Political Cooperation in Evil

by Fr. Roger J. Landry - October 27, 2006

In last week's editorial on voting guides, the question was raised about the responsibilities of a faithful Catholic with respect to candidates who support the evil of abortion. Brief mention was made to a 2004 letter of then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger to the U.S. bishops in which he described, among other things, what would constitute sinful cooperation by a Catholic voter in the politician's support of abortion — and what would, therefore, lead to a Catholic voter's incapacity to receive holy Communion because of that sin.

The principles the future Pope Benedict elucidated are of obvious relevance to Catholics with respect to both the upcoming elections and the proper conditions for worthily receiving Holy Communion.

Cardinal Ratzinger wrote with his characteristic clarity and conciseness, while incorporating some classical distinctions and terminology from Catholic moral theology.

He began by stating, "A Catholic would be guilty of formal cooperation in evil, and so unworthy to present himself for Holy Communion if he were to deliberately vote for a candidate precisely because of the candidate's permissive stand on abortion and/or euthanasia."

Formal cooperation means when one shares the bad will or intention of the other committing the sin; in this case, it would mean that one agrees with the candidate's support of abortion. This would be seriously sinful and would make one unworthy to receive Holy Communion.

Then he continues, "When a Catholic does not share a candidate's stand in favor of abortion and/or euthanasia, but votes for that candidate for other reasons, it is considered remote material cooperation, which can be permitted in the presence of proportionate reasons."

It is helpful to flesh out and understand the premises to his conclusion. Material cooperation means one enables the evil action of another without sharing the other's evil intention. Catholic Moral theology teaches that material cooperation can be licit when the action is good or indifferent in itself and one has a reason for doing it that is just, proportionate to the gravity of the other's sin and proportioned to the closeness of the assistance which is thereby given to the carrying out of that sin.

Applying these distinctions to the issue of voting for a candidate who supports abortion, we could say that under ordinary circumstances, three criteria can be readily fulfilled: the action of voting itself is good; the closeness of the assistance that would come from one vote in a general election is sufficiently "remote" that the evil would likely still occur without the help of one's vote; and presumably most of the non-abortion-related issues for which a pro-life voter might be led to consider voting for a candidate who supports abortion would be "just" rather than evil.

Therefore, whether the act of voting for a candidate who supports abortion would be good or evil would generally hinge on the fourth criterion: whether the reason for doing so is "proportionate to the gravity of the other's sin." The other's sin in this case would be, minimally, this public figure's support of the destruction of innocent human life through abortion and, maximally, the consequences of what the candidate was able to do to legalize, fund it and expand it.

In the case of an election between two otherwise eligible candidates, one who supports abortion and one who opposes it, a faithful Catholic who wants to support the former would have to have, not just any reasons, but reasons that would morally outweigh the evil done by the candidate's advancing of the cause of the destruction of innocent human life. It would be hard to imagine that fondness for a candidate's party affiliation, or economic ideas, or even philosophical approach to bigger or smaller government would suffice to prevent an evil greater than the evil of abortion the candidate is advancing.

In some cases, however, there might be sufficiently weighty justification. One can recall a recent southern election when the pro-life candidate was also a former leader of the Ku Klux Klan, and many Catholic pro-lifers concluded that to support such a virulent racist who denied the dignity of non-whites would set the pro-life cause back generations.

Another case is an unfortunately common one in our Commonwealth: when both or all candidates are supporters of abortion. In this circumstance, a faithful Catholic could morally vote for one of the candidates for "proportionate reasons," such as the conviction that one candidate would do less harm to innocent unborn children if elected; the candidate might be willing to vote to ban partial-birth abortion, to allow for parental notification or waiting periods, to regulate abortion facilities, or to support pregnancy assistance centers. In voting for this person, one would not be choosing the lesser of two evils — because it is never licit to choose evil — but choosing, rather, the good of limiting the even greater evil that other candidates might do.

These principles which we have applied to the subject of abortion are also relevant to candidates who support other unjustifiable and intrinsic evils, such as euthanasia, human embryonic stem cell research and cloning, and same-sex marriage.

The Church does not tell the faithful for whom to vote, but it has the duty to form properly the consciences of Catholics so that they may live their faith in all their daily activities. Our conscience refers not to our own preferences, opinions, values or sets of priorities, but to the means God has given us to listen to his voice about what to do and what to shun in particular circumstances. The conscience is not the origin of truth, but the means to recognize the truth revealed by God — through our reason, through Sacred Scripture and through the teaching of the Church he founded — and apply it to our concrete choices, including the moral choice about for whom to vote.

The principles found in the future Pope Benedict's letter seek to help us to do just that.

Father Roger J. Landry is pastor of St. Anthony of Padua in New Bedford, MA and Executive Editor of The Anchor, the weekly newspaper of the Diocese of Fall River.