“Vote your conscience” said a recent election message aimed at Catholic voters, and I’ve heard more than one objection. The number of believing Americans without a proper understanding of ethics and civic duty is, I’d venture to guess, devastatingly large, and the last thing these individuals need is affirmation in their (and the media’s) confusion. Among those who do have a sense of morality in public life, most are wrenched in multiple directions, struggling to perform a moral calculus that avoids any scent of one-issue proclivities. Conscience is a murky land, not the sort of place to make a firm decision.

As Luther observed, however, where else can one stand if not on his own conscience? The underlying imperative here (not lost on the Catholic Vote campaign) is to form one’s conscience, and form it well.

Thomas More, patron of statesmen and politicians, illuminates this call. “More believed he had to follow his conscience, but not because he thought he was smarter or holier than anyone else,” writes Archbishop Chaput in his new book, Render unto Caesar: Serving the Nation by Living Our Catholic Beliefs in Political Life. “More obeyed his conscience because he knew that he was obligated to obey God first. And knowing his personal sins and weaknesses, he also knew his duty to rightly form his conscience by anchoring it in the truth outside his own will.”

I’ve been thinking a lot about Thomas More lately, especially after seeing the Broadway revival of Robert Bolt’s A Man for All Seasons. At one especially memorable point, Bolt’s More gives an impassioned defense of his political conviction: “What matters to me is not whether it’s true or not but that I believe it to be true, or rather, not that I believe it, but that I believe it.”

A powerful statement, and yet, when the real Thomas More clung to his conscience, it was because his conscience clung to his heritage–a heritage his reason trusted to be true. “If there were no one but myself upon my side, and the whole Parliament upon the other,” court transcripts record him as saying, “I would be sore afraid….[But] I am not bounden to change my conscience and conform it to the council of our realm against the general council of Christendom.”

Following one’s conscience is a duty that falls solely to the individual. Forming one’s conscience, however, takes place within a civilization, a culture, and a Church. It takes place here and now, but never alone; it looks back to the wisdom and tradition of the past, and ahead to the sure prospect of eternity. “I die the King’s good servant,” Bolt’s More asserts on his way to the gibbet, and there he stops. The martyr of history, however, continues: “I die the King’s good servant, but God’s first.”

Following up on the archaeological discovery of King David’s kingdom in 2005, the New York Times today speculates: “Find of Ancient City Could Alter Notions of Biblical David.”

Overlooking the verdant Valley of Elah, where the Bible says David toppled Goliath, archaeologists are unearthing a 3,000-year-old fortified city that could reshape views of the period when David ruled over the Israelites. Five lines on pottery uncovered here appear to be the oldest Hebrew text ever found and are likely to have a major impact on knowledge about the history of literacy and alphabet development.

The five-acre site, with its fortifications, dwellings and multi-chambered entry gate, will also be a weapon in the contentious and often politicized debate over whether David and his capital, Jerusalem, were an important kingdom or a minor tribe, an issue that divides not only scholars but those seeking to support or delegitimize Zionism.
. . .
Israel Finkelstein, an archaeologist at Tel Aviv University and a prominent skeptic toward a Bible-based historical chronology, [says] . . . “so there is a late tenth-century fortified structure there. I don’t believe that any archaeologist can revolutionize our entire understanding of Judah and Jerusalem by a single site.”

Mr. Finkelstein is among the most prominent advocates of what is called the “low chronology,” meaning those who date David and Solomon’s rule to closer to 900 b.c. than 1000 b.c. They argue that the kingdom was a minor affair that a later generation of Israelites in the seventh century b.c. mythologized for its own nationalistic purposes.

That’s the question the Westchester Institute for Ethics & the Human Person, “a research institute conducting interdisciplinary, natural law analysis of complex, contemporary moral issues,” tackles in its latest white paper, “When Does Human Life Begin? A Scientific Perspective.” Here’s part of the paper’s summary:

Resolving the question of when human life begins is critical for advancing a reasoned public policy debate over abortion and human embryo research. This article considers the current scientific evidence in human embryology and addresses two central questions concerning the beginning of life: 1) in the course of sperm-egg interaction, when is a new cell formed that is distinct from either sperm or egg? and 2) is this new cell a new human organism–i.e., a new human being?

Based on universally accepted scientific criteria, a new cell, the human zygote, come into existence at the moment of sperm-egg fusion, an event that occurs in less than a second. Upon formation, the zygote is radically unlike that of either sperm or egg separately and is characteristic of a human organism. Thus, the scientific evidence supports the conclusion that a zygote is a human organism and that the life of a new human being commences at a scientifically well defined “moment of conception.” This conclusion is objective, consistent with factual evidence, and independent of specific ethical, moral, political, or religious view of human life or of human embryos.

Of course, the findings of this research are nothing new, but it’s always important to reiterate the point that arguments against embryonic stem-cell research and abortion are grounded in solid, scientific fact. As our own Fr. Richard John Neuhaus says in the foreword to the paper:

It is sometimes said that the abortion debate is about “values” rather than “facts.” An honest debate about abortion, however, is about values based on facts. If we don’t get the facts right, we will not get our values right. Establishing by clear scientific evidence the moment at which a human life begins is not the end of the abortion debate. On the contrary, that is the point from which the debate begins.

Let’s hope this scientific paper can bring us one step closer to the honest debate this country needs.

A couple days ago, Nathaniel discussed an article in the New York Times that highlighted the increasing percentage of woman involved in extramarital affairs. Among other observations, Nathaniel noticed that the language used in the article to refer to the increasing rate of adultery was “the same language you use when talking about women achieving parity with men in the classroom, workplace, etc.” Here’s another example of this type of language, taken from the lead of a story in yesterday’s Chicago Tribune:

How’s this for sexual equality?

Though men are still overwhelmingly more likely to cheat on their spouses than women, the fairer sex is gaining ground.

Gaining ground? This makes adultery sound like a game of Risk.