CHAPTER VII
ON CO-OPERATION IN ANOTHER'S SIN
I. CLOSELY connected with scandal is the subject of co-operation or participation in the sin of another; indeed, they are often treated of together, but on account of the importance of the latter it seems desirable to devote a special chapter to it.
Co-operation, then, may be formal or material. Formal co-operation is concurrence in the bad action of another and in the bad intention with which it is performed. Material co-operation is the concurrence in the external action of another but not in the evil intention with which it is done.
Co-operation is proximate or remote according as the action of the secondary agent is more closely connected with the action of the principal agent or less so.
One is said to co-operate positively when he does something which influences the action of the principal agent; one is said to co-operate negatively when he does not hinder a bad action which he is bound to prevent.
2. It is never lawful to co-operate formally with another's sin, for it is obviously to wish evil, which is always sinful. Nor is it lawful to co-operate materially with the sin of another when the action of the secondary agent is itself wrong, as is also clear. But provided the action of the secondary agent is not itself wrong, but right, or at least indifferent, and he has no evil intention, and furthermore there is a just cause for permitting the sin of the principal agent, material co-operation in the sin of another is not wrong. In such circumstances, the secondary agent does nothing that is wrong in itself; he foresees, it is true, that another will take advantage of his action in order to commit sin, but the secondary agent is only bound to prevent this out of charity, which does not bind with relatively serious inconvenience, and this is present whenever there is a just cause for permitting the sin of the principal agent. This is merely the application of the principle of a double effect which was laid down in the Book on Human Acts.[1]
The cases to which this doctrine may be applied are very
- ↑ St Alphonsus, lib. a, tract. 3, n. 63.
