Question about direct participation in sin

[renepape]

I work in the financial business. My boss, who is a serious Catholic, has a prospective client who owns stock in Pfizer, a company which I believe is involved directly in abortion and contraception. Do you think I would be directly participating in this client holding Pfizer stock if I work with my boss and scan documents for this client? And do I have to make some suggestion about not owning Pfizer stock? I want to do the right thing, and I don’t in any way want to be helping someone hold stock in a company that is involved in abortion or contraception. Please give me some advice.

 

[Langdell]

I don’t have time right now to go into this in depth, but I think the answer is no, you’re not participating in the sinful conduct of any Pfizer personnel.

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[renepape]

but am i participating directly in this client holding the stock?

 

[Langdell]

but am i participating directly in this client holding the stock?

Well, I would say you’re not. I recently read an interesting article in the Journal of Catholic Legal Studies, “Can a Catholic Lawyer Represent a Minor Seeking a Judicial Bypass for an Abortion? A Moral and Canon Law Analysis,” by law professor Larry Cunningham (published in 2005).

The relevant part of the article deals with excommunication under the Canon Law for anyone who “procures” an abortion or is an accomplice to an abortion. According to canon lawyers who have analyzed the issue, you’re guilty as an accomplice if your action was necessary for a specific abortion or abortions. Thus, for example, hospital administrators are not normally guilty as accomplices because “they are too far removed from specific abortions. Their support is general, not specific to any one abortion. Most hospital administrators do not get to know individual patients. They have no vested interest in a specific woman getting an abortion.” (pp. 394-95 of the article.)

Of course, your question is about Catholic morality generally, not just what’s a violation of Canon Law. It sounds like you’re doing clerical work for a firm that helps people invest in many different companies, including a company that has many different products, a small proportion of which are abortifacients. I think what you’re doing is too far removed from the manufacture of abortifacients to be immoral.

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[Mark77]

**i would not listen to “lawyers” (LIARS), i would hope to listen to Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior!

Listen to your conscience!

You know that Pfizer is contributing to a direct evil by their greedy sale of abortion drugs, so tell your boss that you cannot participate because you will be contributing to a grave moral sin. The rest is up to him!
**
Sancta Maria, Mater Dei, Ora Pro Nobis Peccatoribus!

mark

 

[Langdell]

i would not listen to “lawyers” (LIARS), …

In a 1965 speech to the International Association of Lawyers, Pope Paul VI said that the Church looks upon lawyers with “the greatest esteem and respect.” The lawyer is a “Minister of charity,” and “perhaps no one, except the priest, understands human life better in its exremely varied aspects – its most dramatic, its most sorrowful, sometimes its most defective, but often its best aspects.”

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[renepape]

So the fundamental question I think would be:

May financial advisers take in clients who have part of their money invested in companies that produce contraceptives and/or abortificients (such as Pfizer and Johnson and Johnson)? If so, is the adviser obligated to recommend his/her client do something with these morally-questionable positions?

I myself would not hold these positions, but obviously there are some people who do. So can we give financial advice to people who hold positions in Pfizer or Johnson and Johnson, for instance, as long as we don’t encourage them to buy the stock?

I suppose that if a financial adviser cannot take in clients who have some money invested in companies that manufacture contraceptives and/or abortificients, then I cannot do any work for my boss with these clients. Or is it the duty of the financial adviser to do something about his clients holding these positions, and may I continue to work for this adviser in this capacity, even working with him regarding such aforementioned clients, without morally and grievously compromising myself?

As I mentioned, my boss is a serious Catholic, but I think I may disagree with him on this one issue, namely over whether or not it is morally permissible to buy stock in companies that manufacture contraceptives and abortificients, such as Pfizer and Johnson and Johnson. I feel like I should tell my boss, but I also don’t want to speak out of place unless I am morally obligated to do so. Thank you for your help everyone!

 

[Langdell]

In my view, it depends on whether the clients are seeking your boss’s advice on which specific stocks to buy. If they are, then I think your boss would be obligated to be up-front about his position on certain companies (e.g., “As a practicing Catholic, I need to make you aware that I do not recommend certain stocks because the issuing companies engage in immoral activities. Here’s a list of those companies. However, I will not refuse to advise you in other respects or refuse to help you manage a portfolio that contains those stocks.”).

If people are coming to your boss for general financial advice, and they own stock in Pfizer, for example, then he’s not helping or hindering them in their dealings with Pfizer if he advises them on how to balance stock and bond holdings, etc.

BTW – I’m an opera fan, too!

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[renepape]

In my view, it depends on whether the clients are seeking your boss’s advice on which specific stocks to buy. If they are, then I think your boss would be obligated to be up-front about his position on certain companies (e.g., “As a practicing Catholic, I need to make you aware that I do not recommend certain stocks because the issuing companies engage in immoral activities. Here’s a list of those companies. However, I will not refuse to advise you in other respects or refuse to help you manage a portfolio that contains those stocks.”).

If people are coming to your boss for general financial advice, and they own stock in Pfizer, for example, then he’s not helping or hindering them in their dealings with Pfizer if he advises them on how to balance stock and bond holdings, etc.

BTW – I’m an opera fan, too!.

Thank you for your (name removed by moderator)ut. But do you think I can help my boss with this client without moral compromise?

 

[Langdell]

Thank you for your (name removed by moderator)ut. But do you think I can help my boss with this client without moral compromise?

This is just my own opinion, of course, but it seems to me that there could be an issue only if you’re advising the client to buy Pfizer stock.

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[Seatuck]

Here’s an article from the CE on being an accomplice. There are for terms inside that you may want to look into further.Formal and Material Cooperation. Remote and Proximate Cooperation. Then you’ll be able to make your decision .

newadvent.org/cathen/01100a.htm

My personal take on it is that you are remote from any wrongdoing.
The church has not established that Catholics must distance themselves entirely from drug companies that produce medicines that are used against our life teachings.

We are permitted to use vaccines that are created from aborted fetal stem cell lines for instance if we thing it is necessary . We should speak out to our doctor and ask for ethical ones ,though. We certainly could write to the drug companies and do the same. A stock holder or group of stockholders might even have greater influence to get this changed.

 

[SmokedSalmon]

If my company that I work for was giving even one penny towards abortion I would quit straight away!

 

[Muzhik]

We are permitted to use vaccines that are created from aborted fetal stem cell lines for instance if we thing it is necessary . We should speak out to our doctor and ask for ethical ones ,though. We certainly could write to the drug companies and do the same. A stock holder or group of stockholders might even have greater influence to get this changed.

You just answered a question for me. I just learned that, in order to save time, the companies making the vaccine for the H1N1 virus appear to be using a line of cells derived from an aborted fetus. (I say “appear”, because the drug companies aren’t required to inform people of the means that were used to create particular drugs or vaccines, other than to say that people allergic to eggs should not use such-and-such a vaccine. You have to go by what marketing materials say and don’t say. Read complete analysis at Parablesblog.)

After reading that article, I had to wonder: the cell lines being used (PER.c6, called Percy 6) were derived almost 20 years ago from cells from an aborted fetus. The cells in the line have been grown from those original cells, but they are in no way, shape, or form the original cells. So I have to wonder if the moral evil in using cell from an aborted fetus has somehow become “diluted” with each generation of cells grown.

I also have to wonder, if using the vaccines made from these cells has the same moral evil as using the original fetal cells and YOU DID NOT KNOW THE ORIGIN OF THE VACCINE, what are the moral consequences? I know that the person does not commit a mortal sin, since that would require full knowledge and consent to the evil. However, are there spiritual effects that may not be immediately evident, such as a greater openness to sin?