RE REVIEWER • Another advocate puts the matter this

way: “According to this theory, man is

structured in a series of concentric
FREEDOM, KNOWLEDGE AND circles or various levels. In the deepest
CONSCIENCE level of the individual, at the personal
center, man’s freedom decides, loves,
and commits itself in the fullest sense of
MAN'S FREEDOM these terms.

• God created man a rational being,

conferring on him the dignity of a person Joseph Boyle (1980) has accurately and
who can initiate and control his own helpfully summarized these features:
actions.
• "God willed that man should be 'left in • Fundamental freedom is exercised at
the hand of his own counsel,' so that he the very core of the human person; thus,
might of his own accord seek his Creator it is the focus of self-determination and
and freely attain his full and blessed hence of basic moral responsibility.
perfection by cleaving to him." • It does not have as its object any
• Man is rational and therefore like God; particular action or set of actions, but
he is created with free will and is master rather its object is the entire self in its
over his acts. relationship to God.
• The exercise of fundamental freedom is
not an action in any normal sense of the
THE CONCEPT OF FUNDAMENTAL word. Something like an option or
FREEDOM preference is involved, but this
preference is more like a stance or
• The notion of “fundamental” or “basic” attitude than an act of choosing.
freedom and the significance of this
freedom are important for
understanding the reality of the moral FREEDOM AND RESPONSIBILITY
value of our human acts.
Freedom is the power, rooted in reason and
will, to act or not to act, to do this or that,
Josef Fuchs (1970) and so to perform deliberate actions on
one's own responsibility. By free will one
“Basic freedom, on the other hand denotes shapes one's own life.
a still more fundamental, deeper-rooted
freedom, not immediately accessible to
psychological investigation. This is the Human freedom is a force for growth and
freedom that enables us not only to decide maturity in truth and goodness; it attains
freely on particular acts and aims but also, its perfection when directed toward God,
by means of these, to determine ourselves our beatitude.
totally as persons and not merely in any
particular act of behavior.”
This is moral freedom in the highest Freedom makes man responsible for his
sense. acts to the extent that they are voluntary.
Progress in virtue, knowledge of the good,
and asepsis enhance the mastery of the will
• Another proponent of the view says that over its acts.
there is another dimension of freedom.
It is not the freedom of choice to do
particular thing or not a choice of Thus, the Lord asked Eve after the sin in
specific objects. It is rather the free the garden: "What is this that you have
determination of oneself with regard to done?" He asked Cain the same question.
the totality of existence and its direction. The prophet Nathan questioned David in
• It is a fundamental choice between love the same way after he committed adultery
and selfishness, between self and God, with the wife of Uriah and had him
our destiny. This is often called by murdered. An action can be indirectly
recent theologians as the fundamental voluntary when it results from negligence
option, an act of fundamental liberty. regarding something one should have
known or done: for example, an accident
arising from ignorance of traffic laws.
HUMAN FREEDOM IN THE ECONOMY OF truth in reference to the supreme Good to
SALVATION which the human person is drawn, and it
welcomes the commandments. When he
1. Freedom and sin.
listens to his conscience, the prudent man
• Man's freedom is limited and fallible.
can hear God speaking.
In fact, man failed. He freely sinned.
By refusing God's plan of love, he
deceived himself and became a slave
Conscience is a judgment of reason
to sin.
whereby the human person recognizes the
2. Threats to freedom.
moral quality of a concrete act that he is
• The exercise of freedom does not
going to perform, is in the process of
imply a right to say or do everything.
performing, or has already completed. In all
It is false to maintain that man, "the
he says and does, man is obliged to follow
subject of this freedom," is "an
faithfully what he knows to be just and
individual who is fully self-sufficient
right. It is by the judgment of his
and whose finality is the satisfaction
conscience that man perceives and
of his own interests in the enjoyment
recognizes the prescriptions of the divine
of earthly goods.
law.
3. Liberation and salvation.
• By his glorious Cross Christ has won
salvation for all men. He redeemed
The dignity of the human person implies
them from the sin that held them in
and requires uprightness of moral
bondage. "For freedom Christ has set
conscience. Conscience includes the
us free." In him we have communion
perception of the principles of morality
with the "truth that makes us free."
(synderesis); their application in the given
circumstances by practical discernment of
reasons and goods; and finally, judgment
4. Freedom and grace. about concrete acts yet to be performed or
• The grace of Christ is not in the already performed.
slightest way a rival of our freedom
when this freedom accords with the
sense of the true and the good that THE FORMATION OF CONSCIENCE
God has put in the human heart.
• By the working of grace, the Holy Conscience must be informed and moral
Spirit educates us in spiritual judgment enlightened. A well-formed
freedom in order to make us free conscience is upright and truthful. It
collaborators in his work in the formulates its judgments according to
Church and in the world. reason, in conformity with the true good
willed by the wisdom of the Creator.

MORAL CONSCIENCE
The education of conscience is
Deep within his conscience man discovers indispensable for human beings who are
a law which he has not laid upon himself subjected to negative influences and
but which he must obey. Its voice, ever tempted by sin to prefer their own
calling him to love and to do what is good judgment and to reject authoritative
and to avoid evil, sounds in his heart at the teachings.
right moment.... For man has in his heart
a law inscribed by God.... His conscience is
man's most secret core and his sanctuary. TO CHOOSE IN ACCORD WITH
There he is alone with God whose voice CONSCIENCE
echoes in his depths."
• Man is sometimes confronted by
situations that make moral judgments
THE JUDGMENT OF CONSCIENCE less assured and decision difficult. But
he must always seriously seek what is
Moral conscience, present at the heart of right and good and discern the will of
the person, enjoins him at the appropriate God expressed in divine law.
moment to do good and to avoid evil. It also
judges particular choices, approving those • To this purpose, man strives to interpret
that are good and denouncing those that the data of experience and the signs of
are evil. It bears witness to the authority of the times assisted by the virtue of
 prudence, by the advice of competent colonial ideologies, and other forms of
people, and by the help of the Holy Spirit moral exclusion that rationalize
and his gifts. aggression, domination, inequity, and
oppression.

Some rules apply in every case:

Human violence includes but is not limited
- One may never do evil so that good may
to:
result from it;
- the Golden Rule: "Whatever you wish • SCATCHING, PUSHING, SHOVING,
that men would do to you, do so to GRABBING, BITING, CHOKING,
them." SHAKING, SLAPPING, PUNCHING,
- charity always proceeds by way of HITTING, BURNING, USE OF A
respect for one's neighbor and his WEAPON, AND USE OF RESTRAINT OR
conscience: "Thus sinning against your ONE’S BODY AGAINST ANOTHER
brethren and wounding their conscience PERSON.
. . . you sin against Christ." Therefore "it
is right not to . . . do anything that
makes your brother stumble." Consequences includes:
• INCREASED INCIDENCES OF
MORAL ISSUES & CHRISTIAN DEPRESSION, ANXIETY,
MORALITY RESPONSES POSTTRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER
(PTSD) AND SUICIDE; INCREASED
RISK OF CARDIOVASCULAR DISEASE;
VIOLENCE AGAINTS HUMAN BEINGS AND PREMATURE MORTALITY.

A. VIOLENCE B. ABORTION
• often understood as the use of threat or • Donum Vitae (The Gift of Life) the
force that can result in injury, harm, congregation for the Doctrine of the faith
deprivation or even death. It may be affirmed that, “The human being is to be
physical, verbal or psychological. respected and treated as a person from
the moment of conception, and therefore
from the same moment his rights as a
WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION (WHO) person must be recognized, among
define violence as “intentional use of force which in the first place is the inviable
or power, threatened or actual, against right of every innocent being.”
oneself, another person, or against a group
or community, that either results in or has
a high likelihood of resulting in injury, In catholic morality, abortion is either
death, psychological harm, direct or indirect;
maldevelopment or deprivation.”
• Direct abortion - is one that is intended
either as an end in itself or as a means
Forms of violence can be categorized in to an end.
many ways. One such classification • Indirect abortion- is the foreseen but
includes: merely permitted evacuation of a fetus
which cannot survive outside the womb.
1. DIRECT VIOLENCE – physical or
behavioral violence such as war,
bullying, domestic violence exclusion or THE DOUBLE EFFECT OF ABORTION
torture.
2. STRUCTURAL VIOLENCE – poverty and • The validity of the double effect doctrine
deprivation of basic resources and is examined in abortion. In this
access to rights; oppressive systems situation, killing is a method of
that enslave, intimidate, and abuse treatment.
dissenters as well as the poor’s life.
3. CULTURAL VIOLENCE – the devaluing
and destruction of particular human
identities and ways of life, the violence
of sexism, ethnocentrism, racism and
ABORTION IN THE PHILIPPINES Human beings are valuable because
they are made in God’s image: Human
• Abortion rights activists in the US met
life possess an intrinsic dignity and
the Supreme Court’s decision with
value because it is created by God in his
outrage. But for those grounded in
own image for the distinctive destiny of
conservative Catholic beliefs or
sharing in God’s own life. Saying that
evangelical principles, the end of Roe
God created humankind in his own
wasn’t just a political victory – it was a
image doesn’t mean that people actually
spiritual one.
look like God, but that people have a
• The catholic Church of the Philippines is unique capacity for rational existence
strongly opposed to the legislation of that enables them to see what is good
abortion in the country, stressing the and to want what is good.
importance of respecting and protecting
human life firm conception.
Life is a gift from God: All life given is
God-given, birth and death are part of
C. EUTHANASIA life the life processes which God has
• Is the practice of ending the life of a created, so we should respect them.
patient to limit the patient’s suffering. Therefore, no human being has the
• The words euthanasia itself comes from authority to take the life of any innocent
the Greek words “eu” (good) and person wants to die.
“Thanatos” (death)

The process of dying is spiritually

Types of Euthanasia important, and should not be disrupted
1. ACTIVE EUTHANASIA: killing a patient – churches believed that the period
by active means, for example, injecting before death is profoundly spiritual
a patient with a lethal dose of a drug. time.
Sometimes called “aggressive” All human lives are equally valuable –
euthanasia patients in a persistent vegetative state,
2. PASSIVE EUTHANSIA: intentionally although seriously damaged, remain
letting a patient die by withholding living human beings and so their
artificial life support such as ventilator intrinsic value remains the same as
or feeding tube. everyone else’s.
Exception and omissions -
PHYSICIAN ASSISTED SUICIDE: The End of life care –
phrase “physician- assisted suicide”
refers to active, voluntary, assisted
euthanasia where a physician assists D. EXTRAJUDICIAL KILLING
the patient. A physician provides the • Is the killing of a person by
patient with means, such as sufficient governmental authorities without the
medication, for the patient to kill sanction of any judicial proceeding or
him/her self. any legal process.

• To commit euthanasia is to act with War on drugs is a denial of the right to life
the specific intention that somebody since the election of former Rodrigo Duterte
should be nobody. This is the on June 2016, a violent ‘war on drugs’ was
fundamental error of all immorality claimed upwards of 5,000 lives in the
in human relations. To commit Philippines. Executions by police and
euthanasia is to fail to see the militia groups and target drug dealers and
intrinsic worth or dignity of the users not only exacerbate the drug problem
person. but constitute a violation of the right to
• Human beings are made in the image freedom from execution by extrajudicial
and likeness of God and are therefore killing.
of intrinsic worth or value, beyond all
prices.
Duterte was already very clear about his
intention to eliminate crime by eliminating
criminals. Duterte’s outspoken vow to DOUBLE EFFECT OF HOMOSEXUALITY
embark on a nationwide killing campaign
against drug dealer and drug users was the
foundation of his presidential electoral
platform.

PHILIPPINES: Bishops denounce

extrajudicial killings.
• President Duterte encouraged citizens
who knew any drug addicts to “go ahead
and kill them yourself as getting their
parents to do it would be too painful.”
Individual Catholic bishops had spoken
out against the killings and suffering
inflicted on the families of the dead.
• Catholic Bishops Conference of the
Philippines has unequivocally
denounced President Duterte’s war on
drugs for creating a “reign of terror”
among the poor.

E. HOMOSEXUALITY
• The word homosexual is a Greek and
Latin hybrid, with the first element
derived from Greek ὁμός homos, means
"same" or connoting sexual acts and
affections between members of the same
sex, including lesbianism.
• Homosexuality is romantic attraction,
sexual attraction, or sexual behavior
between members of the same sex or
gender. As a sexual orientation,
homosexuality is "an enduring pattern
of emotional, romantic, and/or sexual
attractions" to people of the same sex. It
"also refers to a person's sense of
identity based on those attractions,
related behaviors, and membership in a
community of others who share those
attractions.

HOMOSEXUALITY IN THE PHILIPPINES

• Although legislation supporting same-

sex marriage in the Philippines has been
proposed several times in the Philippine
legislature, none has been passed. The
Philippine Commission on Elections
(COMELEC) disqualified the Filipino
LGBT political party Ladlad from
fronting a candidate in the 2007 general
election, concluding that the party did
not have a nationwide membership.