Conscience

Certainly under the idea of conscience there can sneak in the canonization of a superego which prevents people from becoming themselves; the absolute call on the person to become responsible is then overlaid by a structure of conventions that is wrongly presented as the voice of God when in truth it is only the voice of the past, fear of which is blocking the present. Conscience can also become an alibi for the fact that one has let oneself be carried away and cannot be told anything, when one's defiant inability to correct oneself is justified by loyalty to one's inner voice. Conscience then becomes the principle of subjective obstinacy established as an absolute, just as in the other case it becomes the principle of the ego losing its autonomy by surrendering to the ideas of other people or an alien ego. To this extent the concept of conscience needs continual refining, and laying claim or appealing to conscience stands in need of a cautious honesty that is aware that one abuses something that is great when one rashly calls it into play. Someone who talks all too easily of conscience arouses suspicions similar to those aroused by the person who drags the holy name of God into anything and everything and thus serves idols rather than God.
-Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger

SJVB

"...the canonization of a superego". He really has a way with words

When we go about not doubting our intentions, not questioning our motives and claiming our conscience is clear, perhaps it's time to stop and examine ourselves more honestly.