Cardinal Dolan, Archbishop of New York and President of the USCCB, has stated publicly that the NY diocese pays for health insurance, which under current law includes coverage for contraceptives and abortifacients. Some commentators are claiming that paying for this type of health insurance is the grave sin of formal cooperation with evil. But according to my understanding of Roman Catholic moral theology, it is material cooperation.

In brief, the principle of cooperation with evil is an application of the three fonts of morality to a particular type of knowingly chosen act, one in which your act cooperates with the sinful act of another person. But as always in Catholic moral theology, if all three fonts of morality are good, then the act is morally-permissible, even if it is an act of cooperation with the sin of another person.

The three fonts of morality: (1) intention, (2) moral object, (3) circumstances, correspond to the three types of cooperation with evil.

1. explicit cooperation (intention)

When the cooperation includes the intended end to assist the other person in a sinful act, the cooperative act is called ‘explicit cooperation’. It is always a sin to act with a bad intention. It is always a sin to intend to assist another person’s act in accord with whatever is sinful in that act. When you have no such cooperative intention, but you are cooperating formally or materially, then the cooperation is called implicit, not explicit.

2. formal cooperation (moral object)

When your cooperative act directly assists the intrinsically evil act of another person in attaining its evil moral object, then your cooperative act is called formal cooperation. The moral object of formal cooperation is itself an evil moral object (assisting another act in attaining its evil moral object), and so every act of formal cooperation is itself intrinsically evil and always immoral.

3. material cooperation (circumstances)

When your cooperative act assists the sinful act of another person in the circumstances of the act, then the cooperation is termed ‘material’. This type of cooperation is sometimes moral, and other times immoral. The morality of the act, if there is only good in the intention and only good in the moral object, depends on the moral weight of the reasonably anticipated good and bad consequences for all persons affected by the act (including the bad consequence of scandal). Some acts of material cooperation are moral, and others are immoral.

For a full explanation of the principle of cooperation with evil, see my Kindle booklet: Roman Catholic Teaching on Cooperation with Evil

In Evangelium Vitae, Pope John Paul II defines formal cooperation in abortion as “a direct participation in an act against innocent human life.” When the cooperative act is inherently directed at destroying unborn human life, or more precisely at assisting the act of the other person in destroying unborn human life, then the cooperative act is formal cooperation in abortion. (The same basic principle applies to cooperation with contraception and sterilization.) Thus, a cooperative act is only formal cooperation if its moral object is directed at the moral object of the other person’s sinful act.

Paying for healthcare coverage that includes contraception, sterilization, and abortion is not a direct participation in those sins, but concerns only the circumstances. Heath insurance is not intrinsically evil. Directly paying for insurance is not the same as directly paying for contraception or abortion. The vast majority of the health care services covered by the insurance are good and moral. Some employees will never take advantage of the legal option to obtain contraceptives or abortifacients, especially when the employees are Catholic. So the payment of health insurance premiums is related to the gravely immoral services (abortifacients and contraceptives) only indirectly.

Therefore, it is material cooperation, not formal cooperation. If the employer were to pay for an abortion directly, his sin would be formal, because he is directly participating. But when his participation is indirect, in that he only pays for healthcare insurance in general, then his participation is indirect.

Moreover, in many nations, Catholics must pay taxes to governments that pay for, promote, or even provide, contraception, sterilization, and abortion. This type of participation is morally the same as the employer paying for healthcare coverage. The citizen pays taxes, which provide for many different types of services to the nation, including abortion. The citizen is not directly paying for abortion. And the faithful Catholic citizen does not intentionally or willingly cooperate in whatever is sinful in the use of the tax money. And so the cooperation of paying taxes to a government that pays for abortions, or even provides abortions through the State-run healthcare system (e.g. Canada, England), is implicit material cooperation, not formal cooperation.

If paying for health insurance were formal cooperation, then paying taxes would also be formal cooperation. But Jesus (and His Church) permit the paying of taxes, even when some of that money is used to commit grave sins:

[Luke]
{20:22} Is it lawful for us to pay the tribute to Caesar, or not?”
{20:23} But realizing their deceitfulness, he said to them: “Why do you test me?
{20:24} Show me a denarius. Whose image and inscription does it have?” In response, they said to him, “Caesar’s.”
{20:25} And so, he said to them: “Then repay the things that are Caesar’s, to Caesar, and the things that are God’s, to God.”

The Romans worshipped pagan gods; they considered many of the Caesars to be gods. They engaged in unjust wars, conquering other nations merely to obtain more money and power. They approved of and engaged in slavery. They oppressed the peoples that they conquered. And yet Christ taught that is it morally lawful to pay taxes to such a government. This teaching is a clear example of moral material cooperation with evil.

Is it moral for a Catholic to pay taxes when the government of his nation uses some of that money to engage in an unjust war, to promote contraception, sterilization, and abortion, or to pay for abortions? Yes, it is moral, if the reasonably anticipated good consequences of cooperation equal or outweigh the bad consequences. If cooperation avoids the grave harm of imprisonment, loss of one’s job, inability to support one’s family, etc., and if the bad consequences of cooperation are reduced in moral weight because they are more distant from one’s own action (the more remote a bad consequence is, the less its moral weight), then the cooperative act may well be moral.

See also:
Doctrinal Error in the USCCB Statement on Religious Liberty
Does a Catholic business owner sin by cooperating with the HHS Mandate?
Cardinal Burke’s Error on Contraceptive Coverage

by
Ronald L. Conte Jr.
Roman Catholic theologian and
translator of the Catholic Public Domain Version of the Bible.