Manifestations Of Conscience: Leo Tolstoy & Stephan Sundborg, S.J.

This is an excerpt of an article which was written in 1891 entitled,

THE ETHICS OF WINE-DRINKING AND TOBACCO-SMOKING.

BY COUNT LVOF TOLSTOI

.........All human life may be truly said to be made up of one of two kinds of activity ; (1) The bringing of one's conduct into harmony with the dictates of conscience ; or

(2) the concealing from one's self the, manifestations of conscience, in order to make it possible to continue to live as one is living. Some people are engaged in the former occupation, others in the latter. There is but one way to accomplish the former : moral enlightenment, increase of light within ourselves, and of attention to what the light reveals. There are two methods of attaining the second object—that of concealing from ourselves the manifestations of conscience

: an external and an internal method. The former leads us to engage in occupations calculated to withdraw our attention from the teachings of conscience, while the latter consists in darkening the conscience itself. Just as a man has it in his power to blind himself to an object that is immediately under his eyes in one of two ways : either by fixing them upon other and more striking objects, or by obstructing the organs of vision—thrusting some foreign body upon them—so, in like manner,

a man can hide from himself the manifestations of his conscience, either by having all his attention engrossed by occupations of various kinds, cares, amusements, pastimes, or else by obstructing the organ of attention itself.

When it is a question of persons of a blunted or limited moral sense, outward distractions are frequently quite sufficient to hinder them from noting the testimony borne by their consciences to the irregularity of their lives. With people of sensitive moral organization such mechanical devices are seldom enough.

Link (here) .

Now this excerpt was originally published January 14, 2009

Fr. Stephan Sundborg, S.J., who has led Seattle U. for more than a decade, faced criticism in 2005 for refusing to testify at a deposition in a case involving the Rev. James Poole, a Tacoma priest accused of raping or molesting several girls. Fr. Sundborg, S.J. said that any meetings he'd had with Poole fell under a protective veil known to Jesuits as "manifestations of conscience."

Link (here) to the full Seattle Times article

Manifestation of Conscience or in Latin RATIO CONSCIENTIÆ (here) and (here)