‘Materially and formally’ cooperating with sin

Cardinal Burke explains why Catholic employers can’t obey Obama administration’s contraception mandate

The following item from Christian Newswire has been slightly edited.

SAN DIEGO /Christian Newswire/ — Catholic Action for Faith and Family announces a timely and insightful 30-minute interview with Cardinal Raymond Burke as he discusses critical matters of faith, religious liberty, and culpability in relation to the threatened government mandate for employers to provide free contraception, sterilization services, and abortion-inducing drugs. Catholic Action Insight, a special program series hosted by Catholic Action founder and president Thomas McKenna, will air on EWTN today at 2:30 p.m. and on April 13 at 9 p.m. EST.

“We were very blessed to be granted this interview with Cardinal Raymond Burke, who not only details the Church teaching on contraception and the moral conflict for Catholic employers who provide contraceptive services to employees, but also provides education on the role of the Church in this time of governmental interference with the right to ‘freedom of religion,'” said Thomas McKenna, president of Catholic Action for Faith and Family. McKenna and his film crew recently returned from Rome where the interview was conducted.

“Cardinal Burke stands in solidarity with U. S. bishops and the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) in defense and advocacy for Church dogma, while highlighting the critical role that the bishops must play as shepherds to their flock,” McKenna added.

Catholic Action Insight has released the following excerpts from the interview:

Thomas McKenna: “It is beautiful to see how the Faithful have rallied behind the hierarchy… How does your Eminence comment on the union of solidarity of our bishops?”

Cardinal Burke: “Yes, I have received emails and other communications from lay Faithful who say that they are supporting their bishops 100% and they have communicated to their bishops their gratitude and assured them that they want them to continue to be courageous and not to be deceived by any kind of false accommodations, which in fact continue this same kind of agenda, which sadly we have witnessed for too long in our country, which is totally secular and therefore is anti-life and anti-family. I admire very much the courage of the bishops. At the same time I believe they would say it along with me that they are doing no more than their duty. A bishop has to protect his flock and when any individual or government attempts to force the flock to act against conscience in one of its most fundamental precepts, then the bishops have to come to defend those who are entrusted to their pastoral care. So I am deeply grateful to all of the bishops who have spoken about this and who are encouraging the members of their flock to also speak up because our government needs to understand that what is being done with this mandate is contrary first of all to the fundamental human right, the right to the free exercise of one’s conscience, and at the same time contrary to the very foundation of our nation.”

Thomas McKenna: “So a Catholic employer, really getting down to it, he does not, or she does not provide this because that way they would be, in a sense, cooperating with the sin… the sin of contraception or the sin of providing a contraceptive that would abort a child, is this correct?”

Cardinal Burke: “This is correct. It is not only a matter of what we call ‘material cooperation’ in the sense that the employer by giving this insurance benefit is materially providing for the contraception but it is also ‘formal cooperation’ because he is knowingly and deliberately doing this, making this available to people. There is no way to justify it. It is simply wrong.”

For more information on the entire interview and the additional times it can be seen on EWTN or to watch the full interview after it airs on EWTN, Click Here.

(Editor’s Note: Cardinal Burke is the former Archbishop of St. Louis, now serving as Prefect of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura, the Church’s highest court, in Rome.)