One of the best things about human life is that we are involved with each other's action: I help you to get things done, and you help me. When we are doing good things, this cooperation is itself all to the good, and sometimes, an occasion of great joy. But it also happens that we are sometimes involved in the evil action of another.
Scenario 1: Suppose I work at a liquor store and sell alcohol to someone who then becomes intoxicated and kills another person in a drunk driving accident.
Scenario 2: Suppose I am a nurse at an abortion clinic who, although personally opposed to abortion, nonetheless assists in abortions.
Intuitively, in the first case I am not responsible for the loss of innocent life that occurred, even though it is true that I cooperated on some level (as an alcohol vendor) with the evil action. But this is not true of the second case. If I cooperate here, I myself become directly responsible for the loss of innocent life.
Why is this so?
Our lives are so intertwined that it is not always possible to avoid cooperating in the evil act of another. But these examples show that it is always possible to avoid cooperating deliberately in the evil act of another.
It all has to do with the will. In the first example, the person wills to become intoxicated and this results in the loss of life. But this is not what I will as the seller, even though my action will unintentionally aid the evil act. Further, the selling of alcohol in itself is no evil act. In short, the one who buys wills one thing, I will another.
In the second case, however, my personal opposition to abortion ends up "overridden" by my will, which directs my cooperation in the abortion procedure. Human acts are inseparable from the intentions that govern them, and so cooperation in this case necessarily entails willing the destruction of innocent life. Further, since the destruction of innocent life is always and everywhere an evil act, there is no way for me to cooperate in an abortion without also committing grave evil.
These examples illustrate an important distinction in our cooperation with evil. In the first case, my will is not engaged in the evil act. The loss of innocent life is achieved with my cooperation, but it is achieved without my intentionally willing the drunk driving. Hence, the cooperation is without sin. In the second case, however, my will is directly engaged. These cases are always sinful because they involve my intentionally willing an evil (the loss of innocent life).
While the above cases can be infinitely multiplied and made ever more complex, the principles that underlie them provide light as to how we can act uprightly and morally, even in very difficult circumstances. Sometimes cases involving these principles erupt onto the national stage (the case of the Little Sisters of the Poor, or of bakeries refusing to provide cakes to same-sex weddings, or of a firearms store that unknowingly sells to a mass murderer, for example). But these principles also help us in little ways, as we seek daily to "do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with our God" (Micah 6:8).
Father Michael Johns is associate pastor at St. Vincent de Paul Catholic Church in Rogers. Email him at frmike@svdprogers.com.