Questions to the Moralist - Personal Web Server - Boston College

approached a person and asked for a contraceptive (condom or pill) from him. Now he is
somewhat guilty. He knows that this is not allowed by the church here but he also wants
to be a doctor. Can I solicit your thoughts Fr. Jim. I know this is in connection with
cooperation with evil or is it?
Thank you and hoping to hear from you. Best regards.
Fr. Bretzke replies
Thanks for your e-mail and the case you're asking my opinion on. I can't give as
complete an answer as I would like, since there are still some factors that I'm not sure I
understand. Chief among these would be the degree of freedom the man has in refusing
to distribute contraceptive devices. If he has to do this in order to continue his medical
training (i.e., the only viable options would seem to be leaving the medical field entirely,
or doing this required internship) then I think we would call this "material cooperation"
but not "formal cooperation" and it would be morally allowed. His action would be
somewhat equivalent to Catholic organizations in my country which are required by
certain states to offer all of their workers health insurance that covers the cost of
contraceptives. These organizations could "refuse" to offer this insurance, but then they
would have to go out of business and the many good works that they perform would
cease. So they offer this legally-mandated insurance even though they would not do so
otherwise. Moralists and bishops have accepted this practice.
If, on the other hand, the man has a great deal of freedom to both pursue his medical
training and to choose to distribute contraceptives or not, then in this case I don't think he
should do it. Again, a case from my own country may illustrate this point: often our
university students who live in our dormitories routinely ask that contraceptives be made
available to them in the dorm lobby or through the University health center. We are
under no legal obligation to do this, and if we made these devices available under these
circumstances, then I think we would be guilty of causing scandal, and possibly of
engaging in formal (sinful) cooperation with evil.
So, I'm not sure which of these two illustrative cases best fits your person's situation, but
perhaps with this clarification in mind you can help him out. Please remember that the
issue of contraception is certainly distinct from the issue of abortion, in which a human
life would be taken. Certainly in the case of elective abortion I think it would be difficult
to cooperate with this action. Contraception, while still condemned by current Church
magisterial teaching, does not carry with it the same level of condemnation and gravity of
objective sin as a procured, elective abortion. So the issue of the relative gravity (greater
vs. lesser) of the act in question also comes into play. Finally, another aspect to keep in
mind is the "essentialness" of the role the medical intern is playing. If the intern is
absolutely critical to the action and could not easily be replaced by another, then his
responsibility would be greater. But if his role could be relatively easily taken by another
then his responsibility would be less, since he is less crucial to the whole operation. I
covered these points in class in the Power Point Presentation on the principles for doing
evil to achieve good. I just tried to access this on the LST web-site and couldn't get it.
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