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For anyone who thinks a Pope should be an aloof figure, Pope Francis comes as a bit of a shock. Since he was elected exactly six months ago, he's taken to phoning and writing to all kinds of people. Most recently, an Italian journalist asked Pope Francis if God forgives those who don't believe. Sure, said the Pope, in his reply, so long as non-believers act morally and according to their consciences.
This reply seemed to amaze many people, including someone who rang me the other night, and said the people she worked with thought Catholics believed they alone could go to heaven.

Nearly 60 years ago, when my non-Catholic mother married my Catholic father, she resisted the intense pressure of the priest to convert to Catholicism, only for him to insist that she should have no music at her wedding and not wear a white dress. That frankly arrogant approach seems to be the one that many people think still exists. I'm glad to say that is not the Church I belong to today.

The clue to understanding Pope Francis's thinking is his point about conscience. But this is not new. Since the Sixties, the Church has developed its teaching on the point of conscience, with one key document saying that "conscience is the most secret core and sanctuary of man. There he is alone with God, whose voice echoes in its depths".

Following your conscience can have risks:
it is all too easy to kid yourself that what is right is what your ego wants. What Catholics understand today by conscience is akin to the biblical notion of the heart, the centre of reason, and what St Paul saw as a fundamental awareness of the difference between good and evil.
One reason why the Catholic Church is so keen on conscience is that it believes discerning what is good will lead people to accept what is true. Eventually, it believes, they will come to discover the very things that the Church itself teaches are true...

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