Fr. Petri, however, took issue with this definition, saying that “immediate material cooperation” is normally defined as a situation in which “my action is necessary for the commission of the evil, and without my action the evil would not be committed

Thanks for the hard examples.

First, as far as I can tell, none of those constitute instances of formal cooperation. Again, from what I can tell, formal cooperation refers to an overlap of intention on the part of the cooperator. That is completely different from foresight into what his or her cooperation will result in. All of these instances, presuming that there is no intention on the part of the employers that any of their employees use the abortifacients or euthanasia kits, constitute instances of mediate or immediate material cooperation.

Second, that being the case, the employers must take into consideration the question of material cooperation and to what degree they feel it compromises their mission and causes dangerous “seepage” for themselves and their company and employees. There is also the question of scandal, since from a purely outside perspective, immediate material cooperation looks almost identical to formal cooperation. However, even in the case of immediate material cooperation, discernment is required and allowable since both personal duress and the common good must be taken into account.

I’ll lay out a few scenarios to try and see where you come down on this. Feel free to add more if you think it would help draw the distinction.

1) The government tells employers they must pay for abortifacients/euthenasia kits, though the physical distribution and use will be handled by others.
2) The government tells employers they must pay for and distribute abortifacients/euthanasia kits to their employees for self administration
3) The government tells employers that they must pay for both abortifacients/euthenasia kits and for a doctor to supervise their proper use.
4) The government tells employers that in addition to #3, they must provide office space for the doctor at their place of work.
5) The government tells employers that in addition to #4, they must provide someone to physically assist the doctor in carrying out the abortion/euthanasia if he or she can’t handle it alone.

Are you suggesting that it is only material cooperation if I pay a company to buy euthanasia kits and stock them in a warehouse down the street from where I work so any of my employees having a tough time in life can get their free death kit? It seems to me that if you pay for something that is intrinsically evil knowing people will likely avail themselves of that evil, then you are formally cooperating in that intrinsic evil. Just because an employer uses a middle man to distribute the euthanasia kits to their employees doesn’t remove them from the realm of formal cooperation.

The arguments to your position are listed here: http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/moral-theologians-reject-catholic-writers-defense-of-hhs-mandate/

Curious as to your thoughts…

First, I think that if this were a case of immediate material cooperation, Catholic hospitals could still provide this coverage on the basis of duress and for the sake of the common good. That is not to say that they should not fight the mandate. The danger of providing the coverage is that there is a possibility of contamination through seepage and self-deception. But it would still be allowable.

Second, I see this as mediate material cooperation rather than immediate. It is more like the situation of say me being a landlord and offering unfiltered internet access as part of the rent. Currently Catholic hospitals offer filtered access. With unfiltered access, I could not guarantee that no one would look at pornography or take part in illegal activities on the internet that I’m paying for, but my cooperation in those activities would only be mediate.