Spirituality: Fr. Joseph Ratzinger

Here is a quote from Fr. Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope, when he was a peritus, or expert, at Vatican II:

"Over the Pope as expression of the binding claim of ecclesiastical authority, there stands one's own conscience, which must be obeyed before all else, even if necessary against the requirement of ecclesiastical authority. This emphasis on the individual, whose conscience confronts him [or her] with a supreme and ultimate tribunal, and one which in the last resort is beyond the claim of external social groups, even the official church, also establishes a principle in opposition to increasing totalitarianism."