By Richard A. Spinello, Crisis Magazine - Cardinal Cupich’s reflections on conscience, however, raise far more questions than they answer. Foremost among them is whether or not Gaudium et Spes really represents such a radical reformulation of the Church’s conception of conscience rooted in the works of theologians like St. Thomas Aquinas. Conscience has always been regarded as an opening to the moral truth, including those true and fixed norms which allow for no exceptions.