Cardinal Burke - Thou Shalt Not Provide Contraceptive Coverage In Your Health Insurance

On Monday, 9 April, Catholic Action for Faith and Family announced that they would be airing a 30 minute interview filmed at the Vatican with Cardinal Raymond Burke this week on EWTN. The program, Catholic Action Insight, is hosted by Catholic Action founder & president, Thomas McKenna. According to  the announcement Cardinal Burke will talk about critical matters of faith, religious liberty, & culpability in relation to the threatened government mandate for employers to provide free contraception, sterilization services, & abortion inducing drugs. It will air on EWTN on Wednesday, 11 April at 2:30pm EDT & on Friday, 13 April at 9:00pm EDT. After it airs on EWTN,  Catholic Action will make it available on their website.

From the excerpt (below) they included in the announcement as well as what I know of Cardinal Burke's past comments, you can be sure that what he will say will not sit to will with some of those, like Catholic Heath Association head honcho Sr. Carol Keehan, who have been more than willing to compromise their faith.

As Cardinal Prefect of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura you can be sure that Cardinal Burke carefully chose his words. So that when he says "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." he is making it absolutely clear that no one can play word games to justify an employer providing it, either directly or through the little shell game Obama set up that makes it seem like the insurance company is paying for it. The words "formal cooperation" leave absolutely NO wiggle room. Catholic teaching makes it clear that "formal cooperation" in evil is always illicit & that the desire or consent to the other's sin is itself a sin with a twofold malice.  (For more on this see the EWTN article: MORALITY OF COOPERATION IN EVIL)

As Catholic Action says in their announcement "This comment by one of the highest ranked American Cardinals is the clearest explanation to date on the issue of an employer’s culpability when providing contraception, sterilization, and abortion inducing drug options in the insurance plans for employees. Cardinal Burke has illuminated with piercing clarity the controversial issue which has seen dissent from Church teaching on this matter among Catholic institutions and universities here in the United States. Cardinal Burke’s profound statements come at a critical time in this divisive debate over the legality and morality of forcing anyone to act against his own conscience."

I predict that all the usual "Catholyc" suspects will try to find wiggle room by attacking Cardinal Burke & twisting what he said to make it sound like he isn't closing the doors to their excuses. But he clearly is. & they know it. He has left them no room to muddy the waters no matter how hard they try.

Bravo to Cardinal Burke for providing the leadership needed in this attack on the Catholic faith by the Obama administration & the Catholyc dissidents in his administration. Now it is up to the US Bishops to do their part. Issuing the statements by the USCCB & individuals is a start. The individual Bishops now have the responsibility to not only speak, but act when people attempt to undermine the Church's teachings.

Here is the excerpt I refered to earlier:

Thomas McKenna: “It is beautiful to see how the Faithful has 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.”

Sources: Employers Providing Contraceptives “Materially and Formally” Cooperating with Sin
Vatican Cardinal: If Catholic employers provide contraceptive coverage they cooperate in sin