The Episcopal Commission for the Doctrine of the Faith of the Spanish Bishops' Conference has just published a Doctrinal note on conscientious objection, entitled "For freedom Christ has set us free". (Gal 5:1).
The Note bases the right to conscientious objection on freedom which, in turn, is based on the dignity of the human being.
Such human dignity and freedom is not the fruit or consequence of the will of human beings, nor of the will of the State or of the public authorities, but finds its foundation in man himself and, ultimately, in God his creator.
Conscientious objection in the Magisterium
Already the Second Vatican Council noted that "never have men had such a keen sense of the freedom (proper to them) as they have today" (cf. Gaudium et Spes, n. 4). P
But this freedom, which consists in "the power, rooted in reason and in the will, to act or not to act, to do this or that, and thus to carry out deliberate actions of one's own accord" (Catechism of the Catholic Church, n. 1731), should not be understood as an absence of any moral law indicating limits to one's actions, or as "a license to do whatever pleases me, even if it is evil" (Second Vatican Council, Gaudium et Spes, n. 17).
Human beings have not given existence to themselves, so they exercise their freedom correctly when they recognize their radical dependence on God, live in permanent openness to Him, seek to fulfill His will and, furthermore, when they recognize that they are members of the great human family, so that the exercise of their freedom is conditioned by the social relations that condition its exercise.
The public authorities must not only respect, but also defend and promote the exercise of freedom of all persons and limit it only in those cases where it is truly necessary for the common good, public order and peaceful coexistence.
A very profound characteristic of human freedom is found in the area of one's conscience and religion or religious freedom.
This is a fundamental right, because man is a being open to transcendence and because it affects the most intimate and profound part of his being, which is his own conscience.
Today we run the risk, also at the level of the exercise of public powers, of not sufficiently favoring this fundamental right because of a marked tendency to consider that God belongs only to the private sphere of the person.
For the Catechism of the Catholic Church it is clear that "the citizen is obliged in conscience not to follow the prescriptions of the civil authorities when these precepts are contrary to the demands of the moral order, to the fundamental rights of persons or to the teachings of the Gospel" (n. 2.242).
Conscientious objection implies that a person places the dictates of his or her own conscience before what is ordered or permitted by law. It is a fundamental right of every person, essential for the common good of all citizens, which the State must recognize and value.
It is a pre-political right that the State should not restrict or minimize with the excuse of guaranteeing people's access to certain practices recognized by the positive legislation of the State, let alone present it as an attack on the "rights" of others.
This fundamental right to conscientious objection must be regulated, guaranteeing that those who wish to exercise it will not be discriminated against in the labor or social sphere.
The creation of a register of conscientious objectors violates the right of every citizen not to be forced to declare his or her own religious or simply philosophical or ideological convictions.
I conclude by inviting you to read carefully this Note from the Episcopal Commission for the Doctrine of the Faith. It is worthwhile.
