The human conscience is always at the service of truth and virtue, but it must be properly formed in order to function properly. We believe that because we are made in God’s image we have within our very nature a fundamental understanding of right and wrong. To us as human persons, this “law of the heart,” as it is sometimes called, requires a responsibility beyond laws enacted by governments.

We have seen an example of this very recently. One hundred Philadelphia police recruits were taken on a tour of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. The leadership of the Philadelphia Police Department wanted these recruits to see examples of cases in which the police in Nazi Germany carried out policies which were legal in that country at that time but immoral and unjustified in the eyes of civilized human persons, whose consciences told them that this was evil.

The conviction of Nazi war criminals after the Second World War was not based on the fact that what they did was illegal but that it was a crime against humanity, which can be recognized by any person of good will. Consequently, these leaders were held responsible for their actions, which had been legal but grossly evil and immoral.