ST LOUIS, Missouri (CWN) — Cardinal Raymond Burke has said that employers who provide contraceptive coverage for their workers are guilty of both formal and material cooperation in contraception.
The cardinal — who is now one of the top-ranking Americans at the Vatican, where he serves as head of the Apostolic Signatura — said that there is “no way to justify” a healthcare programme that includes contraceptive coverage. He urged resistance against the Obama administration’s drive to make such coverage mandatory.
In an interview with Thomas McKenna, the head of the American lay group Catholic Action, Cardinal Burke was asked if an employer who provided birth-control coverage as part of a healthcare plan for employees would be guilty of cooperating in the sin of contraception. The cardinal replied:
“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.
Cardinal Burke voiced his hearty support for the United States bishops who are leading the fight against the Obama administration’s contraceptive mandate. He encouraged lay Catholics “not to be deceived by any kind of false accommodations which, in fact, continue this same kind of agenda”.