abortion are empty or meaningless unless he condemns the heresy of the primacy of conscience which is promoted by Amoris Laetitia.
Is theologian Matteo Gagliardi who says Francis's primacy of conscience condemns "John Paul and Benedict [teachings of ]... the moral supremacy of the Church’s teachings" a heretic?
... John Paul II called “a separation, or even an opposition, in some cases between the teaching of the precept, which is valid in general, and the norm of the individual conscience, which would in fact make the final decision about what is good and what is evil. On this basis, an attempt is made to legitimize so-called ‘pastoral’ solutions contrary to the teaching of the magisterium and to justify a ‘creative’ hermeneutic according to which the moral conscience is in no way obliged, in every case, by a particular negative precept” (Veritatis Splendor, 56), i.e., a moral absolute."
"... John Paul II warned against as an illegitimate application of conscience... This proposal would not lead to Christian conversion, but confusion; not holiness, but heterodoxy."
[http://m.ncregister.com/daily-news/propagating-the-primacy-of-conscience-error#.Wy0-099lDqA]
The war in the Church is between Conscience Supremacists who hold to the supremacy of conscience vs. the Catholics who hold to the supremacy of God and His moral law as taught by the Church.
As those who hold to the supremacy of whites are white supremacists, those who hold to supremacy of conscience are Conscience Supremacists or Supremacists for short.
The Supremacist's teaching of the supremacy of conscience is a new Gnostic heresy as shown by renowned theologian Thomas G. Weinandy, OFM, Cap.:
"People are encouraged to discern, on their own, the best course of action, given the moral dilemma they face in their own existential context – what they are capable of doing at this moment in time. In this way, the individual’s own conscience, his or her personal communion with the divine, determines what the moral requirements are in the individual’s personal circumstances. What Scripture teaches, what Jesus stated, what the Church conveys through her living magisterial tradition are superseded by a higher 'knowledge,' an advanced 'illumination.'”
"If there is any new Gnostic paradigm in the Church today, it would seem to be found here. To propose this new paradigm is to claim to be truly “in-the-know,” to have special access to what God is saying to us as individuals here and now even if it goes beyond and may even contradict what He has revealed to everyone else in Scripture and tradition." [https://www.thecatholicthing.org/2018/06/07/gnosticism-today/]
Conscience Supremacists, who hold the new Gnostic heresy of the primacy of conscience or the supremacy of conscience,
The only persons who are not allowed a primacy of conscience are those who uphold "what Jesus stated, what the Church conveys through her living magisterial tradition."
T
"But even a deplorable tactic such as that doesn’t necessarily make fully clear to us what we’re dealing with. Right now, there is a titanic, perhaps definitive struggle going on in the Church between good and evil. We are witnessing an intense, revolutionary attempt by the devil and his minions, both human and demonic, to overthrow and destroy all that Christ has willed His Church to do and to be. So it is not surprising that the rhetoric we’re hearing in the Church these days has often a Marxist cast: The Church is guilty of having treated unfairly and discriminated against this or that 'class' of people–especially grave sexual sinners of one kind or another. The people in that class, it is said, have been excluded from ecclesial life, marginalized, and made to feel unwelcome. The 'oppressed' classes must therefore all be 'integrated' into the life of the Church, and the Church must apologize for having oppressed them in the first place.[29]"
"Marxist atheism demands that the new 'Church' it seeks to fashion fabricate a false god–one that doesn’t insist on the observance of reasonable moral laws that foster human dignity, especially if someone has 'great difficulty' understanding, in 'conscience,' their relevance to his own situation, or if he has 'discerned' that they would not be appropriate to follow at this time. Better yet, this 'god' can ratify in a person’s own conscience his decision to sin gravely, given his personal limitations and concrete circumstances. In the end, moral subjectivism such as this leads to the denial of the existence of any morality at all, and hence to the denial of the existence of its Author."
Tranzillo goes into detail about tin his article: "Amoris Laetitia on Conscience and Discernment: Do those who Preach what it says really Believe what it says?," November 28, 2017. [http://trulycatholicmatters.com/]
This is the direction taken by doctrines which have lost the sense of the transcendent or which are explicitly atheist. The individual conscience is accorded the status of a supreme tribunal of moral judgment which hands down categorical and infallible decisions about good and evil... But in this way the inescapable claims of truth disappear."
The material you uploaded sharpens the issue considerably. It contains two different meanings of “primacy of conscience,” and the whole argument turns on failing—or refusing—to distinguish them.
John Paul II's actual target in Veritatis Splendor is very specific:
the individual conscience as a “supreme tribunal of moral judgment” that determines good and evil for itself.
That is not the same thing as saying that conscience has primacy in the sense that a person must ultimately act according to conscience.
The crucial distinction
John Paul II's position can be represented like this:
God → objective moral truth → moral law → conscience → concrete action
The conscience is indispensable because the individual must personally apprehend and apply the moral truth. But conscience does not manufacture the truth.
The alternative criticized by John Paul II is:
Individual conscience → determines good and evil
That is what Veritatis Splendor describes as making conscience a “supreme tribunal” issuing “categorical and infallible decisions.” The consequence, John Paul II says, is that “the inescapable claims of truth disappear.”
This changes how we should read Francis
The isolated sentence:
“the primacy of conscience, which must always be respected”
is therefore ambiguous if taken by itself.
It could mean the perfectly orthodox proposition:
A person must never deliberately act against a sincerely formed conscience.
Or it could be interpreted in the much stronger sense:
The individual's conscience has authority to determine what is morally permissible in his particular circumstances, even contrary to an objective moral norm.
Those are radically different propositions.
The latter is precisely the position that the Veritatis Splendor framework rejects.
Your uploaded text actually gives the strongest formulation of the problem
The Weinandy passage says that the danger arises when personal discernment makes the individual's conscience determine the moral requirements of his particular circumstances, so that Scripture, Christ's teaching, and the Church's tradition are effectively superseded by a supposedly higher personal illumination.
That is much closer to the real philosophical/theological dispute than simply saying:
“Francis believes in conscience; John Paul II didn't.”
John Paul II absolutely did believe in the authority and dignity of conscience. His objection was to conscience becoming constitutive of moral truth.
And this connects directly to your earlier point about discernment
The question becomes:
Does discernment discover and apply an objective moral truth, or does discernment determine what the moral truth is for this particular person?
Under the Veritatis Splendor conception:
Discernment discovers/apprehends the truth.
Under the problematic conception identified in your source:
Discernment can become the process by which the individual determines what God's moral demand is in his particular situation.
That is why the source describes the latter as a form of moral subjectivism and invokes Weinandy's criticism of an “advanced illumination” that can supersede Scripture, Christ, and the Church.
One correction to the uploaded argument
I would not go as far as the text's claim that Francis's statement by itself proves that he teaches a “heresy of the primacy of conscience.” The evidence you've supplied doesn't establish that conclusion.
In fact, the phrase “primacy of conscience” itself is not the decisive issue, because Catholic moral theology has long affirmed the necessity of following conscience.
The decisive question is whether conscience is subordinate to objective moral truth or is permitted to override it.
That's the point at which John Paul II's critique becomes philosophically very powerful:
Conscience has primacy as the immediate guide of personal action, but it does not have primacy as the source of moral truth.
That formulation captures the distinction your source is trying to defend, while avoiding the much broader claim that simply affirming the “primacy of conscience” is itself heterodox.
Yes — the new reporting substantially strengthens the earlier Haaretz allegation, but “confirms” needs to be stated carefully.
The New York Times reports that two people with knowledge of the conversation independently told the paper that UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed warned Benjamin Netanyahu in late September 2023 that Hamas was considering a major attack. One source said they had spoken directly with bin Zayed; the other had been briefed by someone who participated in the call.
The significant additional claim is that five former senior Israeli officials told the NYT that the warning never reached Israel's senior security leadership. The NYT also reviewed minutes of Netanyahu's October 1, 2023 meeting with his security chiefs; those minutes reportedly contain no mention of the Emirati warning.
There is another important detail: according to the meeting minutes, Netanyahu argued for maintaining calm in Gaza and opposed proposals to strike senior Hamas figures, partly because he believed Israeli military action could jeopardize the developing Saudi-Israeli normalization effort.
What is established vs. still disputed
| Claim | Current evidence |
|---|---|
| Haaretz first reported the alleged UAE warning | Yes |
| NYT independently found two sources describing the warning | Yes |
| The warning concerned a possible major Hamas attack | Yes, according to those sources |
| Five former Israeli officials say it did not reach security chiefs | Yes, according to NYT |
| Netanyahu mentioned the warning at the Oct. 1 security meeting | The meeting minutes reportedly do not show that he did |
| Netanyahu acknowledges receiving the warning | No — he denies it |
| UAE acknowledges the alleged direct warning | No — UAE officials have rejected the allegation |
| The original intelligence source behind bin Zayed's information is known | No |
| The warning specifically predicted the October 7 ground invasion | Not established; one source said it did not specify whether the attack would involve rockets or a ground assault. |
One especially interesting piece of corroboration reported by the NYT is that bin Zayed later referred to the September 2023 conversation when speaking with then-CIA Director William Burns, saying that he had warned Netanyahu about a looming Hamas threat in Gaza or the West Bank.
So I would phrase the development as:
The NYT has independently corroborated the central allegation of Haaretz's report through two sources familiar with the alleged Netanyahu–bin Zayed conversation and five former Israeli officials who say the warning did not reach Israel's security leadership. Netanyahu and the UAE continue to deny the allegation, so the precise circumstances of the alleged warning remain disputed.
That is stronger than the NYT's position two weeks ago: when Haaretz first published the story, the NYT explicitly said it could not confirm it.
This version of the document makes the argument more precise—and also reveals where its strongest and weakest points are.
The strongest point: John Paul II is explicitly addressing this exact danger
The key Veritatis Splendor passage is not merely about conscience. John Paul II specifically criticizes the elevation of individual conscience into a supreme tribunal that itself determines good and evil:
“The individual conscience is accorded the status of a supreme tribunal of moral judgment” which gives “categorical and infallible decisions about good and evil.”
And he immediately identifies the consequence:
“the inescapable claims of truth disappear.”
That is highly relevant to your comparison with Francis.
But there is an important distinction that the document itself tends to blur.
1. “Primacy of conscience” ≠ “supremacy of conscience”
There are actually three propositions:
A. Conscience must be followed.
Catholic moral theology affirms this.
B. Conscience has a certain primacy in personal action.
The person himself must make the moral judgment and cannot simply outsource his responsibility.
C. Conscience is the supreme authority for determining good and evil.
This is what John Paul II rejects.
The problem with the article is that it moves from A/B to C without adequately establishing that Francis is making that move.
2. But the Weinandy quotation identifies the precise danger
This is where your source becomes considerably more interesting.
Weinandy's criticism is not simply that people are talking about conscience. He describes a process whereby:
“the individual’s own conscience ... determines what the moral requirements are in the individual’s personal circumstances”
and consequently Scripture, Christ's teaching, and the Church's tradition can be “superseded” by a higher personal “knowledge.”
That is almost exactly the philosophical issue you were getting at in your previous question.
The question isn't:
Should we respect conscience?
Of course we should.
The question is:
Does conscience discover an objective moral obligation, or does it generate the obligation applicable to me?
John Paul II's answer is unmistakably the first.
3. This is also why Veritatis Splendor §56 matters
The Latkovic quotation in your document is especially relevant:
“the norm of the individual conscience ... would in fact make the final decision about what is good and what is evil.”
That is the decisive formulation.
John Paul II isn't denying that the individual has to make a concrete judgment. He's denying that concrete circumstances create an exemption from an objectively binding negative moral norm simply because the person's conscience reaches a different conclusion.
That is the real Veritatis Splendor objection to a certain interpretation of “discernment.”
4. Therefore, the strongest criticism of the Francis formulation is conditional
Rather than saying:
“Francis teaches heretical supremacy of conscience.”
the more defensible argument is:
“Francis's language about the primacy of conscience requires clarification: if ‘primacy’ means that conscience is the immediate and inviolable norm governing personal action, it is compatible with John Paul II; but if it means that an individual's concrete discernment can determine what is morally permissible independently of, or contrary to, an objectively binding moral norm, then it conflicts directly with the moral theology articulated in Veritatis Splendor.”
That formulation actually puts the issue on much firmer ground.
5. And it explains the apparent contradiction
There is no contradiction between:
“Conscience must always be respected.”
and
“Conscience is not the supreme tribunal of moral truth.”
Both can be true because respecting conscience includes respecting its obligation to truth.
In fact, John Paul II's position could be summarized:
The person must obey conscience.
Conscience must obey truth.
Therefore the person cannot make conscience itself the source of truth.
That is, I think, the cleanest way to formulate the John Paul II critique that your document is reaching toward.
I ask all The Catholic Monitor readers to also pray for the end of this war. Watch "Trump Calls Putin To Get Iran War Offramp! w/ Scott Ritter" on YouTube: ...Read more Please Pray for Trump to end the Iran War: Watch "Trump Calls Putin To Get Iran War Offramp! w/ Scott Ritter" on YouTubeFranklin & Graham calls on Christians to pray for 'end to the bloodshed' ahead of Trump-Putin summit...7mo
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Conclave Notes:
-- Open letter urges Pope Leo XIV to correct ‘scandalous incoherence’ in Amoris Laetitia...[Wow! Even notorious Popesplainer Fr.] Harrison warns that Pope Francis taught a ‘dangerous self-contradiction’ on Communion for the divorced and ‘remarried,’ petitioning Pope Leo to correct the record. [https://www.thecatholicmonitor.com/2025/08/open-letter-urges-pope-leo-xiv-to.html]
-- Are the Cardinals who will participate in the upcoming conclave authentically appointed & morally justified in voting, or will the shadow of Francis's possible illegitimacy cast itself over the next papacy? [https://www.thecatholicmonitor.com/2025/04/are-cardinals-who-will-participate-in.html]
-- 5 Dubia Questions for 1P5's Steve Skojec & All faithful Catholics especially Francis is definitely Pope Cardinals, Bishops & pundits [https://www.thecatholicmonitor.com/2019/06/5-dubia-questions-for-steve-skojec.html]
Francis Notes:
l– Doctor of the Church St. Francis de Sales totally confirmed beyond any doubt the possibility of a heretical pope and what must be done by the Church in such a situation:
“[T]he Pope… WHEN he is EXPLICITLY a heretic, he falls ipso facto from his dignity and out of the Church, and the Church MUST either deprive him, or, as some say, declare him deprived, of his Apostolic See.”
(The Catholic Controversy, by St. Francis de Sales, Pages 305-306)
Saint Robert Bellarmine, also, said “the Pope heretic is not deposed ipso facto, but must be declared deposed by the Church.”
[https://archive.org/stream/SilveiraImplicationsOfNewMissaeAndHereticPopes/Silveira%20Implications%20of%20New%20Missae%20and%20Heretic%20Popes_djvu.txt]
– “If Francis is a Heretic, What should Canonically happen to him?”: http://www.thecatholicmonitor.com/2020/12/if-francis-is-heretic-what-should.html
– “Could Francis be a Antipope even though the Majority of Cardinals claim he is Pope?”: http://www.thecatholicmonitor.com/2019/03/could-francis-be-antipope-even-though.html
– If Francis betrays Benedict XVI & the”Roman Rite Communities” like he betrayed the Chinese Catholics we must respond like St. Athanasius, the Saintly English Bishop Robert Grosseteste & “Eminent Canonists and Theologians” by “Resist[ing]” him: https://www.thecatholicmonitor.com/2021/12/if-francis-betrays-benedict-xvi.html
– LifeSiteNews, “Confusion explodes as Pope Francis throws magisterial weight behind communion for adulterers,” December 4, 2017:
The AAS guidelines explicitly allows “sexually active adulterous couples facing ‘complex circumstances’ to ‘access the sacraments of Reconciliation and the Eucharist.'”
– On February 2018, in Rorate Caeli, Catholic theologian Dr. John Lamont:
“The AAS statement… establishes that Pope Francis in Amoris Laetitia has affirmed propositions that are heretical in the strict sense.”
– On December 2, 2017, Bishop Rene Gracida:
“Francis’ heterodoxy is now official. He has published his letter to the Argentina bishops in Acta Apostlica Series making those letters magisterial documents.”
Pray an Our Father now for the restoration of the Church by the bishops by the grace of God.
Election Notes:
– Intel Cryptanalyst-Mathematician on Biden Steal: “212Million Registered Voters & 66.2% Voting,140.344 M Voted…Trump got 74 M, that leaves only 66.344 M for Biden” [http://catholicmonitor.blogspot.com/2020/12/intel-cryptanalyst-mathematician-on.html?m=1]
– Will US be Venezuela?: Ex-CIA Official told Epoch Times “Chávez started to Focus on [Smartmatic] Voting Machines to Ensure Victory as early as 2003”: http://catholicmonitor.blogspot.com/2020/12/will-us-be-venezuela-ex-cia-official.html
– Tucker Carlson’s Conservatism Inc. Biden Steal Betrayal is explained by “One of the Greatest Columns ever Written” according to Rush: http://catholicmonitor.blogspot.com/2021/01/tucker-carlsons-conservatism-inc-biden.html?m=1
– A Hour which will Live in Infamy: 10:01pm November 3, 2020:
http://www.thecatholicmonitor.com/2021/01/a-hour-which-will-live-in-infamy-1001pm.html?m=1
What is needed right now to save America from those who would destroy our God given rights is to pray at home or in church and if called to even go to outdoor prayer rallies in every town and city across the United States for God to pour out His grace on our country to save us from those who would use a Reichstag Fire-like incident to destroy our civil liberties. [Is the [J6] DC Capitol Incident Comparable to the Nazi Reichstag Fire Incident where the German People Lost their Civil Liberties?: http://catholicmonitor.blogspot.com/2021/01/is-dc-capital-incident-comparable-to.html?m=1 and Epoch Times Show Crossroads on Capitol Incident: “Anitfa ‘Agent Provocateurs‘”:
http://catholicmonitor.blogspot.com/2021/01/epoch-times-show-crossroads-on-capital.html?m=1]
Pray an Our Father now for the grace to know God’s Will and to do it.
Pray an Our Father now for America.
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