Sir, – The final sentence of Vincent Twomey's letter of December 7th provides the key to his take on my Rite and Reason piece ("Why would voting Biden not fall in line with Catholic teaching?", October 27th), for it means that he thinks that US president-elect Joe Biden is guilty of "formal co-operation in evil".
It’s also a key to our differences, since I hold that that verdict is untenable.
Formal co-operation is a technical term in Catholic moral theology and teaching, meaning that the co-operator not only facilitated some wrong-doing, but that he or she intended and wanted the wrong to be done.
It’s distinguished from co-operation that’s “material”, a contribution to the outcome which itself is morally neutral or good, and in itself does not signify moral approval.
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A judgment that someone’s co-operation is formal presupposes knowledge of that person’s mind and heart and will, and I’m at a total loss to know how Prof Twomey can claim that knowledge of Mr Biden.
The paragraph which purports to render Mr Biden’s record on abortion tells us nothing about his conscience; nor could it, even if the account it offered were accurate. So, if the US president-elect’s situation is to be analysed in terms of co-operation in another’s wrongdoing, in my view it can only be as an instance of material co-operation.
Whether material co-operation is justified or not depends on the circumstances as well as on one’s intention: in particular, on how close to or remote from the wrong-doing one’s contribution is, and whether there is what the textbooks call a proportionate or commensurate reason for choosing to do something whose consequences include enabling what is morally wrong.
Voting for a law which permits abortion is a remote contribution to any abortion that will take place as a result. And, starting from passages in the US bishops’ pre-election document Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship, and mindful of dicta of Pope Francis, and drawing on a tradition of thinking that reaches back through centuries, I would argue that there is a proportionate reason for the course pursued by Joe Biden and his Catholic colleagues.
But there isn’t space for that here, Sir, and lest you and your readers find your patience – and your memory – already strained by exchanges that began over a month ago, may I suggest to Vincent Twomey that if he wishes to continue the discussion, he’s always welcome to do so at my place when he’s next in Maynooth. – Yours, etc,
PATRICK HANNON,
Emeritus Professor
of Moral Theology),
St Patrick’s College,
Maynooth,
Co Kildare.