Conscience and (Catholic) authority

Here is the quote (it's from the Introduction and is on page 2):

The Catholic approach to conscience is deeply ambiguous. On the one hand conscience is regarded as the most fundamental and directly personal way the individual apprehends moral goodness and truth. The church's constant but little publicized teaching is that conscience must always be obeyed. However, there is also an expectation that the judgments of conscience will be in agreement with church teaching. As a result there is an immediate and inevitable tension between conscience and other moral authorities in Catholicism.

Now, Hogan's axe grinding is already self-evident. Even someone who reads no more than this will have no trouble seeing that she means to conclude that individual Catholics should be free to ignore church teachings. It won't come as a terrible surprise that the particular teachings she wants them to be able to ignore are teachings about sexuality.

And, yes, my eyes glaze over too. Not to mention that Catholics seem to have little trouble ignoring church teachings on sexuality so it is hard to figure out why they need Hogan's help to do things they are already doing.

Any non-Catholic who comes by here might also wonder why they should even care? No reason actually. That said, I do think I can make an interesting point of this even if Hogan can't.