A reader writes:
My place of employment is doing a drive to raise money for the United Way. I went to their Website, where they state a position of neutrality on abortion, yet have collaborated with Planned Parenthood on projects. Hence, I view this as an indirect support of abortion, despite their statement on their Website.
You are perceptive.
The United Way is deceptive.
Therefore, I’ve decided not to contribute to the drive. However, I was asked to help with the collection of money.
Would this still make me compliant, or am I being scrupulous about this matter.
Well, if you comply with the request then you would, by definition, be compliant. That’s not what you’re concerned about though. I assume that you are wondering whether you would be morally culpable.
In this case the money is not being given directly to abortionists to do abortions but to a charitable agency that then, one way or another, gives some portion of it to abortionists. That’s poor stewardship, but then any time you give money to any fund there is a risk or even the known fact that some of it will not be used as it should be. If you were to maintain the position that you can’t have anything to do with such a fund then you’re going to end up not giving to anybody, and the good that you could otherwise do will not be done, including all the other charities that the fund would have supported, the abortionists only being a small percentage of the fund’s outlay.
I say that, not to encourage you to give to the United Way (I, myself, will not give to them until they change their policy on abortion; I’ll give my money elsewhere) but to point out the remoteness of your act from the evil that you may foresee the fund will do.
Remoteness is important in moral theology. Since there is a human will (the fund manager) intervening between the donor and the recipient, the donor’s cooperation is not as direct as if he were himself giving money to an evil cause.
In Catholic moral theology, remote cooperation with evil is sometimes permissible. It has to be because, since humans are sinners, remote cooperation with evil is unavoidable. That guy you paid ten dollars for the pizza may use the money to buy a porn magazine. You can’t control that. You have to make an up or down decision on whether you’re going to do business with someone, and you are not responsible for micromanaging every aspect of what they do with the money you give them.
A key is whether you are, with your will, endorsing the evil that someone else will (inevitably) do with the money you give them (either as a payment or a donation). If you endorse the evil then your cooperation with it is formal, and this is never permitted. If, on the other hand, you do not endorse the evil then your cooperation is only material, and remote material cooperation with evil is permitted . . .
. . . for a proportionate reason.
If you have a proportionate reason (e.g., you’ll suffer in some way at work if you don’t honor the request to collect the money) then, since the act of collecting money is morally licit in itself and since only a tiny portion of it will be used for evil and since you are not directly supporting evil (it’s only remote cooperation, remember) and since someone else will collect the money if you don’t, it seems to me that in that case it would be morally licit for you to collect the money.
So I wouldn’t say that you are being scrupulous. It’s good that you’re trying to think these things through.
Hope this helps!
I ended up not collecting the money. Interestingly enough, on their brochures passed out to us for individual pledges is the list of other organizations they support. One page over from Planned Parenthood is Catholic Charities.
Thanks again.
United Way usually — either in the brochure or on their regional website — permits you to direct a gift to an organization. My former employer had a real UW racket going, and expected all officers of the company to contribute; I always donated merely $100 and directed it to an arm of a local religious order that I knew I could trust.
United Way also includes Catholic Charities on its list, as well as Pro-Life organizations. Donate to those, or donate to specific local charities affiliated to United Way locally. The Red Cross, for example, or the soup kitchen.
My employer is also attached to the United Way at the hip. I get about one solicitation from them a week. I’ve stayed clear from them because I heard they were bad news, but I did not know that you could direct the money to Catholic Charities. I’ll look into it.
perhaps somebody can verify this…I have been told that UW divides up the $$ before the campaign. As a result, any $$ you direct to one organization comes out of their allotment and non-directed $$ is then funneled to PP and other objectionable “charities”
Yeah, that’s the problem – when you direct a contribution to a particular place, they can just juggle somebody else’s UNALLOCATED dollars out of that pocket and into the Planned “Parenthood” pocket. Same shell game works in states with a lottery “for the schools” – lottery dollars go to the school, so fewer “regular” dollars need to go there.
However, you can send money to someone not on the list at all. Seriously. Our local pro-life organization decided not to be on the list, not because it’s morally wrong, but because we wanted to avoid the appearance of scandal. However, when someone is forced to donate to the United Way at work, they can designate us as the recipients even though we’re completely unaffiliated with the United Way. Which leads to nice surprise cheques sometimes when we’re opening the mail.
I believe local United Ways divvy up their money as they see fit, so your local chapter may or may not give to PP.
I tend to think the “designated donation” thing is a shell game, unless the total donations designated for a certain charity exceeds their originally planned allocation.
And if you send money to a charity not on the list, read the fine print, because the UW may take a heft portion for processing costs.
UW takes a hefty portion for administration, regardless. If you don’t have to give at work, send the check yourself. Your overhead is lower.
In Federal Gov’t facilites, such as where I work, we have the “Combined Federal Campaign”; which, AFAIK, is not United Way, but my workplace at least *partners* with our local UW in promoting it. And you can designate our local UW as a recipient.
Both pro-life and pro-abortion orgs are listed in the brochure as orgs you can donate to.
I haven’t participated the last couple of years; mainly because when the people running the thing blow their trumpet about how much has been raised in pledges, I can’t help but think, “How much of that is going to Planned Parenthood and like-minded organizations?”