Victory over the "prince of this world" 169 was won once for all at the Hour when Jesus freely gave himself up to death to give us his life. This is the Judgment of this world, and the prince of this world is "cast out." 170 "He pursued the woman" 171 but had no hold on her: the new Eve, "full of grace" of the Holy Spirit, is preserved from Sin and the corruption of death (the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption of the Most Holy Mother of God, Mary, ever virgin). "Then the dragon was angry with the woman, and went off to make war on the rest of her offspring." 172 Therefore the Spirit and the Church pray: "Come, Lord Jesus," 173 since his coming will deliver us from the Evil One.

Following St. Paul, 83 The tradition of the Church has understood Jesus' words as not excluding oaths made for grave and right Reasons (for example, in court). "An oath, that is the invocation of the divine name as a witness to Truth, cannot be taken unless in truth, in Judgment, and in Justice." 84

Agnosticism assumes a number of forms. In certain cases the agnostic refrains from denying God; instead he postulates the existence of a transcendent being which is incapable of revealing itself, and about which nothing can be said. In other cases, the agnostic makes no Judgment about God's existence, declaring it impossible to prove, or even to affirm or deny.

Ministries should be exercised in a spirit of fraternal service and dedication to the Church, in the name of the Lord. 81 At the same time the Conscience of each person should avoid confining itself to individualistic considerations in its moral Judgments of the person's own acts. As far as possible Conscience should take account of the good of all, as expressed in the moral law, natural and revealed, and consequently in the law of the Church and in the authoritative teaching of the Magisterium on moral questions. Personal conscience and Reason should not be set in opposition to the moral law or the Magisterium of the Church.

The law of God entrusted to the Church is taught to the faithful as the way of life and Truth. the faithful therefore have the right to be instructed in the divine saving precepts that purify Judgment and, with grace, heal wounded human Reason. 79 They have the duty of observing the constitutions and decrees conveyed by the legitimate authority of the Church. Even if they concern disciplinary matters, these determinations call for docility in charity.

The Church, the "pillar and bulwark of the Truth," "has received this solemn command of Christ from the apostles to announce the saving truth." 74 "To the Church belongs the right always and everywhere to announce moral principles, including those pertaining to the social order, and to make Judgments on any human affairs to the extent that they are required by the fundamental rights of the human person or the salvation of souls." 75

The authority required by the moral order derives from God: "Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore he who resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur Judgment." 17

Sin creates a proclivity to sin; it engenders vice by repetition of the same acts. This results in perverse inclinations which cloud Conscience and corrupt the concrete Judgment of good and Evil. Thus sin tends to reproduce itself and reinforce itself, but it cannot destroy the moral sense at its root.

Mortal Sin is a radical possibility of human freedom, as is love itself. It results in the loss of charity and the privation of sanctifying grace, that is, of the state of grace. If it is not redeemed by repentance and God's forgiveness, it causes exclusion from Christ's kingdom and the eternal death of hell, for our freedom has the power to make choices for ever, with no turning back. However, although we can judge that an act is in itself a grave offense, we must entrust Judgment of persons to the Justice and mercy of God.

Prudence is the virtue that disposes practical Reason to discern our true good in every circumstance and to choose the right means of achieving it; "the prudent man looks where he is going." 65 "Keep sane and sober for your prayers." 66 Prudence is "right reason in action," writes St. Thomas Aquinas, following Aristotle. 67 It is not to be confused with timidity or fear, nor with duplicity or dissimulation. It is called auriga virtutum (the charioteer of the virtues); it guides the other virtues by setting rule and measure. It is prudence that immediately guides the Judgment of Conscience. the prudent man determines and directs his conduct in accordance with this judgment. With the help of this virtue we apply moral principles to particular cases without error and overcome doubts about the good to achieve and the Evil to avoid.

Parents have the first responsibility for the education of their children. They bear witness to this responsibility first by creating a home where tenderness, forgiveness, respect, fidelity, and diSinterested service are the rule. the home is well suited for education in the virtues. This requires an apprenticeship in self-denial, sound Judgment, and self-mastery - the preconditions of all true freedom. Parents should teach their children to subordinate the "material and instinctual dimensions to interior and spiritual ones." 31 Parents have a grave responsibility to give good example to their children. By knowing how to acknowledge their own failings to their children, parents will be better able to guide and correct them:

Every institution is inspired, at least implicitly, by a vision of man and his destiny, from which it derives the point of reference for its Judgment, its hierarchy of values, its line of conduct. Most societies have formed their institutions in the recognition of a certain preeminence of man over things. Only the divinely revealed religion has clearly recognized man's origin and destiny in God, the Creator and Redeemer. the Church invites political authorities to measure their judgments and decisions against this inspired Truth about God and man:

But the presence of those who hunger because they lack bread opens up another profound meaning of this petition. the drama of hunger in the world calls Christians who pray Sincerely to exercise responsibility toward their brethren, both in their personal behavior and in their solidarity with the human family. This petition of the Lord's Prayer cannot be isolated from the parables of the poor man Lazarus and of the Last Judgment. 118

Moral Judgment must condemn the plague of totalitarian states which systematically falsify the Truth, exercise political control of opinion through the media, manipulate defendants and witnesses at public trials, and imagine that they secure their tyranny by strangling and represSing everything they consider "thought crimes."

By the very nature of their profession, journalists have an obligation to serve the Truth and not offend against charity in disseminating information. They should strive to respect, with equal care, the nature of the facts and the limits of critical Judgment concerning individuals. They should not stoop to defamation.

Since it violates the virtue of Truthfulness, a lie does real violence to another. It affects his ability to know, which is a condition of every Judgment and decision. It contains the seed of discord and all consequent Evils. Lying is destructive of society; it undermines trust among men and tears apart the fabric of social relationships.

To avoid rash Judgment, everyone should be careful to interpret insofar as possible his neighbor's thoughts, words, and deeds in a favorable way:

Respect for the reputation of persons forbids every attitude and word likely to cause them unjust injury. 277 He becomes guilty: - of rash Judgment who, even tacitly, assumes as true, without sufficient foundation, the moral fault of a neighbor; - of detraction who, without objectively valid Reason, discloses another's faults and failings to persons who did not know them; 278 - of calumny who, by remarks Contrary to the Truth, harms the reputation of others and gives occasion for false judgments concerning them.

The Church's social teaching proposes principles for reflection; it provides criteria for Judgment; it gives guidelines for action:

The Church makes a moral Judgment about economic and social matters, "when the fundamental rights of the person or the salvation of souls requires it." 199 In the moral order she bears a mission distinct from that of political authorities: the Church is concerned with the temporal aspects of the common good because they are ordered to the sovereign Good, our ultimate end. She strives to inspire right attitudes with respect to earthly goods and in socio-economic relationships.

By masturbation is to be understood the deliberate stimulation of the genital organs in order to derive sexual pleasure. "Both the Magisterium of the Church, in the course of a constant tradition, and the moral sense of the faithful have been in no doubt and have firmly maintained that masturbation is an intrinsically and gravely disordered action." 137 "The deliberate use of the sexual faculty, for whatever Reason, outside of marriage is essentially Contrary to its purpose." For here sexual pleasure is sought outside of "the sexual relationship which is demanded by the moral order and in which the total meaning of mutual self-giving and human procreation in the context of true love is achieved." 138 To form an equitable Judgment about the subjects' moral responsibility and to guide pastoral action, one must take into account the affective immaturity, force of acquired habit, conditions of anxiety, or other psychological or social factors that lessen or even extenuate moral culpability.

By recalling the commandment, "You shall not kill," 93 our Lord asked for peace of heart and denounced murderous anger and hatred as immoral. Anger is a desire for revenge. "To desire vengeance in order to do Evil to someone who should be punished is illicit," but it is praiseworthy to impose restitution "to correct vices and maintain Justice." 94 If anger reaches the point of a deliberate desire to kill or seriously wound a neighbor, it is gravely against charity; it is a mortal Sin. the Lord says, "Everyone who is angry with his brother shall be liable to Judgment." 95

It is a part of the Church's mission "to pass moral Judgments even in matters related to politics, whenever the fundamental rights of man or the salvation of souls requires it. the means, the only means, she may use are those which are in accord with the Gospel and the welfare of all men according to the diversity of times and circumstances." 53

If - on the Contrary - the ignorance is invincible, or the moral subject is not responsible for his erroneous Judgment, the Evil committed by the person cannot be imputed to him. It remains no less an evil, a privation, a disorder. One must therefore work to correct the errors of moral Conscience.

At the end of time, the Kingdom of God will come in its fullness. After the universal Judgment, the righteous will reign for ever with Christ, glorified in body and soul. the universe itself will be renewed:

The message of the Last Judgment calls men to conversion while God is still giving them "the acceptable time, . . . the day of salvation." 627 It inspires a holy fear of God and commits them to the Justice of the Kingdom of God. It proclaims the "blessed hope" of the Lord's return, when he will come "to be glorified in his saints, and to be marvelled at in all who have believed." 628

The Last Judgment will come when Christ returns in glory. Only the Father knows the day and the hour; only he determines the moment of its coming. Then through his Son Jesus Christ he will pronounce the final word on all history. We shall know the ultimate meaning of the whole work of creation and of the entire economy of salvation and understand the marvellous ways by which his Providence led everything towards its final end. the Last Judgment will reveal that God's Justice triumphs over all the injustices committed by his creatures and that God's love is stronger than death. 626

In the presence of Christ, who is Truth itself, the truth of each man's relationship with God will be laid bare. 624 The Last Judgment will reveal even to its furthest consequences the good each person has done or failed to do during his earthly life:

The resurrection of all the dead, "of both the just and the unjust," 621 will precede the Last Judgment. This will be "the hour when all who are in the tombs will hear [the Son of man's] voice and come forth, those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done Evil, to the resurrection of judgment." 622 Then Christ will come "in his glory, and all the angels with him .... Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate them one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and he will place the sheep at his right hand, but the goats at the left.... and they will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life." 623

Each man receives his eternal retribution in his immortal soul at the very moment of his death, in a particular Judgment that refers his life to Christ: either entrance into the blessedness of heaven-through a purification 592 or immediately, 593 -or immediate and everLasting damnation. 594

Death puts an end to human life as the time open to either accepting or rejecting the divine grace manifested in Christ. 590 The New Testament speaks of Judgment primarily in its aspect of the final encounter with Christ in his second coming, but also repeatedly affirms that each will be rewarded immediately after death in accordance with his works and faith. the parable of the poor man Lazarus and the words of Christ on the cross to the good thief, as well as other New Testament texts speak of a final destiny of the soul -a destiny which can be different for some and for others. 591

Who will rise? All the dead will rise, "those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done Evil, to the resurrection of Judgment." 550

Only when the hour has arrived for his glorification does Jesus promise the coming of the Holy Spirit, Since his Death and Resurrection will fulfill the promise made to the fathers. 116 The Spirit of Truth, the other Paraclete, will be given by the Father in answer to Jesus' prayer; he will be sent by the Father in Jesus' name; and Jesus will send him from the Father's side, since he comes from the Father. the Holy Spirit will come and we shall know him; he will be with us for ever; he will remain with us. the Spirit will teach us everything, remind us of all that Christ said to us and bear witness to him. the Holy Spirit will lead us into all truth and will glorify Christ. He will prove the world wrong about sin, righteousness, and Judgment.

To respond to this invitation we must prepare ourselves for so great and so holy a moment. St. Paul urges us to examine our Conscience: "Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord. Let a man examine himself, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For any one who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks Judgment upon himself." 216 Anyone conscious of a grave Sin must receive the sacrament of Reconciliation before coming to communion.

When, in the Ordinary's Judgment, a grave necessity arises, Catholic ministers may give the sacraments of Eucharist, Penance, and Anointing of the Sick to other Christians not in full communion with the Catholic Church, who ask for them of their own will, provided they give evidence of holding the Catholic faith regarding these sacraments and possess the required dispositions. 238

When he celebrates the sacrament of Penance, the priest is fulfilling the ministry of the Good Shepherd who seeks the lost sheep, of the Good Samaritan who binds up wounds, of the Father who awaits the prodigal son and welcomes him on his return, and of the just and impartial judge whose Judgment is both just and merciful. the priest is the sign and the instrument of God's merciful love for the Sinner.

Ignorance of Christ and his Gospel, bad example given by others, enslavement to one's passions, assertion of a mistaken notion of autonomy of Conscience, rejection of the Church's authority and her teaching, lack of conversion and of charity: these can be at the source of errors of Judgment in moral conduct.

A human being must always obey the certain Judgment of his Conscience. If he were deliberately to act against it, he would condemn himself. Yet it can happen that moral Conscience remains in ignorance and makes erroneous judgments about acts to be performed or already committed.

Man is sometimes confronted by situations that make moral Judgments less assured and decision difficult. But he must always seriously seek what is right and good and discern the will of God expressed in divine law.

Faced with a moral choice, Conscience can make either a right Judgment in accordance with Reason and the divine law or, on the Contrary, an erroneous judgment that departs from them.

Conscience must be informed and moral Judgment enlightened. A well-formed Conscience is upright and Truthful. It formulates its judgments according to Reason, in conformity with the true good willed by the wisdom of the Creator. the education of conscience is indispensable for human beings who are subjected to negative influences and tempted by Sin to prefer their own judgment and to reject authoritative teachings.

Conscience enables one to assume responsibility for the acts performed. If man commits Evil, the just Judgment of Conscience can remain within him as the witness to the universal Truth of the good, at the same time as the evil of his particular choice. the verdict of the judgment of conscience remains a pledge of hope and mercy. In attesting to the fault committed, it calls to mind the forgiveness that must be asked, the good that must still be practiced, and the virtue that must be constantly cultivated with the grace of God:

The dignity of the human person implies and requires uprightness of moral Conscience. Conscience includes the perception of the principles of morality (synderesis); their application in the given circumstances by practical discernment of Reasons and goods; and finally Judgment about concrete acts yet to be performed or already performed. the Truth about the moral good, stated in the law of reason, is recognized practically and concretely by the prudent judgment of conscience. We call that man prudent who chooses in conformity with this judgment.

Conscience is a Judgment of Reason whereby the human person recognizes the moral quality of a concrete act that he is going to perform, is in the process of performing, or has already completed. In all he says and does, man is obliged to follow faithfully what he knows to be just and right. It is by the judgment of his Conscience that man perceives and recognizes the prescriptions of the divine law:

Freedom makes man a moral subject. When he acts deliberately, man is, so to speak, the father of his acts. Human acts, that is, acts that are freely chosen in consequence of a Judgment of Conscience, can be morally evaluated. They are either good or Evil.

Pastoral discernment is needed to sustain and support popular piety and, if necessary, to purify and correct the religious sense which underlies these devotions so that the faithful may advance in knowledge of the mystery of Christ. 180 Their exercise is subject to the care and Judgment of the bishops and to the general norms of the Church.

In this sacrament, the Sinner, placing himself before the merciful Judgment of God, anticipates in a certain way the judgment to which he will be subjected at the end of his earthly life. For it is now, in this life, that we are offered the choice between life and death, and it is only by the road of conversion that we can enter the Kingdom, from which one is excluded by grave sin. 79 In converting to Christ through penance and faith, the sinner passes from death to life and "does not come into judgment." 80

"By this appreciation of the faith, aroused and sustained by the Spirit of Truth, the People of God, guided by the sacred teaching authority (Magisterium),. . . receives. . . the faith, once for all delivered to the saints. . . the People unfailingly adheres to this faith, penetrates it more deeply with right Judgment, and applies it more fully in daily life." 56

Christ is Lord of eternal life. Full right to pass definitive judgement on the works and hearts of men belongs to him as redeemer of the world. He "acquired" this right by his cross. the Father has given "all judgement to the Son". 586 Yet the Son did not come to judge, but to save and to give the life he has in himself. 587 By rejecting grace in this life, one already judges oneself, receives according to one's works, and can even condemn oneself for all eternity by rejecting the Spirit of love. 588

Following in the steps of the prophets and John the Baptist, Jesus announced the judgement of the Last Day in his preaching. 581 Then will the conduct of each one and the secrets of hearts be brought to light. 582 Then will the culpable unbelief that counted the offer of God's grace as nothing be condemned. 583 Our attitude to our neighbour will disclose acceptance or refusal of grace and divine love. 584 On the Last Day Jesus will say: "Truly I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me." 585

The Church will enter the glory of the kingdom only through this final Passover, when she will follow her Lord in his death and Resurrection. 578 The kingdom will be fulfilled, then, not by a historic triumph of the Church through a progressive ascendancy, but only by God's victory over the final unleashing of Evil, which will cause his Bride to come down from heaven. 579 God's triumph over the revolt of evil will take the form of the Last Judgement after the final cosmic upheaval of this pasSing world. 580