Veckans Tablet
”The primacy of conscience”
“With the beatification of John Henry Newman nearly at hand, it is timely to recall how he dealt with a Victorian version of this challenge in his famous ”Letter to the Duke of Norfolk”, written largely in response to Gladstone’s angry reaction to the definition of papal infallibility. Part of Newman’s reply was to stress the role of conscience, the ”universal sense of right and wrong, the consciousness of transgression, the pangs of guilt, and the dread of retribution”. He declared: ”If I am obliged to bring religion into after-dinner toasts (which indeed does not seem quite the thing) I shall drink – to the Pope, if you please – still, to Conscience first, and to the Pope afterwards.”
http://www.thetablet.co.uk/article/15133
// Irène
