Particular Questions Concerning Cooperation

a. Just as sins, so also cooperations in sins occur in every kind of life (religious, moral, political, social, economic, etc.) and are furnished by men of any condition; therefore the questions to be solved are most diverse and sometimes sufficiently difficult.

b. The following questions are considered only under the aspect of cooperation; but from the character of scandal and from the intention of the one cooperating, which could be evil, abstraction is made. It is clear that a greater cause is required for an action to become licit in which the character of cooperation and the character of scandal are joined, as in the printing of an evil book.

122. On cooperation in false rites. a. To build churches of heretics, unless labors of this kind are demanded in hatred of the Christian religion or for profession of false worship, is of itself material cooperation, and remote; yet it is not equal in all who concur in such a work. Wherefore it is not licit to cooperate in building or restoring a church of this kind in the office of architect or overseer of the building except from a grave cause; but in the office of a secondary worker it is licit from a lighter cause, yet not from the sole reason of the profit to be received from the wage paid.

a. Moreover, the circumstances of this cooperation must be considered. For if it concerns a recent sect, or a place where the sect has not hitherto been admitted, cooperation of this kind takes on the appearance of favor toward heresy, and therefore of formal cooperation; wherefore, at least for architects and overseers of the building, it would be licit only from a very grave cause, from which the cooperation itself would be understood to be only material. A similar judgment must be made concerning buildings which serve impious sects, such as Freemasons or socialists, for their meetings.

b. Although the Holy See has permitted cooperation in building Mohammedan temples from a grave cause,¹ nevertheless it has never permitted, not even for avoiding death, that Christians apply their labor to building temples of idols.² This seems to have been done because in individual cases it was established that the erection of the temple was held as a protestative fact of false worship; hence outside this case cooperation in building temples of idols seems to be permitted. Yet a much graver cause is required for cooperation in building temples of idols to become licit.³

b. To sell utensils necessary for a non-Catholic rite, for example benches, tables, cloths, lamps, etc., is remote cooperation, for which the mere reason of profit to be received from the sale excuses. But the more the use of these things is required for the false rite itself, such as vestments with which they are clothed in exercising rites, or bread which they use in the supper, the graver the cause required for their making and sale to become licit, because the cooperation is nearer.

c. To make works of art for the heretics themselves requesting them, for adorning a non-Catholic church, if the work itself is good or indifferent, for example an image of the crucified one, organs, bells, and things of this kind, is not licit from the sole reason of profit, because these things contribute to increasing the splendor of the rite and to promoting the sect. Since therefore in this case the character of scandal also is added, a greater cause is required in order that both cooperation and scandal can be permitted.

d. Whether it is licit to contribute money to idolatries. a. If money is contributed spontaneously, the cooperation is formal and illicit. b. If money is contributed under compulsion, and indeed as a tax offered to the community, which from it also contributes to heretical or superstitious worship, the difficulty is less, because the tax offered can also be applied to indifferent ends. c. If money is contributed under compulsion, and indeed immediately for superstitious worship or for building a temple, the contribution contains in itself external consent with the evil intention of heretics or unbelievers, and external favor furnished to heresy or idolatry. But if in some way it can be brought about that consent with heretics is excluded from the contribution, for example by a protestation made beforehand, the contribution can be licit.⁴ From the same cause and under the same conditions it is also licit to contribute money for building churches of heretics; for although it is known that the money is applied only to an evil use, nevertheless the action itself is not intrinsically evil, because it does not necessarily contain approval of the false sect.

a. Concerning this matter the response of the Sacred Penitentiary (1822) must be noted: that contributing money for building heretical churches is licit only if in this way Catholics, who celebrate worship in the same church with Protestants, can free themselves from this scandalous simultaneity. From this response two things are gathered: first indeed, that the very action of contributing money is not evil in itself; but then, that the Sacred Penitentiary indicated only a cause of common damage as sufficient for this cooperation to be excused. Nevertheless authors think that a grave cause of private damage can also excuse this cooperation.⁵

b. In places in which Catholics live mixed with Protestants, it is licit for Catholics to contribute money for building or sustaining schools or orphanages of Protestants: for the end of these buildings is not religious, but one of providing instruction or mercy. Yet a twofold condition is required: that scandal arising from this be absent, namely that the contribution of money not be considered as favor furnished to a false sect, and that it be established that the money is not applied to perverting Catholics who are received in these institutions.⁶

c. Whether it is a sin to give money to some socialist or liberal association depends on the end of the association. If the end is evil in every respect, as to attack the Catholic Church, to promote heresy, to help the election of a socialist candidate, the donation is intrinsically evil: for to give money to an association of this kind is the same as to promote its end. If the end of the association is honorable (care of the sick, support of the poor, education, etc.), nevertheless it is not licit without an excusing cause, because in pursuing the end the evil principles of the association supply the norm.

d. To summon a heretical minister to a dying person who asks that minister to administer to him the religious rite of his sect is illicit induction to evil; but if nothing else is said to the minister except that there is a sick person who asks for him, it is an indifferent thing, yet nevertheless proximate cooperation, which from the circumstances can easily be understood wrongly; therefore it seems to be excused only from a grave cause of necessity.⁷

Whether it is licit to take care that an illicit action to be furnished by office be furnished by another because of conscience. It is not licit to ask another that he himself furnish the illicit action in one's place: for this would be to induce another to sin, which is not licit even when the other commits only material sin. But it is licit to permit another to have to perform an illicit action in one's place. If Christian servants hire out their work to a community together with unbelievers, they can ask the prefect, indeed even make an agreement with him, that superstitious works not be assigned to them, although they foresee that pagans will perform them: in the case, they permit what they cannot prevent.

¹ Sacred Congregation de Propaganda Fide, November 21, 1837.

² Holy Office, January 8, 1851, and several other times.

³ Cf. Th. Gallo, Suppetiae missionariorum, Rome and Turin: Marietti, 1872, I, p. 197.

⁴ Holy Office, April 21, 1847.

⁵ Cf. Genicot, I, n. 237.

⁶ Lehmkuhl, I, n. 660.

⁷ Holy Office, December 26, 1898.

123. On the cooperation of craftsmen and merchants. a. Those who make or sell things evil in themselves, which neither have nor can have a good use, can never be excused from the sin of formal cooperation.

b. Those who make or sell indifferent things which buyers can abuse for evil, for example dice, cosmetics, swords, feminine ornaments, etc., are excused from sin, although they foresee that several (indeterminate) buyers will abuse them; for no greater cause is required to render this sale honorable than the ordinary profit which is received from their sale. Yet if it were certain that a determinate buyer was going to abuse that thing, the loss of the price to be received from it would not be a sufficient cause of making or selling the thing; but a greater cause would be required, yet not a grave one, where the matter concerns a thing saleable even otherwise, so that by denied sale the sin would not be prevented. But where the sin of the buyer can be prevented by denied sale, the sale is licit only because of a grave cause.

c. To make or sell things which are indeed indifferent in themselves but by their nature very rarely have a good use (as idols, ornaments which are used only for the worship of idolatry, signs of Freemasons, obscene images and statues, and things of this kind), and are manifestly sought or bought from an evil intention, is licit only from a gravest cause, and therefore commonly is altogether illicit (n. 120).

Merchants are not ordinarily bound to inquire for what use things indifferent in themselves are bought, since this burden would be too grave. Yet if some thing to be sold is accustomed to be applied to a harmful use (as certain poisons), it is not licit to sell it unless it is morally established that the buyer is not going to abuse it, or a gravest cause urges.

According to the same norms, the case which St. Alphonsus (n. 69) seems to solve more strictly will also have to be solved. For he judges that it is not licit to sell wine to one who will then sell wine mixed with water, except from a gravest cause, namely from fear of death or infamy. Other authors permit this if the wine cannot be sold to other buyers without great loss.¹

¹ Lehmkuhl, I, n. 673.

124. On cooperation in evil newspapers.¹ Several concur in publishing evil newspapers and in the sins which are committed by the reading of them.

a. Readers: some sometimes buy and read the paper; others are subscribers and by their subscription cooperate in preserving and propagating the newspaper. And the first indeed cooperate very remotely; therefore any light cause excuses them from sin on this side, scandal being excluded, for example the utility of reading, recreation, etc. Those who subscribe to the paper and sustain it with their money cooperate proximately; therefore only a grave cause excuses these from sin, for example great utility in managing their business.

One who from a reasonable cause can licitly subscribe to an evil paper ought to guard against two things: a. danger of perversion; wherefore, besides those things which pertain to his business, he can licitly read nothing except merely indifferent things; b. scandal, which household members and outsiders can take; wherefore on the one hand he ought to declare that he has a just cause for reading that paper, but that he rejects its principles, and on the other hand he ought to take care that the paper does not fall into the hands of household members.

b. Writers: some are editors, others collaborators, and these indeed are either ordinary or extraordinary, who only sometimes insert an article in an evil paper.

a. Editors and writers who acknowledge the principles defended by the paper and according to the same principles edit the paper or compose articles manifestly cooperate formally, and therefore cannot be excused from grave sin.

b. Ordinary writers who do not acknowledge the principles, and therefore cooperate materially and write articles indifferent and harmless of themselves, sin by cooperation more or less proximate according as by their articles the paper is commended and propagated more or less; wherefore only a more or less grave cause can excuse them from sin. Such certainly is not the greater profit which they receive from it, but only the profit which they need for the support of themselves or their dependents. But they must always take care that scandal be prevented, which can be prepared for those who have knowledge of the cooperation.

c. Extraordinary writers cooperate remotely; wherefore without a just cause it is not licit to insert one's productions in evil papers, yet a moderately grave cause excuses from this cooperation. Likewise to insert announcements of sales, rentals, and things of this kind (Inserate) in evil papers is not licit without a just cause excusing this cooperation. But the cause must be greater the more announcements of this kind cause the papers to be propagated more widely and sustained more easily. Wherefore, since the announcements of individual persons ordinarily do not contribute much to this, a light advantage received from it excuses from this cooperation.

It can happen that the circumstances of newspapers and of readers otherwise heretical are such that one who takes care that his good articles be inserted in them obtains an occasion of setting forth true and good principles to the readers. In these circumstances the cooperation is not illicit, provided the esteem of the evil newspaper and its number are not increased.²

c. Those who sell, distribute, etc., evil newspapers indeed cooperate proximately, yet not so proximately as those who print them; wherefore these also can licitly be occupied in this work only to avoid very grave inconvenience, until they have found another means of obtaining a livelihood.

¹ Cf. Villada, Casus conscientiae, 2nd ed., I, p. 95 ff.

² Cf. the Constitution Officiorum ac munerum of Leo XIII (January 25, 1897), n. 22: "Let no one of the Catholics, especially of ecclesiastical men, publish anything in newspapers, papers, or periodical booklets of this kind, unless a just and reasonable cause advises it."

125. On the cooperation of innkeepers. Innkeepers can cooperate in the sins of others chiefly in three ways:

1. By furnishing forbidden foods. a. It is not licit voluntarily to offer forbidden foods to guests: for this would be to invite them to sin.

b. It is licit to serve meats on prohibited days to those asking for them, because it would be too hard and dangerous to ask individuals whether they have a legitimate cause; but if it is established that they are not excused, meats can be supplied only from a grave reason of notable damage, as if otherwise the gathering of guests would be notably diminished.

c. Hence if they foresee that there will be guests who ask for prohibited foods, they can set the table with licit and illicit foods; and if they foresee that no one will ask for fasting foods, they can prepare only meat foods. But they are bound to admonish the guests that they can receive fasting foods, and they ought to serve such foods to those asking.

In a private family in which a table is provided for outsiders for a paid price, it is not licit without a special cause to cooperate in violating abstinence; therefore even to those asking, forbidden foods cannot so easily be supplied. Yet a moderately grave cause excuses this cooperation if the sin cannot be prevented by denied supplying.

2. By serving wine. a. It is never licit spontaneously to offer wine to one who is foreseen as going to become drunk from it; for this supplying would be formal cooperation.

b. It is licit from the sole cause of profit to serve wine to guests flowing in indiscriminately, although it is foreseen in a confused way that some of them will sin by drunkenness, quarrels, and blasphemies, both because the sins cannot be prevented (for wine will be supplied to them in other taverns), and because the innkeeper would undergo grave damage; for since sins of this kind ordinarily happen in taverns, he would suffer a great loss of guests.

c. But in a particular case it is not licit to serve wine which he asks for to a guest who will become drunk, from the sole cause of profit nor because of the guest's indignation; but for cooperation in a determinate and certain sin to be licit, a graver cause is required, for example fear of a quarrel, blasphemy, or notable damage from the diminution of guests.¹

3. By proposing evil newspapers. a. It is not licit to expose newspapers which are altogether evil, namely which almost always are opposed to faith or good morals, although they may be asked for by many who on that account will leave the inn; for the damage of the innkeeper, although grave, cannot be a sufficient cause for permitting the spiritual ruin of many which would follow from it. It is added that newspapers of this kind are also prohibited by ecclesiastical law.²

b. Newspapers which only more rarely contain something that is opposed to faith or good morals can be supplied to those asking in a separate place if otherwise they would suffer notable damage.

c. Only if it is established by experience that almost all guests ask for those papers and otherwise would leave the inn, can they be publicly proposed, provided good newspapers are also exposed at the same time. Thus in greater cities it can scarcely any longer be prevented that papers of this kind are now publicly exposed by innkeepers.

¹ Cf. Ethel-Bierbaum, Theologia moralis, 2nd ed., I, pr. 1, n. 17.

² Constitution Officiorum ac munerum, n. 21.

126. On the cooperation of a bookseller through evil books. a. To sell a prohibited book which is altogether evil or harmful to faith and good morals, so that it has no good use, is in no way licit.

b. To sell a prohibited book which is not evil in every respect, but also contains useful things, which nevertheless the buyer is going to abuse, is licit from a grave cause of necessity.

c. Booksellers are not bound to inquire for what end a book is bought, but they can sell it to all whom, with regard to their quality, they prudently think to ask for it licitly; otherwise a too grave burden would be imposed upon them. If they doubt concerning the good use of the book, they can sell it, because no one is to be presumed evil.¹

¹ Cf. Constitution Officiorum ac munerum, n. 46.

127. On the cooperation of printers. All who are occupied in print shops help the publisher of a book in publishing an evil work, some remotely, others more or less proximately.

a. The printer himself, or owner of the print shop, can never licitly undertake the printing of an evil book: for to undertake to print a written book is to cooperate formally and to induce others to cooperate.

b. The cooperation of those who direct the print shop, set the type, and correct the pages is proximate; since their action is not evil in itself, it is licit for them to cooperate from a gravest cause (as if otherwise they would lack necessary support for themselves and their dependents), except in the case in which the book is so evil that it cannot have a good end.

Those correcting the printed pages are referred by all authors both to those reading an evil book and to those cooperating in its publication, but by some to those cooperating proximately, by others to those cooperating remotely.

c. The cooperation of those who place the paper on the types, prepare the ink and paper, arrange and bind the pages already printed, move the machines and take care of them, is rather proximate; from a grave cause it is licit for these to cooperate.

d. The cooperation of those who sell to the printer ink, paper, machines, and other things necessary for the printing of a book is remote; wherefore the price to be received from the sale already excuses this cooperation.

In a print shop in which almost exclusively perverse books and evil newspapers are printed, it is not licit to place one's work. Those who cooperate in a print shop of this kind are bound under grave obligation to leave it if they cooperate proximately in the evil; but if they cooperate only rather proximately or remotely, they can remain if they cannot withdraw without notable damage. In a print shop in which good and evil books are printed indiscriminately, it is licit to take work for a light cause or only for a grave cause according to the diversity of cooperation.

128. On cooperation through dances. a. Dances must be considered in a twofold way: insofar as they are an occasion of sinning for those taking part, and insofar as for those arranging them they contain cooperation in the sins of others. Of dances considered in the first way there is discussion elsewhere; concerning dances under this other aspect something must be said here. The matter concerns the arranging of dances (Veranstaltung einer Tanzunterhaltung), which several persons indeterminately abuse for sin.

b. Among those cooperating through dances, the first place is held by those arranging and inviting to them; the second, musicians; the third, those renting their houses or halls for this end.

c. Those arranging and inviting sin gravely if the dances are gravely dishonorable; they sin lightly if the dances are lightly dishonorable: for they induce to a thing gravely or lightly evil. If the dances are honorable, they do not indeed sin by inviting; but by arranging the dances they cooperate in the sins which are committed in them.

d. Musicians, if the dances are dishonorable, cannot licitly concur except from a graver cause, because the sounds directing dishonorable dances constitute part of the dishonorable dance itself and therefore proximate cooperation. If the dances are not dishonorable, it is licit to concur from a light cause.

e. Those renting halls cooperate remotely; wherefore already the cause of losing profit excuses them, even if the dances are dishonorable, when, if they do not rent, there are others who will rent their house for this end. But if the dances would be prevented by their not renting, a greater cause is required.

129. On the cooperation of servants in the sins of masters. a. Actions which concur only remotely in the sin of the master, which cannot be prevented by denied cooperation, are excused because of the mere reason of service. Therefore from this cause alone it is licit to set wine before a master about to become drunk, to prepare meats on a day of abstinence, to buy or bring evil books or evil papers, to drive the master by carriage to the house of a mistress, to carry gifts to a mistress, etc.

b. Actions which cooperate rather proximately or proximately in the sin of the master are not excused unless another proportionately grave cause is added to the reason of service. How great this must be should be determined in a particular case by prudent judgment, with all its circumstances considered. Therefore only for avoiding grave damage is it licit to carry love letters written by a master to a mistress, or to keep watch while the master is with a mistress.

It can be permitted to drivers that they furnish their service indiscriminately to all, both because they are not bound to ask individuals for what end they seek a determinate place, and because, even if they know the evil end, nevertheless they cannot prevent the sin, and finally because they incur grave damage unless they offer their office to all.

With this resolution agrees the response of the Holy Office that Christians are not to be disturbed who, by boats or sedan chairs by which all persons indiscriminately are customarily transferred from place to place, convey even those gentiles who go to the sepulchers of their ancestors to exercise superstitions there.¹

¹ Holy Office, July 12, 1854.