An Investigation into the Sensus Fidelium in Matters of Morality

The dissertation starts from the twofold insight that firstly, on a practical level, the ignorance of the sensus fidelium by the magisterium of the Roman Catholic Church has produced a harmful discrepancy between its moral teaching and the moral perception and behaviour of a large portion of its faithful especially in the field sexual and conjugal ethics and, secondly, that church documents and scholarly theology have conceived of the sensus fidelium as pertaining to matters of dogma and doctrine predominantly but underrated its significance also for moral understanding. This research intends to retrieve the significance of sensus fidei fidelium for moral teaching and moral theology by looking both into the traditional dogmatic concept and its inclusiveness with regard to issues of morality and recent fundamental moral approaches urging that greater attention is paid to the role of experience and conscience in the development of moral teaching.