Acta Apostolicae Sede, 91 (1999): 202–203. I have included in the text footnotes 16 and 17 which cite Quaecumque sterilizatio and Veritatis splendor respectively.
2.
“Not an Excessive Claim, Nor a Divisive One. But a Traditional One: A Response to Lawrence Welch on Immediate Material Cooperation,”Linacre Quarterly, 67 (November 2000): 83–88.
3.
Fr. Keenan also claims that his interpretation of immediate material cooperation is a traditional interpretation of a traditional principle. But this is an exaggeration. He claims to have found several authors who believed that immediate involvement in the object of an “intrinsically wrong” action was not necessarily implicit formal cooperation. Even if Fr. Keenan's interpretation of these authors is correct it is hard to see how this is sufficient to constitute the “traditional doctrine” that the Responsum says governs the application of the principles of cooperation. Fr. Keenan needs more than four authors before he can claim that his interpretation and application of immediate material cooperation is traditional. If we are going to do this kind of casuistry – the weight of these authors – and their opponents – also matters. Fr. Keenan appears to assert more than he demonstrates. Is there really a sufficient number of approved authors who believed that duress distinguished immediate material cooperation from implicit formal cooperation so as to be the traditional interpretation? What counts as “traditional” for Fr. Keenan and why? Secondly, Fr. Keenan himself admits that the authors he consults speak of cooperation with regard to individuals. It is inaccurate then to describe the application of those principles to corporate entities as traditional? Certainly it is problematic to go on to identify the concept of immediate material cooperation and its application to direct sterilization with the “Church's tradition.” Fr. Keenan does this when he chides me for arguing against the application of immediate material cooperation to direct sterilization. He remarks that he sees “no need to restrict the Church's tradition now” (Keenan, 87). This is so large a use of the term “tradition,” however, as to be unhelpful since its fails to distinguish the “Church's Tradition” from what may be a theological opinion held by a handful of authors.
4.
The Holy Father, in the same encyclical, makes the point that when it comes to intrinsic evil there can be nothing that would allow for exceptions: But the negative moral precepts, those prohibiting certain actions or kinds of behavior as intrinsically evil, do not allow for any legitimate exception. They do not leave room, in any morally acceptable way, for the “creativity” of any contrary determination whatsoever. Once the moral species of an action prohibited by a universal rule is concretely recognized, the only morally good act is that of obeying the moral law and of refraining from the action it forbids. (Veritatis Splendor, no. 67)
5.
Keenan, 86.
6.
Keenan, 85.
7.
This letter has been quoted widely by a number of news organizations both Catholic and secular. The television news magazine 60 Minutes showed and quoted from a copy of it on December, 10, 2000.
