IIC 180: Right and Wrong: Conscience and Catholic Parts Work

[00:00:00] Dr. Peter: As serious Catholics, we need to commit to what is good, right, true, and beautiful. And in order to live out that commitment, we need to know what is good, right, true, and beautiful. But how do we know? We know through many sources: scripture, tradition, the teaching magistarium of the church, natural law, the development of virtue, coming into close relationship with God, even through our own personal experiences. In our decisions of today, right here, right now, all these sources come together to inform our conscience. Conscience. Morality. The judgment of right and wrong. That’s what we’re discussing today. These are major themes in the lives of Catholics. And I get so many questions from listeners, from viewers, so many questions that in one way or another, address how parts work in general or Internal Family Systems in particular, how that helps us or hinders us from differentiating right from wrong.

[00:01:18] Dr. Peter: And I get it. Serious devout Catholics, you wrestle with questions of conscience. You wrestle with questions of morality, you wrestle with questions of right and wrong. As Pope John Paul II in Veritatis Splendor, paragraph 63 says, and he quotes Vatican II, “Conscience as the judgment of an act is not exempt from the possibility of error. As the Council puts it, ‘Not infrequently, conscience can be mistaken as a result of invincible ignorance, although it does not on that account forfeit its dignity. But this cannot be said when a man shows little concern for seeking what is true and good, and conscience gradually becomes almost blind from being accustomed to sin.'” So conscience can be erroneous. And not only can conscience err, but it can become almost blind. And we know that by experience, the experience of others, maybe in our past by our own personal experience.

[00:02:27] Dr. Peter: And our parts each have different takes on our conscience, especially if they are not well integrated with our innermost self. The stakes are high. The stakes are high for the next life, and I’ve got some really blunt quotes from some really blunt guys. St. Jerome in Letter 124 says, “Hellfire, moreover, and the torments with which holy Scripture threatens sinners he explains not as external punishments but as the pangs of guilty consciences when by God’s power the memory of our transgressions is set before our eyes.” And so now bringing it from the fourth century in St. Jerome, all the way up to the 20th century to the modern times, we have Martin Luther King, Jr. He says, “On some positions, cowardice asks the question, is it safe? Expediency asks the question, is it politic? And vanity comes along and asks the question, is it popular? But conscience asks the question, is it right? The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of convenience, but where he stands in moments of challenge, moments of great crisis and controversy.” 

[00:03:55] Dr. Peter: And what happens to those who fail in those moments of challenge, who falter in those moments of great crisis and controversy and do not repent? Dante tells us. Dante says the hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in times of great moral crisis maintain their neutrality. But it’s not just about the afterlife. It’s not just about heaven and hell. It’s also about this present life on earth, our present life on earth. And Robert South says, “Guilt upon the conscience, like rust upon iron, both defiles and consumes it, gnawing and creeping into it as that does, which at last eats out the very heart and substance of the metal.” And John Calvin said, “The torture of a bad conscience is the hell of a living soul.” And it’s often said that there’s a heaven on earth. Sometimes we hear that in songs. We can see it in the lives of the Saints, how they experienced a taste of heaven in union with God in Beatific Vision. And I believe, from decades of experience in accompanying others, that people can experience hell on Earth as well. So I think John Calvin is onto something here.

[00:05:24] Dr. Peter: All right, so we opened a discussion of conscience in episode 175 of the Interior Integration for Catholics podcast with Dr. Gerry Crete. That was so great, but there is so much more to discuss in our episode today. And that includes questions like, can we say “A part of me made me do it?” Hmm. What is the relationship between your innermost self and your conscience? We address how emotions can actually help our consciences, or they might not. We’ll get into how your innermost self needs your parts for a right ordered conscience. Innermost self can’t do it on his own or her own. We get into how your innermost self does not have localized omniscience. And we address the question, can parts do anything on their own? We explore whether or not parts can be out of touch with a virtue that you possess, just not able to access that virtue within you. And then we get into, can your concupiscence be outside the parts, or is concupiscence always located within your parts?

[00:06:52] Dr. Peter: All right, we’re gonna get into definitions too. And let’s start with some definitions of conscience to help orient us. Father John Hardon in the Catholic Dictionary, he defines conscience as, “The judgments of the practical intellect deciding, from general principles of faith and reason, the goodness or badness of a way of acting that a person now faces. Conscience, therefore, is a specific act of the mind applying its knowledge to a concrete moral situation. What the mind decides in a given case depends on principles already in the mind.” And the Vatican II document, Gaudium et Spes, in paragraph 16, reads, “Deep within his conscience, man discovers a law which he has not laid upon himself, but which he must obey. Its voice, ever calling him to love and to do what is good and to avoid evil, tells him inwardly at the right moment, do this, shun that. For man has in his heart a law inscribed by God. His dignity lies in observing this law, and by it he will be judged. His conscience is man’s most secret core, his sanctuary. There he is alone with God, whose voice echoes in his depths. By conscience, in a wonderful way, that law is made known, which is fulfilled in the love of God and of one’s neighbor.”

[00:08:38] Dr. Peter: Now, here’s the kicker. It comes from the Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 1779, and that really is important for our discussion today. That paragraph reads as follows, “It is important for every person to be sufficiently present to himself in order to hear and follow the voice of his conscience. This requirement of interiority is all the more necessary as life often distracts us from any reflection, self-examination, or introspection.” And then the Catechism of the Catholic Church quotes St. Augustine, “Return to your conscience. Question it. Turn inward, brethren, and in everything you do, see God as your witness.” Whoa. Whoa. That’s what we are all about at Souls and Hearts. Interiority, self-reflection, understanding oneself through our parts. We are here in this episode to help your parts with your conscience in this critical area of morality and right and wrong. So let’s follow paragraph 1779 of our Catechism and get down to it. Let’s get down to understanding conscience through the lens of Catholic parts work, all grounded in a Catholic understanding of the human person.

[00:10:23] Dr. Peter: I am Dr. Peter Malinoski, also known as Dr. Peter. I am your host and guide in this Interior Integration for Catholics podcast. I’m so glad to be with you. I’m a clinical psychologist, a trauma therapist, a podcaster, writer, the co-founder and president of Souls and Hearts, but most of all, most of all, I’m a beloved little son of God, a passionate Catholic who wants to help you to taste and to see the height and depth and breadth and warmth and the light of the love of God, especially God your father, but also, yes, Mary your mother. These are your spiritual parents. These are your primary parents. I am here to help you embrace your identity as a beloved little child of God and Mary. And all of last year, all of 2025, and most of this year, 2026, we are doing a deep dive into Internal Family Systems, into parts work and Catholicism. We’re bringing the insights from IFS developed by Dr. Richard Schwartz. We’re bringing in insights from other parts and systems models. We are harmonizing all of these with the truths of the Catholic faith. And why? Why? To help you live out the three great loves in the two great commandments: to love God, to love your neighbor, to love yourself. That’s what this is all about. That is what Souls and Hearts is all about. And this is episode 180 of the Interior Integration for Catholics podcast. It releases on March 2nd, 2026, and it is titled Right and Wrong: Conscience and Catholic Parts Work.

[00:12:09] Dr. Peter: We are going to be rejoined by Dr. Andrea Messineo, by Father Thomas Berg. Now I did much longer introductions for both of our guests in the last episode. So I’m not gonna repeat all of that in this episode. I am so excited to be able to get the band back together. The band that came together in episode 179, the band is back together. We’re gonna be talking about all kinds of wonderful things with conscience, with concupiscence, with other kinds of moral issues that come up and in ways that are meant to be addressing the questions that your parts have, especially Catholic standard bearers, spiritual managers, and managers that are really concerned about morals and ethics and virtue and being on the right road. So we’re gonna be continuing that conversation. And again, it is so good to have you back with us, Father Thomas Berg, thank you for being here.

[00:13:15] Fr. Tom: It’s great to be. Man, your parts are getting my parts fired up, so.

[00:13:18] Dr. Peter: I love it. Got some resonances going on here. Super excited about like where this is gonna go. And in the role of co-host, it is so good to have you back with us. Dr. Andrea Messineo, it is lovely to have your presence among us. Thank you for being here.

[00:13:37] Andrea Messineo: Well, thank you so much, Dr. Peter, for having us back. I’m just delighted to be here with you and Father Tom.

[00:13:46] Dr. Peter: And so we have like assembled some of the most kind of common moral questions that have come up and I can’t think of two people I would rather be addressing these questions with than the two of you right now. And so these are like the real life questions that people struggle with when they’re considering, you know, IFS parts work. Catholic anthropology, sometimes folks, they get on YouTube or something and they type in IFS and they see something kind of woo-woo or weird, you know, folks using this in conjunction with Buddhism or other types of belief systems. And so the question comes up, can this really be Catholic? And, you know, we’ve been addressing that, you know, all of last year and into 2026 now. But we’re specifically zooming in on these common moral questions. And so to that end, I think we kind of just get started with this. Unless there’s just something you wanna lead off with, something that maybe didn’t get wrapped up in the last episode. Something that either of you might wanna bring up.

[00:14:49] Fr. Tom: I don’t think so, on my end. I don’t know, Andrea, if there’s something that you thought.

[00:14:56] Andrea Messineo: You know, I could always, you know, say a bit more about MacIntyre and Jensen, but think I will just kind of weave that in to the conversation as it unfolds, if that’s okay.

[00:15:09] Dr. Peter: That sounds great. 

[00:15:12] Fr. Tom: I hope some of the audience actually got interested in MacIntyre and I hope they don’t get discouraged if they pick up their volume of After Virtue and find it kind of like trying to read through concrete. You know, MacIntyre is awesome and I do encourage your audience to do that.

[00:15:28] Dr. Peter: Well, and there may be some that do, maybe most won’t. But for those of you that are of a bent to kinda look at these things really philosophically, I’d encourage it. You know, I’d encourage it.

[00:15:38] Fr. Tom: Absolutely. Yeah.

[00:15:40] Dr. Peter: So we are going to be talking about conscience, and in the intro I gave a couple of definitions of conscience. We might review those, but I’m just interested in this question, and I’m gonna point this at you, Fr. Tom, what are the relationships among one’s innermost self, one’s parts, and one’s conscience?

[00:16:07] Fr. Tom: That’s just a great question and as a good moral theologian, I’m just gonna remind your audience that my answers are provisional. P lease listen to my answers with a great deal of prudence. This is not dogma, this is certainly not Catholic dogma. No. This is just my, and thank you for the opportunity to share this. I mean, I’m thinking about this, you know, just like a lot of other people and we’re just kind of thinking through these things from a perspective of Catholic anthropology. But I would just start first with, you know, the question, so what is conscience? And just myself as kind of a follower of Thomas Aquinas. Let’s take a step back. I mean, historically there were kind of two different approaches to this. So many thinkers, even contemporaries of Aquinas and later, and I would even include in that John Henry Newman, at the risk of oversimplifying a bit, but kind of thought of conscience as a separate, kind of a separate faculty. So, along with the intellect and will, there’s this kind of other faculty, even if they didn’t use that term, but this other thing in us.

[00:17:14] Fr. Tom: St. Thomas is aware of that, but he doesn’t follow that. He doesn’t follow that. So for St. Thomas, like we don’t need to kind of multiply the faculty, so to speak. So he finds conscience to be a function, primarily the intellect, in what he would call practical reasoning. So we’ve got the intellect working in tandem with the will. We’re able to reason through kind of syllogistically in a sense. He talks about the practical syllogism, so it’s not like a literal syllogism, but we work practically from premises to judgments about what we ought to do. And he locates the judgment of conscience, kind of at that very specific level of, I ought to do X. So it’s primarily a judgment. And that just seems to make a lot of sense to me without having to kind of locate this in some other faculty. Now, again, a lot of other thinkers might do that. I think, in the end of the day, we do agree that, okay, wherever it comes from, we do have this kind of judgment about what we ought to do. And I would say that the self is capable, obviously, of grasping that judgment. And even if you were to think of this kind of as a faculty or as something rooted, perhaps if you wanted to use the language of the heart, it’s certainly in the depths of the self. And that’s I think where we kind of find this nice correlation with Gaudium et Spes 16.

[00:18:41] Dr. Peter: So I just wanna piggyback off of what you’re saying because I went to the Catholic Encyclopedia, the one that you know, was 1913 to 1918. And in that entry, following St. Thomas Aquinas, it reads, “The natural conscience is no distinct faculty, but the one intellect of a man inasmuch as it considers right and wrong in conduct, aided meanwhile by a goodwill, by the use of the emotions, by the practical experience of living, and by all external helps that are to the purpose.” And I like that definition because it brings in that it’s not just the dry, you know, intellectual process, that it brings in experience, it brings in emotion, it brings in, it sounds like, to this more of the fullness of the human person, that all of that can contribute to conscience.

[00:19:34] Fr. Tom: Yeah, absolutely. In fact, we wouldn’t be able to do anything about a judgment of conscience if we didn’t have the passions as Thomas calls ’em, or we didn’t have the emotions, right? All of us has to engage and then intellect and will engage and yeah. So it’s not literally this kind of matter, kind of dry matter, of a practical syllogism. But my sense is that you know, going back to the question, what’s the relationship among the innermost self, one’s parts, and conscience? I think that we get most clarity about a judgment of conscience when we’re in self. I certainly think that the parts can also come under the influence of a judgment of conscience, keeping in mind too, and this is where things start to get complicated, but conscience can err, right? Hence we need conscience formation. Now the fascinating part about Aquinas is that he really doesn’t spend a lot of time talking about conscience as a lot of the later manualists will, you know, in the 17th and 18th century. He’s actually much more interested in prudence, and he really thinks that ultimately what’s kind of getting in the driver’s seat or should be informing whoever’s in the driver’s seat should be informed by the virtue of prudence. 

[00:20:50] Fr. Tom: So that you know, such that the more that conscience judgment formation is informed by prudence, prudence that accrues over time and gets fuller and better and has this much broader perspective on the whole. Judgments of conscience will tend to be more and more in accord with the truth of things. So he’s much more interested actually in the role of prudence, which then yeah, our parts can also come under the influence of prudence. So I just think the capacity to grasp clearly and act freely on judgments of conscience is often, we can get into this later, but it’s often also greatly hampered by these conscience-like parts that, you know, you’ve talked about, you know, the Catholic standard bearer, the internal critic, the Catholic referee or whatever we want to call them. So I think we just need a lot of clarity and habitation to getting the judgment of conscience. And obviously persons whose lives are burdened by a great deal of vice and disorder, what can also happen is that we really lose, kind of lose contact with the real McCoy, with the genuine judgment of conscience. It can get tangled up and buried. And so it takes work, but I think that, for better or for worse, our parts can also kind of come under the influence, if you will. I don’t know if that resonates with you guys.

[00:22:19] Andrea Messineo: Yeah. And I’m fascinated to hear where this goes. I just wanna interject that I love how both of you are bringing in the role of emotion of parts, contributing to the judgment of conscience. Because yes, I agree. It’s not a matter of just making a dry syllogism. In fact, the affections, the tendencies of parts, when they’re under self leadership, can help point us in the direction of good and give us impetus. And speaking of the virtue of prudence, you know, the first step, as I understand, of exercising prudence is taking counsel, right? We check and see, what are the possible implications of my action? What are the different factors? What could follow from it? And yeah, to think of our parts, you know, and self as around a council table and each one having input.

[00:23:16] Fr. Tom: I’m thinking that step can make a lot of, I know it makes a lot of my manager parts really happy. Like, hey, can we ask some other people about this? Can we get some input? You know, but seriously, I think that can assuage anxious parts. You know, in the better part of prudence, as you say, rightly, Andrea, it’s to take that step seriously and take counsel, right? 

[00:23:36] Dr. Peter: And I think there’s a little bit of a caveat to that though. I agree with that, but I also think that if there’s not enough interior integration, man, sometimes those spiritual managers are terrified of having these parts at the table and having a say or being connected with at all, because they can see these parts with the burdens that they carry, or with the extreme impulses and desires that they might bring with them, leading the person astray. You know, at the same time, I was really, really excited to hear what you were bringing up, you know, Andrea, because I think there can be this assumption by people who are just coming into contact with IFS or have been around IFS for a while to believe that the innermost self has some sort of like localized omniscience. And I don’t think that’s true. I think the innermost self needs the parts. It’s not like a member within us that can operate autonomously without that input. And so these parts are bringing not only the emotions, but also what they experienced. In isolation, alone, you know, fragmented, you know, exiled, or blended, these parts don’t know how to interpret their experience because they don’t have the breadth of vision that an integrated system would provide under the leadership of the innermost self. So yeah, I’m super excited you brought that up because I think sometimes this can be interpreted, especially by what I affectionately call Thomists of the Strict Observance as sort of just a sort of an exercise of the intellect. Right. You know, which is not really Thomism. But yeah, so if you had anything else you wanted to add, I’d really want to hear that.

[00:25:12] Andrea Messineo: Well, I just very briefly, and then we’ll get back to Father Tom’s, you know, thread, but this is true on the inside and on the outside. MacIntyre, who dedicated his life to expounding Thomas. A huge part of making those practical moral decisions is taking counsel with others, you know, others outside of ourselves. He said, and if you’ll indulge me in just a very brief quote from MacIntyre, “We may at any point go astray in our practical reasoning because of intellectual or moral error. From both types of mistake, the best protections are friendship and collegiality.” Right? So putting our thought process out there, getting input, listening, being in a receiving position, that for MacIntyre is a huge support in moral progress.

[00:26:09] Dr. Peter: Well, I’ve been thinking of the example of, you know, a person in a romantic relationship that went sour or went bad, morally bad, and said, I didn’t pay attention to the warning signs. I ignored the red flags. You know, and in situations like that, I can imagine different parts having very different takes on what’s happening in that relationship, you know, in general, but then also in the specific area of moral questions, morality. And so this coming together and the idea that, you know, that all these parts have a role in conscience, it’s just something that I’m thinking about really kind of for the first time as I’m interacting with the two of you.

[00:26:49] Fr. Tom: And if I could just, you know, Amen to everything we just said here. I do think that the self is certainly not omniscient. The self needs formation and the self is the primary recipient and beneficiary of conscience formation. And it’s ultimately in a healthy, more and more self-led system, I would say, it’s conscience rightly formed that will have to… I mean, I guess personally I’ve, in my own experience, I’ve kind of found that with many of my parts, part of the trust that they need in the self is that the self will strive to engage in right moral judgment and, in a sense, has to be the pathway to the judgment of conscience and sound conscience. And I find myself having to at times, because I do have a couple of managers over there that aren’t quite sure. They need to know, I need to kind of negotiate at times, look, I need you to trust me, that I’m a moral theologian, no. But I need you to trust me that I’m going to try to strive to get to the truth of what we need to do. But that doesn’t happen, as Andrea, you’re saying it, it certainly doesn’t happen without the external, from input from sound moral individuals. And we could go off on a whole tangent about, you know, Aristotle’s understanding of the polis and the role of what he called the phronimos, the prudent individual who, essentially, well, how do you learn prudence? Well, you learn prudence from watching what the prudent individuals in your community do. And you learn it and you also ask them questions and you get wisdom from them. And Peter, to your point, the breakup, the difficult situation, well, this is where input from a sound moral guide, whether it’s the, you know, confessor or spiritual director, who presumably also has a well-formed conscience and has accrued a lot of prudence, can help kind of direct traffic, I think with a lot of the noise and the neediness that’s coming from parts.

[00:28:54] Dr. Peter: Beautiful. Well, I’m wondering if we could jump to this question, which is, what are the relationships among parts and the faculties of the intellect and the will? We’ve begun to hint at it, we’ve begun to address it, but that’s a question that comes up a lot. And it’s clear that like one part doesn’t just own the intellect or one part doesn’t just own the will. There’s only one will, for example. Like Richard Schwartz might say, well, you know, because he considers parts essentially separate persons. Right. So to Schwartz, each part has a soul. In later years, in recent years, he’s been discussing how different parts have their own selves, which he equates with the soul. But this becomes really problematic. So we’re talking about having one intellect and one will, but somehow the parts are engaging with this. And I’m just really curious about how that happens, especially, you know, under these situations in which the innermost self may not be very active or may not be very present and a part is running away with the intellect and the will, or at least it seems like that. So curious about like what are your thoughts about that?

[00:30:10] Fr. Tom: Yeah. And this is my very provisional 2 cents. But no, I think you point to probably a very common experience. So we often talk about, you know, parts being in the driver’s seat. And I think a lot of people live a lot of their lives with some prominent part really in the driver’s seat. So the self is blended. And of course for a lot of people, I think coming into IFS, one of the kind of amazing experiences is really kind of getting in touch with the self and being able to distinguish it, maybe for the first time really with clarity, from our parts. But even there, I guess I’m hesitant to think about like a part sort of having direct, kind of direct access to the will or to the intellect. I mean, it just seems to me that whatever’s going on, even though it seems that a certain part is in the driver’s seat. I mean, I think what we’re saying is that it’s the blended self, I think it’s the self that ultimately actualizes intellect and will, right, for better or for worse. When we do right or wrong, when we act virtuously or by vice, when we act virtuously or we sin, we’re often doing that, in either way, we’re doing that as a blended self, under the influence of those parts. So I really kind of back away from the idea of sort of like a part, kind of hijacking the whole system and, you know, kind of accessing. You know, it sounds a little scary. I mean, maybe there’s some psychological phenomena that, you know, corresponds to that. But mostly, ultimately there’s a self, there’s a me, that blended or unblended, is responsible for what becomes actualized through my intellect and will. But that’s my 2 cents.

[00:31:52] Andrea Messineo: And from my perspective, I am still trying to figure it all out. This is very provisional for me as well. But I wonder if it might be helpful to think about what Steven Jensen says in Living the Good Life about the weak-willed and the strong-willed as opposed to the virtuous. That was useful for me. And just in summary, the strong-willed person knows what he or she should do, but wants to do something else. And in examples that have been used in past episodes, I want to eat the donuts, but a manager part puts its foot down and said, we’re not going to eat the donuts. So I’m strong-willed. That’s opposed to a system where there’s maybe more polarization and I know I shouldn’t eat the donuts, but in fact I do eat the donuts, you know. That we might describe as more of a firefighter blended situation. What’s interesting to notice is that even the strong-willed individual is not yet, according to Jensen, following Thomas, fully virtuous, right? Because the virtuous state is when emotions or parts are aligned with reason with self leadership.

[00:33:18] Dr. Peter: Right. In my own way of presenting this, and again, very provisional. And yeah, I don’t like to speak about parts doing things. You know, like there’s a lot of times like, you know, my manager part did this, you know. And although that might reflect the phenomenological experience, I hesitate, right? Because of these questions we’re raising. I am more confident, and it feels more accurate to say that parts may be more closely connected with impulses and desires. And out of those, they drive agendas. And an agenda is a particular attachment to a particular outcome using particular means, usually in a particular timeframe. That’s how I define an agenda. And they promote their agendas in a sense, right, within the system, you know, so you often have these rivalries around agendas, but at some point something happens, right? Like some point, something is done or not done, right. And so, I like how you’re bringing in the relationship there to the innermost self. And, you know, this is another point of departure, I think, from Schwartz, because I think Schwartz would say that the innermost self can never choose something that’s wrong. You know, it can never choose, if it’s unblended, it could never choose something that’s wrong. And I don’t know if I agree with that or not. I haven’t thought about that deeply enough to know if it’s always sort of the influence of a part, you know, that would lead to an erroneous action or a morally imperfect or a sinful action.

[00:35:00] Fr. Tom: So I think we have to, we do have to reject, my part made me do it, you know.

[00:35:06] Dr. Peter: Yeah, I like how you put that.

[00:35:08] Fr. Tom: As convenient as that would be. I mean, that would just be so convenient. Hey, my part made me do it. But that’s where this is fascinating because that’s where this also intersects with a deep part of the Catholic moral tradition, which is just the understanding of those elements that can certainly, nonetheless, diminish responsibility. So the more spontaneously I’m acting or reacting, I mean, there may not be, you know, complete intentionality there. That kind of goes along a spectrum. So yeah, I mean, I think certainly you can have situations where I’m acting out of kind of a state of blendedness with a certain part of me and, you know, maybe I’m flying off the handle, I’m getting impatient with someone, I’m getting impatient with my secretary, you know, and it’s just this manager part that’s very blended with me, and yeah. Can we talk about, you know, well, first of all, you know, is there grave matter or not grave matter. That’s another question. But there can be degrees of, you know, fullness of intentionality there, or lack thereof. Kind of going back to the original question, I’m not entirely sure how to think about kind of the extreme kind of intervention of firefighter parts. I do think that, you know, we can use that to describe what’s happening sometimes, especially with addictive behaviors. And as a moral theologian, you know, I certainly clearly understand that there’s some situations which, maybe in some sense that we have to say, okay, the self is bringing this about, but without requisite freedom, because this firefighter part has just kind of really, really taken over in a sense. So I don’t know, but I’m just curious how, Peter, how you would talk about that, or Andrea, what you think about that. Because certainly when you’re dealing with persons with addictions, especially, you know, addictions that they’ve repented of, right? And they’re still suffering with these compulsions, as you both know, situations where a person just feels kind of out of control, and the compulsion, you know, the firefighter part just kind of takes over. That can be completely without moral responsibility, so many times. But just curious of your thoughts on that.

[00:37:18] Dr. Peter: So I mentioned this in the last episode in 179, this quote from Dietrich von Hildebrand’s Transformation in Christ, page 226, where he says, “By an act of our free personal center, we can either sanction or disavow our emotional attitude, which involves a far-reaching modification of the innermost nature of our attitudes.” And so I’m thinking about, okay, our free personal center, obviously innermost self involved in some way there. This idea of sanctioning or disavowing. So even if we are feeling like we are being carried along by impulses or desires or passions that are beyond our control to stop, like we really feel like that there’s a compulsion to do this sort of thing. You see this in obsessive compulsive types of presentations. Can I still disavow, you know, what’s going on? Or am I sanctioning it? And so there’s, I think there’s still some space there. And if you have that space, then I think there is merit, actually, in doing that disavowal of the wrong thing, you know? Even if you find yourself at least feeling powerless in the face of it, you know. And maybe we’ll get to kind of discussing causal chains because I think there is this sense that, you know, we ought to be able to exercise our will completely, freely, and independently, regardless of what’s happened upstream of the place we find ourselves in. And I find that to be actually false. You know, like there’s a question of how did I get here? And what were the decisions that led me to be in this particular place? But I know you’ve got something. I know you’ve got something, Andrea, so I really wanna hear it.

[00:39:01] Andrea Messineo: Oh, I really want to second what you’re saying about that separation, that little bit of distance. If self can step back and unblend from parts, that is where merit is. I find in myself, in my own experience, where there is fault, where there is sin, those are times when perhaps I, in my innermost self, have refused to unblend. I have said no, this limited perspective is, you know, what I’m going. In a sense, I constrict my self, I make my self smaller. Right? And that would kind of be what Jensen is getting at. The vicious person’s you know, choice and disordered emotions are aligned. But as far as, you know, trying to unblend from even the most powerful firefighters, and perhaps, we’ll get into this when we do discuss causal chains. Yeah. That disavow is key.

[00:40:12] Dr. Peter: Beautiful. Beautiful. Well, let’s take a look at another one of these questions that comes up. We’ve kind of like addressed this one already, and that is that, you know, can parts do anything on their own? Or is the innermost self always involved? I feel like we’ve already like, kind of addressed that. But I’m also curious, can a person possess a virtue, like that’s a habitual virtue, but a part of that person not have access to that virtue in a given moment? Because that part is not integrated, either it’s exiled or it’s blended. And this example is, can a person possess a reasonably high degree of the infused theological virtue of faith, but an exiled part of that person be struggling with despair, you know? Or can a person generally be humble, but a part of that person be strongly affected by pride. So this idea of relationship between part and virtue and how that’s mediated inside the person.

[00:41:16] Fr. Tom: I want to shake my head vigorously as I can. Yes. But if I shake it too vigorously, my earbud’s gonna fall out again.

[00:41:24] Dr. Peter: And for those of you that are listening in on our auditory platforms, if you get on YouTube, you’ll see the vigorousness of these gestures. They’re priceless. 

[00:41:34] Fr. Tom: I’m rolling up my sleeves too. So, yes, yes, and yes. I mean, at least that’s my experience. Just a personal example, applying this to myself. I hope I’m not speaking out of some prideful part of myself right now, but I do honestly consider myself a relatively humble person. I mean, I’ve seen myself exercise humility. But man, there is a manager part that, I think, was brought along and was formed protecting a very young exile part of me that was really, really wounded by rejection. So this manager part can just get vehemently judgemental and just kind of really prideful and just condescending toward others and really has no use for humility right now, you know? I mean, that’s just one experience and certainly the experience of, yeah, I’ve just got parts that really struggle with hope, the theological virtue of hope. You know, we often say like, again, parts that even need pre-evangelization right there and can just really be stuck there. So I would love to hear what both of you have to say, but I very adamantly agree. There certainly can be parts that don’t have access. And I think that’s a very good way to put it. 

[00:43:00] Andrea Messineo: Mm-hmm. I’m gonna comment at this maybe from a psychological perspective, and I’m recalling when Dr. Peter Martin in episode 178 described a part as a constellation, I think the word he used, a constellation of emotions, memories, reactions, behaviors, that really resonated for me for many reasons, because, you know, prior to training in IFS, the approach that I favored most was a Jungian approach. You know, Carl Jung. And, you know, that approach makes great use of complexes, right? A complex is also a collection or constellation of emotions, reactions, behaviors, bodily sensations, that form around a symbol, right? An archetypal symbol such as your father, mother, lover, church, what have you. Right? So I mean, thinking of it in that terms, and this could be a whole other conversation, to what degree a part is or is not a complex, a burdened part would be like a complex. But when we are in a complex or when we are blended with a burdened part, yeah, it makes a lot of sense to me that we might not have access to virtues that we do habitually have access to when we are not blended.

[00:44:37] Dr. Peter: That’s one of the beautiful things that has helped me in a spiritual way. We talk a lot about human formation. That’s our focus in Souls and Hearts. But for me, spiritually to have come to this idea that I could possess a virtue but not access it in a moment, ’cause I’m blended with a part. It keeps me from having to go to, like, if I were just a single homogenous unity, you know that, okay, guess I don’t have faith now. Like I lost my faith. And then, you know, couple hours later, the faith came back, and then it was lost again. Like it seemed to me like hard to believe that an infused virtue would vary that much, from hour to hour, even from moment to moment. And so this idea of access also fits with, you know, the degree of integration. You know, am I operating out of a part that’s fragmented off of the rest of my system? And so, I am kind of excited to be honest with you, and maybe I have a little pride here with this, but, you know, like that’s sort of feeling validated, at least in your experiences, you know, for both of you. But yeah, that’s one of those things where I’m always like, man, you know, this is a phenomenological approach. You know, like how do we like try to ground this in something more than, you know, my phenomenology or my subjective experience? But I also have found that’s really helpful to other people, you know, to say that no, not all of your hope is lost. You know, not all of your faith is lost or your humility. And I think it’s also helpful to try to make sense out of the experience of things like suicide, you know, where there could be this non-premeditated, you know, kind of suicide that catches everybody by surprise. And provides some hope. Again, we don’t wanna minimize the gravity of the act of killing oneself, but to understand that there may be even in that, the possibility that somebody disavowed that, even, you know, as that was happening, you know.

[00:46:30] Fr. Tom: No, that certainly makes a lot of sense out of a lot of people’s experience. And as you say, Peter, you know, for someone to understand, you know, it’s not me, I’m not the one who’s despairing or discouraged or anxious. It’s parts of me that are, it’s part of me that’s struggling right now. Part of me that really is not informed by this virtue. But the self can, you know, it’s the job of the good shepherd, right, the good shepherd self to invite these parts to, you know, broaden out the perspective, feel the energy of the virtue. And yeah, that’s a work in process, but I think that names in so many ways what a lot of formation is, right? You know, it’s the work of acquiring the virtue and cooperating with God’s grace, especially with the infused virtues, and growing in them. But it’s just that we also like need those virtues to really sink into all of our parts. And that’s an ongoing labor, hopefully a labor of love. But yeah, that resonates.

[00:47:42] Dr. Peter: And kind of going back to that inner good shepherd, I sometimes will liken my innermost self, and my parts object to my innermost self being called Peter, which is kind of what I did for years, you know? ‘Cause they’re like, we’re all Peter, like, you’re not Peter, you don’t get to claim, you know? So my innermost self, actually, in conjunction with my parts, is now Petrus. You know, and then Peter represents my whole system, right? And you know, this idea of recollection, I’m sort of thinking about like my Petrus, my inner sheep dog, you know, kind of recollecting my parts, you know, kind of bringing them together, sort of recollection in the natural sense. And then being able to share the goodness that each part has, along with the innermost self, but under the leadership and guidance of the innermost self. So each of these parts, as sort of a member of my psyche, has an important role, has a place and is indispensable to my identity. And that, I just think that’s a beautiful thing and that parts are not their burdens. You know, parts are not their extreme roles and that, you know, there’s amazing things that can happen when parts are liberated.

[00:48:52] Dr. Peter: But you brought up this really important point, because I believe that Richard Schwartz would say, you know, he said it as much, that the innermost self does not need any formation, that it’s sort of complete and ready to go as it is. IFS is a constraint release model. If you release all the constraints, then the innermost self will naturally have these intrinsic qualities, these eight Cs, you know, compassion and creativity, connectedness and so forth. And there isn’t a need for the formation of self. There may be a need for the formation of the parts. I think Richard Schwartz would say, you know, that they need, you know, he wouldn’t probably say it this way ’cause it sounds, maybe in a way he doesn’t like, like governance. They need governance or they need direction or they need compassion. But I’m curious about what the two of you would say about that.

[00:49:45] Fr. Tom: So listening to you, you know, I’m again reflecting on, as we all do, kind of on our own experience of ourself. So what are the needs of my self? My primary need, right now, when I’m most in self, or one of my primary needs, is to rest in the presence of our Lord. You know, I just think of adoration. I mean, I’d like to think that when I’m most in self, it’s in moments like that, in adoration, celebrating the Eucharist. So, it’s hard for me, and I can kind of only sort of extrapolate intellectually what is it like to be in self, but not in relationship with the Lord. Or what is it like to be in self, but not having virtue. I suppose that’s again, primarily a very blended experience. Yeah, I mean, my self needs to feed on faith, hope and love more and more and more. I can’t get enough of it. My self wants that sunshine of faith, hope, and love infused deeply more and more, to have the strength to live that role that, you know, that I’m called to live. But Andrea, I’m curious what you think.

[00:50:59] Andrea Messineo: Yeah. I mean, I’m just resonating with what you’re saying, Fr. Tom, and speculating what it would be like to lead my system in self, but there be nothing greater. I don’t know how I could be in that. That would seem to be very lonely, because in my experience and I’m certainly open to feedback if I’m confusing a self-like manager part with self, which is not difficult to do. But I often find myself in an intercessory position with regard to my parts, you know, going to the Lord and saying, I don’t know what to do. I, self, don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to help. I don’t know what to say. I don’t know how to heal this part. So I guess you could say, I pray for my parts. And we’re kind of tossing around ideas here, but I’m curious to know how that lands for both of you.

[00:52:11] Dr. Peter: I have a little different experience. And these experiences I’m gonna describe are part of the reason why I don’t equate being in self or being recollected with being in a state of sanctifying grace, for example, why I don’t equate the the innermost self with the soul, for example. And that is when I was on, you know, my trainings, my IFS Level 1, Level 2, Level 3 trainings, IFIO training, which is the couples therapy training, and in other IFS environments with the general IFS population, I’ve come across witnessing these demonstrations where you have an IFS therapist or at least a therapist in training in the therapist role. And you have another IFS therapist or therapist in training in the client role. Neither of them Christian, neither of them baptized, you know, neither of them, you know, sort of particularly necessarily interested in Christianity at all. And amazing things still happen. Amazing things still happen. Surprising things still happen. And they would happen in a way that I think would lead a lot of Catholics to assume that it was the Holy Spirit or that it was the impact of grace, especially like sanctifying grace when that’s unlikely to be the case.

[00:53:34] Dr. Peter: And so I think there is like an amazing amount of healing and order that can happen, you know, without us necessarily having to invoke sanctifying grace. You know, just like there could be amazing healing in the body, you know, for someone who’s not baptized or whatever. We wouldn’t expect that. And that’s part of the reason why I’m really focused on human formation because I think there’s been kind of a lopsided, you know, emphasis in the church as a whole of spiritual formation, intellectual formation, pastoral formation, and then, you know, meh, maybe something about human formation. You should learn, you know, how to exercise and to, you know, limit your screen usage and stuff like that. That’s the kind of things that get talked about a lot. I think human formation is something so very much more fundamental, in alignment with Pope John Paul II and Pastores Dabo Vobis, you know, he begins to discuss that. So I am probably the outlier in the Catholic IFS community about the emphasis on like the natural order of things and how much can happen before we even need to be talking about sanctifying grace, with the understanding, of course, that it’s all grace in a sense, right? All goodness comes from God and so forth. So I don’t wanna minimize that. And again, this is hugely speculative Malinoski moral theology that has like no grounding, like I don’t have any training in this, but I guess I’m trying to just describe what my experience is. 

[00:54:57] Fr. Tom: Sure. But Peter, if I could, yes, I believe the self needs formation. The self, certainly we in our selves absolutely need sanctifying grace. But even before sanctifying grace, yes, wounded by original sin, but still amazing. Right? We’re still imago dei, right. So it doesn’t surprise me that, yeah, in some sense to discover that, I mean, we are quite amazing even, you know, before grace. So someone trained in IFS, amazing things could happen, I have no doubt whatsoever. And, you know, then we could get in debates about that. Well, is that absolutely without grace, you know. And then we’ll need the holy office to stop our debates here. And so, I don’t know if this is the place, but if I could, I just have this thing in the back of my mind and I think it fits. I just want to throw it out there. But, again, the role of the self, the importance of being in self. I almost find, I guess I’ve found for a long time now that kind of, when I examine my conscience, part of what I seem to need to accuse myself of, many times, is just my failure to really work to be in self and to act from self. And if I don’t have a confessor who’s familiar with parts work, I’m still not quite sure how to say that, you know. I don’t know how that lands with both of you, but just, it seems that our optimal place, especially, you know, as disciples working to cooperate with grace, with the Holy Spirit, to gain deeper and deeper freedom through deeper integration of our parts. It just seems to me that there’s something of a moral imperative there. And as we do so often, even in a setting like this, we wanna start by being in self. Even if I, you know, were to find myself in a state of mortal sin or at least objectively, as I examine my conscience about that, again, I would want to be as in self as I can be to try to get to the bottom of, well, what’s going on here, what happened here as I examined my conscience. You know, but I don’t know how that lands with you guys.

[00:57:07] Andrea Messineo: Yeah, I experience the same kinds of difficulties in trying to conceptualize and articulate this inner work in maybe a sacramental context. So I’ll tell a story that’s a bit humorous. We used, at the local parish, we used to have a pastor that as the, you know, lines for confession would start extending around, you know, this time of year, Advent or Lent, he would, you know, be on his way to the confessional and he would call out to everyone standing there, “Okay, people, summarize, bullet points, we gotta get through this.” So, you know, I would’ve had this whole, you know, I was polarized, and you know, the firefighter over here, but by the time I get to the front of the line, I just end up saying something like, you know, I ate the donuts. Yeah. So, yeah. Yeah. There’s still, you know, work to be done in fleshing that out. I can attest.

[00:58:14] Dr. Peter: Well, this kind of leads me into this whole idea we alluded to of the causal chain. Because for me, one of the things I realized in doing my general examination of conscience with my parts in the evening is that there was a correlation between how much I journaled with my parts during the day and my habitual sins. And if I had like multiple pages of journaling, ’cause I have different points during the day where I check in with my parts. And I do that a lot through writing, different colors for different parts. I noticed that I was far less likely to have engaged in, say watching action videos, which are not good for me. I mean, I sort of realized that watching, you know, like action movies for me, it like pollutes my mind in a sense of, you know, kind of like, gets me to be remembering things. It’s a way that, you know, my challenger part, formally my rebellious part, will act out against feeling overworked or other things or react in terms of burnout, in disordered ways of trying to experience some release or some recreation or express aggression or something like that.

[00:59:21] Dr. Peter: So this has led me to sort of think about like, okay, what is upstream? And as you were talking about this, Fr. Tom, I resonate entirely. I think the big battle for me is to be recollected, you know, my parts in right relationship with my innermost self, what St. Thomas Aquinas would refer to as, you know, self-love and self-governance, you know, following Aristotle, in a lot of ways, but bringing in the Christian dimension to this. And I think that’s often like my biggest issue because if I don’t do that, I’m not ready for the things that come up. I’m not ready. I’ve diminished my capacity to address the stressors, the inevitable stressors of daily life. And so, I’m more and more believing that, you know, I need to assess my state of readiness and my state of resilience. And I don’t want to compromise myself. I don’t wanna foreshorten the hand of God being able to work through me because I’ve polluted my mind or my heart with things that were not good. I’ve taken in things that I continue to ruminate about or remember or parts of me cherish or whatever, because of that rebellion, because of the burnout, because of the unacknowledged anger and aggression that has not been given voice, you know, in the intellect, you know, and been able to engage them with the will in that directly.

[01:00:45] Dr. Peter: So that’s sort of my experience of what that’s like. And to bring my parts into a general examination of conscience and to understand the good things that they were seeking for me, to understand the attachment needs that they were struggling with, the integrity needs that they felt were, you know, being ignored or identity issues, the three legs of that stool of security and stability. Like, so it’s less about, oh, I fell, you know, I watched videos again. I stayed up too late. And that’s what the sin is. That seems to be the end of the causal chain or a, you know, a late link in the causal chain, going back to, yeah, I cut short my meditation in the morning. I did not come back and recenter myself and reground myself after that difficult interaction with a family member, with a client or something. And that’s what’s led me to be less and less grounded, less and less centered, less and less in self or recollected throughout the day.

[01:01:37] Fr. Tom: So one of the roles of conscience is to convict. So I’m sitting here just being totally convicted as you’re saying, sharing all of this because like, oh crap. I know I don’t check in with my parts enough during the day, you know? And, oh man, but I gotta add that to my conscience exam. Have I taken sufficient time to check in with my parts today? No. Yes. And I couldn’t agree with you more, that lack of, you know, being in touch, being recollected, taking time to check in. And at the very least, certainly during, you know, a conscience exam, I do find a lot of times that might be the only time that I, oh gosh, yeah, I better check in. During conscience exam, I just think, at the very least, that’s a very fitting moment to check in. You know, so what’s going on? I’m agitated. I’ve got, you know, parts are clamoring or, you know, something’s been going on all during the day and I’ve been negligent. I haven’t been paying attention to that, what’s going on. And that can be a very good part of a conscience exam. But yeah, but the idea of, especially what we’re really, in a way, we’re talking about omission here, so what I fail to do it, what I fail to do at times, well, that’s the upstream stuff that then kinda, you know, snowballs to, you know, to mix two metaphors. But, you know, it’s very real. And that’s where we need to be examining ourselves a lot. You know, what would my day have been like had I, maybe at midday, just, take five, and just checked in like, okay, what’s going on? And recollected and really kind of gotten in self again and that could make a very big difference on the rest of the day, you know?

[01:03:16] Andrea Messineo: And yeah, and perhaps we’ll get into this if we talk about concupiscence, I’ll just note that for me, that that checking in very much has to do with, you know, attending to the body and, you know, what part of the body is tense or agitated. I mean, often that’s, for me, like an early warning. So before anything even emerges into conscious awareness, because parts are very much in the body as well as the mind, I find.

[01:03:49] Fr. Tom: Oh, absolutely. Yeah.

[01:03:51] Dr. Peter: Wow. Well, I’ll share this as a little story ’cause I think it does go to conscience. When I was a young man, a very young man, had a very strong Catholic standard bearer, called him my good boy. And this part spoke with the authority of God in my system, right? And what the other parts didn’t know is that this part really didn’t have much of a relationship with God, but my good boy felt like he did, like, he felt like he knew what God wanted. And what God wanted, when I was a very young man, was for me to pray the Breviary. Not the modern one, not the, you know, 1971, but the one from before, you know, with all of the readings, and that we were to pray it in Latin, even though I’m not very fluent in Latin, but Latin is the language of the church. There’s a lot of perfectionistic tendencies here. And so I built into my day, you know, all of these readings of all the minor hours and everything but the office of readings, because that was really long and not really workable. But it sort of laid sort of the structure for praying throughout the day. And my spiritual director, I’d switched spiritual directors at the time and I explained what my plan of life was, you know, my spiritual plan of life. And he looked at me like I had landed from outer space and he said, stop that. And he was incredibly old. He had survived the Spanish Civil War. That’s how old he was. And again, this is when I was a lot younger. I believed he was credible and he sort of opened me up to a much more, you know, flexible way of relating and responding to duties of state as opposed to, you know, a duty to the Breviary, which I did not have, by my state. But what it did was it sort of left a structure where I did have, built into my life, places where I could check in and pray briefly during the day. You know, that was a good sort of, you know, vestigial, like something left over from that, you know? But yeah, it kinda shows that nothing like good can come from all of this stuff, all things can work together for good, even, you know, this kind of rigidity from my good boy part, right? So there’s still some benefits because that was pretty much locked in ever since then, that I would take time during the day to be able to do this. And then when I found parts work several years later, many years later, it was like, oh, I can just slide this right in here. And it’s actually been really helpful. So, yeah.

[01:06:11] Fr. Tom: Fascinating.

[01:06:11] Dr. Peter: But you mentioned.

[01:06:12] Fr. Tom: Thanks for sharing that.

[01:06:13] Dr. Peter: Yeah. Yeah. Well, you mentioned concupiscence and I really want to address this because one of the experiences I’ve had, well, one of the assumptions I had was that concupiscence always was in a part. Concupiscence always was like part and parcel of a part. And, you know, as I’ve gotten to know my parts better and I’ve been able to connect with them, there have been a lot of times recently, within the last couple of years, where the parts are like, yeah, it’s not me. It’s not me. You know, I don’t have a sense that they’re disassembling or I don’t have a sense that they’re lying or something like that. But I am really interested in, first of all, just kind of what concupiscence is, and then is that a burden that a part carries, you know? Is concupiscence, you know, like does it exist in our system, but outside of the parts and parts are kind of engaged with it in various ways? How do we understand, you know, concupiscence and what’s a good way to think about it, I guess is what I’m trying to say.

[01:07:12] Fr. Tom: Sure. Okay. So again, my take, but I do start, let’s go back to the Catechism, which is always a good place to start with things like this. What’s the definition? Catechism 418 says, “As a result of original sin, human nature is weakened in its powers, subject to ignorance, suffering, and the domination of death and inclined to sin. And this inclination is called concupiscence.” So this has been a long standing part of Catholic moral vocabulary. If I can just wade into the weeds for just one second, for those members of the audience who might be a little more familiar with Thomistic anthropology. Within Thomas’s conception of the person, we also talk about something called the concupiscible appetite, along with the irascible appetite. So those are two, what he calls sensitive appetites. And they’re very much rooted in our kind of animal nature, so very, very much bodily. They in themselves, as Thomas pointed out, in themselves, they’re sort of neutral. I mean, nothing would happen if we didn’t have the concupiscible appetite, which is our hunger, if you will, or our attraction, desire for pleasurable goods. The irascible appetite, kind of aimed at, as Thomas would say, the difficult goods. So even, you know, our anger is a manifestation of that, which can be very good sometimes when we need to kind of get riled up to get something happening that should happen.

[01:08:41] Fr. Tom: But not to be confused though, with concupiscence necessarily. So concupiscence is a name that later on in moral theology, we do give to this kind of disorder that, yeah, and disorder that we can even discover in those appetites. So related sometimes ,you know, related to the concupiscible appetite, sometimes referred to, and of course it has reference in scripture, in 1 John chapter two, right? “The concupiscence of the flesh, enticement of the eyes, and pretentiousness of life.” Right? Those are not from the Father, those are of the world. Those are other names that the tradition uses to talk about this kind of leftover impact of original sin, even after baptism. So that’s kind of one of the mysteries of God’s pedagogy, right? Like, why didn’t you just completely clean up the mess? You know? Like, that’s one of my first questions, God willing, when I get to heaven someday, like, you know, what’d you? But within God’s providence and his pedagogy, he leaves us struggling with this kind of disorder, especially in the passions, and especially in the emotions, and in our tendencies and, you know, later names that the tradition gives to this, the tinder of sin. Right? So it’s long been kind of a shorthand term, especially within Catholic spiritual authors, especially for the desire for sexual gratification. Right. Now to the question, again, just my 2 cents or my take. No, I do not think of concupiscence as inhabiting parts. I think parts can become more or less under the influence of concupiscence and kind of formed under the influence of concupiscence. I think those, first of all, going back to those appetites, those appetites are kind of a function of the system, I would say, without having, you know, thought this through a lot, but I think that concupiscence itself is more kind of a name we give to the sort of overall disorder that is in the system and which the parts can be influenced by. That would be my take. But I’m wondering what you guys think.

[01:10:43] Andrea Messineo: Well, I have, you know, kind of a few disparate reflections going on and maybe you both can help me pull them all together. I want to say first of all, that I’m thinking of how parts work really underlines that beautiful hypomorphic conception of the human person, the soul and the body together. Because in my experience, parts are not just in the mind, you know, actually the contrary is the case. Parts are often, you know, somatic, they’re often more present in the body and, you know, generating all kinds of reactions and symptoms. Even, you know, before they even come into awareness. And I’m thinking of the first question that we often do in an IFS session, right? We’re trying to find the parts and we say, following Dick Schwartz, “Where are you aware of this part in or around your body?” Right. And even the most intellectual parts, even the most spiritually focused spiritual managers, they will often have a corresponding sensation, a tension behind the eyes, a headache, constriction in the gut, you know, the heaviness in the shoulders, something that goes along with that part. So I’m just wondering if this is all part of the work of human formation that prepares the way for grace, that as we bring these parts more and more under self leadership, we’ll find that these manifestations are you just naturally tend more towards an order, a good order.

[01:12:43] Dr. Peter: Hmm. Yeah, I did a little bit of a word study. So my former inner critic, who is now my evaluator part, manager part, you know, in right relationship with the innermost self. You know, we decided we were gonna do a little etymological study about the word concupiscence. Because my initial idea was that okay, that “cup” in concupiscence, maybe that had some relationship with corporeal, maybe it had something to do specifically with the body. Well, it turns out it doesn’t. ‘Cause I was wondering you know, the idea of, is concupiscence really rooted in the body, ’cause sometimes it’s driven by bodily needs, right? And there’s all the words about the flesh. I wanna be really careful that we don’t somehow wind up disparaging the body or, you know, getting into any Arianism or really more Manichaeism, Docetism. But I like what you’re saying because that’s the both-and, you know, Andrea. These parts are in our hearts. Gerry Crete would locate them in our hearts, you know, in his book, Litanies of the Heart, but the heart is the place where the soul and the body actually meet. The heart is a physical organ, right? But in the way that scripture and the tradition has always understood the heart. It’s not just, you know, the organ that pumps blood and powers the circulatory system, right? So, you know, there’s a way that this comes together as both.

[01:13:58] Dr. Peter: But I’m actually really relieved to know that, you know, that a desire or an impulse that is like motivated by concupiscence, that might not be just a burdened part, or it might not just be a part that’s off in some way. But that could come from somewhere else, you know, like somewhere else within the system. Richard Schwartz has taught that the person, the human person, is the innermost self, plus the parts, plus the body. That’s it. It’s a very simple formula. That’s what he says. And there’s no room for anything else. So that’s part of where I started to think about this. Is the will, like where would the will fit in with that formulation then? It doesn’t, right? It’s a faculty, you know, there’s these faculties, appetites, powers that are, I believe, outside of that formula. Right? And so it would make sense too then that something like concupiscence might also be outside of that in some way, especially if it’s come down to us, in a sense, by original sin, you know, like it’s the effect of original sin, you know? And so I was just curious about, you know, where we might go with something like that.

[01:15:06] Fr. Tom: Right. So if you force me to locate concupiscence somewhere, again, I think, thinking with Aquinas, you do find it primarily in the passions. So in our emotiveness, in our hungers, in our appetites as you would call them, that’s where, yeah, disorder is kind of just part of the experience of that, you know, again, due to original sin. And that’s where we experience that even phenomenologically, you know. And so again, it goes back to the question of, then what’s the relationship between passions, appetites and so forth to parts? Well, again, parts can come under the influence. Right. That’s how I would say it, but I do think of concupiscence in that sense as kind of a generalized state. It’s sort of like the generalized state of lack of stasis, the potential for kind of disorder at any time in our passions and our emotions. That’s the way we find ourselves and hence the need for virtue. I mean, if there weren’t that disorder, I think there would certainly, if I’m not misstating Thomas here, I think there would still be a place for virtue and the pursuit of virtue and excellence, but it would just be a heck of a lot easier.

[01:16:31] Dr. Peter: I remember being a little kid, like six years old and being really angry at Eve. You know, for eating the apple. Why did you do that? I also remember thinking it was grossly unfair when I was very young.

[01:16:48] Fr. Tom: Right.

[01:16:49] Dr. Peter: I had some judgements about this. And then, you know, later on, Adam, you could have done something, like you knew too, like, where were you, dude? So, you know, but not with an appreciation of, you know, felix culpa and greater good coming from these things and so forth. Well, as we are kind of coming to the end. We still have some time, but I want to hear about like, what is like one key takeaway from you first, Fr. Tom, one key takeaway that you would like our listeners to really hang onto, to take inside, to ingest, and to really kind of like, hold onto, if there’s one thing that just seems really important about this topic of parts and morality. What would you leave us with?

[01:17:34] Fr. Tom: Sure. I’m gonna go back, I’m thinking back to just our conversation about conscience and I think persons who are doing parts work have a wonderful set of tools now to kind of do that hard work, with something that is really challenging, I think at times. I think it’s very challenging for us to zero in on the real McCoy, the authentic voice of conscience. And especially if we’re dealing with, you know, the Catholic standard bearer part, the inner critic, the Catholic referee, whatever you want to call it, the spiritualizing part. And I just want to, number one, encourage audience members to persevere in that. It can be messy, it can be frustrating. It’s often hit or miss. A lot of times we’re not sure, like, are is this conscience? Is this an internal critic? And even more so, and again, just an encouragement here to audience members who just struggle, as so many very committed Catholics do, with scrupulosity. That’s, I think, that’s especially an area, and I know you’ve dedicated shows to this. But even there I have a real heart for persons who struggle with scrupulosity. I’ve, you know, between writing and counseling and confessional, I mean, we’re always trying to just support and it’s just gonna be this hellish experience. Persevere, because I think, again, I think parts work gives, especially persons who are struggling with that. Now, obviously it can be complicated by things like OCD and so forth, but you’ve got tools there to begin to distinguish and to identify these parts that think they’re conscience, but they’re actually not, or they’re exaggerating the authentic judgment of conscience. So yeah, just an encouragement to lean into that work and believe in God’s grace and how our Lord wants us to get to that place of peace and clarity. And I do believe, I’m very much a believer, this would be my last part of this, that the genuine judgment of conscience normally comes in serenity and in just kind of a clarity and a serenity and insistence at times. Obviously conscience can clamor and, you know, but I think that’s what we need to be looking for when we’re trying to get at the genuine judgment of conscience. You know, it, especially when we can be really in self to receive that. So my final 2 cents.

[01:19:59] Dr. Peter: Beautiful. And those episodes, they’re really meaningful to me. Episode 85 is on perfectionism in parts. Episode 86 is on Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, understood from an IFS perspective. And then episode 87 is titled Scrupulosity: When OCD Gets Religion. You know, and it kind of gets into the dynamics around scrupulosity from a very different perspective than what you will typically find in the Catholic world, whether that’s the therapy world or whether that’s the sort of spiritual direction, spiritual formation world, because of the human formation elements that are prominent there. So that really is meaningful to me. Thank you, Fr. Tom, for that. You know, Andrea, like, tell me like what you’ve got as far as a takeaway for our folks, you know.

[01:20:47] Andrea Messineo: Yeah, I had parts that, as Fr. Tom speaking, were really resonating with the message, you know, progress, not perfection. Right. And I was flashing back to a time in my life when I was working pretty closely with university students who had, typically an internal critic part that was very active and condemnatory about them not knowing something or other. And my response would often be along the lines of thinking about what it means to be a student, right? We’re progressing from a state of not knowing to knowing. That’s what we’re supposed to be doing. And so I think, if we do this parts work in that spirit, as you often say, Dr. Peter, of a very little one, that we’re learning, we’re trying to unblend and to grow. I think there’s a lot of freedom, a lot of confidence in that. And just, you know, take all this to prayer, take it to the Lord, you know, check in with parts, as we were saying. Sit at that internal council table and you know, as MacIntyre says, you check with trusted friend or elder, check outside too.

[01:22:11] Dr. Peter: Well, thank you. Thank you for that. And kind of picking up on the council table inside, you know, my takeaway for this is really about not getting caught in either-or. I think a lot of Catholics believe that either you’re blended with a part, a Catholic standard bearer, some moral manager, spiritual manager, something like that. And that’s it. And we don’t want that. So we don’t want the parts involved at all. We just want the innermost self. We just want the innermost self to be leading and guiding the system. We’re gonna keep all these parts, when we do our general examination of conscience, we wanna keep them in the parts daycare where they won’t interfere with the clarity that we need to understand, you know?

[01:22:50] Dr. Peter: And of course they’re gonna be unreliable and they’re gonna have distorted views and so we can’t trust them and we don’t want them here. So that’s the or, right. But I’m looking at a both-and, right. Both the innermost self and the parts coming together to be able to make this examination of conscience. And then to go back to St. Ignatius, that it’s not just about criticism, it’s also about celebrating the successes. It’s also about recognizing when good things happened and to celebrate those together. St. Ignatius is beautiful that way, you know, that he emphasizes not just sort of the negative, problematic side, but also to appreciate, you know, the good and the things that were meritorious, the things that were, you know, improvements. And so to be able to have those both-ands, both the innermost self and the parts in right relationship with the innermost self, ideally, and then the, both the bad and the good, you know, not just one or the other of either of those. so that’s my little takeaway for today. So much gratitude to both of you, to your parts, for being with us here and for the fullness of your persons and blessing us with your time and your wisdom and your experience and your understanding of these things. So really grateful to both of you for that. 

[01:24:12] Andrea Messineo: Thank you for having us.

[01:24:14] Dr. Peter: Alright. So, like this podcast, hit that like button on YouTube or give us a positive review and a positive rating on whichever platform you listen to this podcast on. Subscribe to the IIC podcast. Join the conversation on our channel at Interior Integration for Catholics, number four there. That helps us to get the word out. And links to Fr. Tom Berg’s books are in our YouTube description and a link to Andrea Messineo’s practice is there, along with a link to her book Alone in Church. Now I want to talk with you about our sister podcast Scripture for Your Inner Outcasts. This is a daily podcast where we bring Jesus’ ministry inside to our parts, to all parts of us. Just as Jesus reaches out to all the outcasts of society, we reach out to your inner outcasts, to your exiles, to the parts of you that feel unworthy or unlovable, or that are deemed unpresentable by other parts. So join us in seeing Scripture through a new lens, Scripture coming alive, for those parts of you that have experienced spiritual neglect, maybe some kinds of abuse, parts of you that need healing. The Scripture for Your Inner Outcasts podcast, it aims to help our listeners integrate inside, to heal from emotional burdens, and to grow, to flourish in accepting being loved, and experiencing you loving yourself in an ordered way. So each day we reflect on a verse from sacred Scripture, taken from the daily Mass readings, all informed by Internal Family Systems and other parts work approaches, and all firmly grounded in a Catholic understanding of the human person. So go to soulsandhearts.com/sfyio or go to YouTube or go wherever you listen to podcasts and find Scripture for Your Inner Outcasts and start listening daily.

[01:26:13] Dr. Peter: Okay, last call to all Catholic formators. If you are a Catholic therapist, a spiritual director, a priest, a coach, or anyone who is professionally responsible for the formation of others, you need to attend to your personal human formation first. I’ve been a psychologist for almost 25 years now. I’ve been a supervisor and a consultant for so many therapists, and in recent years I’ve started working with coaches and with spiritual directors and priests and other formators. And by far, by far, when there have been serious issues in formators; work with others and their accompaniment of others, it’s primarily because of deficits in the formators’ human formation. Blind spots, gaps, unaddressed wounds, leading to all kinds of issues in how formators accompany others and sometimes, sometimes with serious consequences. But more often, formators’ unaddressed human formation deficits, the unaddressed stuff inside at the natural level in Catholic therapists and coaches and spiritual directors and priests, it doesn’t necessarily play out in dramatic ways in their relationships with those they accompany. Rather, what’s much more common is that the human formation deficits of Catholic formators lead to mediocrity in their work, just subtly undermining their effectiveness and their capacity to be with those they accompany. So I think it is more than fair for those clients and directees seeking help to ask their therapists or coaches or spiritual directors or priests, what they are doing for their own human formation. And if you are a Catholic formulator, it’s important that you ask yourself what you are doing in your own human formation. We are now in the final days of registration for our Spring foundation experiential groups. These are for Catholic formators. No IFS training is necessary. Go to soulsandhearts.com/fff for more details and start your journey to your human formation in a very deliberate way. And if you are a formator who has done a foundations experiential group, or if you have IFS Level 1 training or equivalent, I am leading an advanced group for formators titled Relating Wholeheartedly with God in Prayer. That will be on Mondays from 10:00 AM to 11:30 AM Eastern Time, starting on March 9th. And we will be reading through Fr. Thomas Ackland and Fr. Boniface Hick’s book Personal Prayer: A Guide for Receiving the Father’s Love. Such an excellent book. But we’re gonna bring in a whole new dimension. We’re gonna bring in Catholic parts work to their guidance. I have some space left in that, a few slots left in that one. Again, check it out at soulsandhearts.com/fff. Dr. Gerry Crete also has two or three spots left in his advanced group titled, Surviving, Healing, Thriving and Flourishing: A Path to Greater Integration. His meets on Wednesdays from 10:00 AM to 11:30 AM Eastern Time, starting on March 11th, 2026. These are all online groups, and again, check it out at soulsandhearts.com/fff. There are links that describe these groups in greater detail. You can also reach out to me. You can reach out to me on my cell phone at ( 317) 567-9594, if you have questions, especially during my conversation hours, which are every Tuesday and Thursday from 4:30 PM to 5:30 PM Eastern time, you can also reach out to me at crisis@soulsandhearts.com to find out more. And then we’ll just bring this to a close by invoking the patrons and the patroness of Souls and Hearts. Our Lady, our Mother, Untier of Knots, pray for us. St. Joseph, pray for us. St. John the Baptist, pray for us.