Page 51 - Vaccines

Key principles of Catholic moral theology

would not be legitimate as such; rather, in my view, here
a person would act legitimately in trying to dissuade the
person from committing murder, if the circumstances
were such that the possibility practically of impeding the
theft as well were very slim, and his action would
properly be described as advising against the greater evil.
This, it seems to me, is the proper explanation also of
what is envisaged in Evangelium vitae, where voters or
parliamentarians vote in order to reduce the time limits
within which directly procured abortions are carried out
under an unjust law which, in the circumstances, cannot
practically be abolished altogether. However, the strict
condition involved here is also to make clear the intention
to oppose the greater evil and not to endorse the lesser
evil, as well as to express unequivocally the opposition
to all procured abortion, thus avoiding giving scandal.2⁹
As such these two cases do not involve cooperation, in
my understanding; that would be different, if, in the case
of the jeweller’s shop, the person advising against the
greater evil were to engage in some limited material
cooperation, such as opening the doors, filling a sack
with jewels (especially if under threat of violence or of
death); in this case, the express or implicit threat to the
cooperator and the definite threat to the life of the
proprietor would provide a proportionately grave reason
for this proximate material cooperation.

d. Public health authorities, the common
good, solidarity and subsidiarity

In the context of the question at issue here, the role of the
State is significant. The State and the political community
exist by the authority of God, an authority to be recog-

2⁹ Cf. John Paul II, Evangelium vitae, nn. 73–74 and 89.

39