Is a Vote for Trump Formal Cooperation with Evil?

A discussion came up in the comment section yesterday on the Tulsi Gabbard post about whether a Catholic commits a mortal sin by voting for Trump. You can read the discussion here. It started with a priest preaching that you can never vote for a candidate who supports an intrinsic moral evil. The reader who commented raised the question of whether the fact that Trump has endorsed IVF and even inserted it into the GOP platform disqualifies him from the Catholic vote. Correct me if I'm wrong, Aqua. 

Hmmm...True or false?

I did not hear the sermon so I can't comment on that; I only have the reader's brief description. Did the priest explain the distinction between formal and material cooperation with evil? That's where the rubber meets the road, I think. 

Thank God for a Few Good Priests! Like Alfie's Defender Don Gabriele Brusco

This photo of Fr. Brusco is on the parish website of Our Lady of Lourdes in London where he serves as an associate pastor. He was ordered by Archbishop McMahon of lIverpool to leave Alder Hey and the bedside of Alfie Evans and return to the parish. Why? For daring to warn the staff about their culpability in cooperating with evil. Watch for further punishent of this good priest.

If you've followed Alfie's story, you know that there was one heroic spiritual presence accompanying (to use Pope Francis' word) the family. Fr. Gabriele Brusco never wavered in his support of Baby Alfie. He gave the toddler the sacraments of Confirmation and the Anointing of the Sick and challenged the staff at Alder Hey not to cooperate with evil. I read this testimonial to Father's heroic witness at Torch of the Faith:

Cooperating with Evil is a Sin -- Especially When You're Wearing a Roman Collar!

Is this wolf in sheep's skin
wearing a roman collar?

My colleague Janet at Restore DC Catholicism posted a great video on the nine ways individuals participate in the sins of others. Cooperation with evil is, in fact, evil.

You don't have to commit a murder to be a party to it. The boyfriend who urges and pays for his girlfriend's abortion is every bit as guilty of killing their baby (perhaps more so) as the mother who agrees to it. The nurse who neglects a patient at the order of a doctor, participates in the death that follows. All those silent staff members complicit in the starvation and dehydration of Terri Schiavo were cooperators in her deliberate murder including Bishop Lynch of St. Petersburg, FL who aided and abetted it using his bully pulpit to endorse it. In 2007 when Lynch retired, Bobby Schindler wrote an open letter decrying the bishop's support for Terri's euthanasia saying, "When bishops don't do their job, innocent people die."

Just Because the Mouse is in the Cookie Jar Doesn't Make Him a Cookie....

Isn't that Fr. Jenkins on the left?

....and calling yourself a Catholic University sure doesn't make you one!

As my mom used to say, "Actions speak louder than words!" and Notre Dame buried its Catholic identity a long time ago. Theodore Hesburgh was the chief grave digger, but current president Fr. John Jenkins has picked up the shovel and continues digging with enthusiasm.

You remember Fr. Jenkins, right? He's the  university head bureaucrat who gushed and drooled over Obama at the 2009 graduation while he targeted real Catholics for protesting and carrying signs on campus. Can't let those rigid, fanatical Catholics who actually believe what the Church teaches rain on his parade, right?

Nurses' Association Joins the Death Peddlers

Remember the midwives of Egypt during the slave days of the chosen people? They refused to kill the male babies telling the authorities that the Israelite women delivered without their help before they could arrive. Hence, they avoided becoming cooperators in infant killing. 

But that was then and this is now.

The American Nurses Association (ANA) recently amended their statement on Nutrition and Hydration at the End of Life. The amended document approves of assisting patients to kill themselves by starvation and dehydration, even those who are suffering from dementia. Read Nancy Valko's commentary on their decision here.

The language is specifically geared to make their decision sound like it respects the dignity of the patient, as if any preference of a patient is legitimate. But what this does is to endanger nurses who don't want to cooperate in evil, as well as the patients for whom they care. 

Cooperation with Evil: our Cultural Epidemic

Many otherwise moral people in our culture who would never think of directly committing a gravely evil sin, like abortion or sodomy, nevertheless consider it a positive virtue to approve of and cooperate in these and other depravities when committed by others. Under the mask of tolerance and compassion they take what I call the “Norfolk approach” to morality. The Duke of Norfolk, remember, in the play A Man for All Seasons, is a friend of England’s chancellor, Thomas More, who resigns after Henry VIII declares himself head of the Church in England. When the king demands More take the Oath of Supremacy which includes public affirmation that the king’s valid marriage to Catherine of Aragon was unlawful, he refuses. Norfolk, who along with most of the nobility and clergy capitulates to the king’s demand, urges Thomas to join them “for fellowship.” The saint’s reply? “And when we stand before God, and you are sent to Paradise for doing according to your conscience, and I am damned for not doing according to mine, will you come with me for fellowship?”1 Many, like Norfolk, are willing to cooperate with evil if it means protecting themselves or avoiding conflict with family or friends.

Before looking at some examples where cooperation with evil is almost epidemic, it’s necessary to know exactly what constitutes cooperation with evil. Is it ever acceptable? When is it sinful?2 The subject is complicated, but St. Alphonsus Liguori made it easier to grasp when he devised the distinction between formal and material cooperation in the 18th century. Formal cooperation, whether explicit (the nurse at the abortion mill) or implicit (the boyfriend who claims to oppose the abortion, but drives his girlfriend to the mill and pays for it), is always immoral. Read more...