Catholic Charities of Chicago uses a pro-abortion lobbying firm: cooperation with evil?

South loop area of Chicago. / Credit: Sea Cow, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jun 5, 2025 / 10:00 am (CNA).

Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Chicago is using a lobbying firm that supports pro-abortion political candidates and lobbies for abortion providers, raising concerns that the relationship could amount to cooperation with evil by the charitable entity.

Since 2022, Catholic Charities of Chicago has contracted with Cozen O’Connor Public Strategies to lobby on its behalf before the State of Illinois. Cozen O’Connor is a national lobbying firm with offices in major cities across the country, including New York; Washington, D.C.; and Chicago.

According to the Illinois State Board of Elections, Cozen O’Connor donated $3,500 in 2024 to Personal PAC, a political action committee in Illinois that supports pro-choice candidates at the state and local levels. The firm donated $3,000 in 2023 and $3,500 in 2024, while an individual employee of the firm donated $1,000 in 2024 and an additional $1,000 in 2025 to the pro-abortion organization. 

Cozen O’Connor also gave $1,500 to Preckwinkle for President, the campaign fund for Cook County Board of Commissioners president and vocal abortion supporter Toni Preckwinkle. The firm also lobbies the state government on behalf of Rush University Medical Center, which performs abortions, according to a May 12 report by the Chicago Sun Times.

Catholic Charities of Chicago, the Archdiocese of Chicago, and Cozen O’Connor all declined to comment about the arrangement.

According to Cozen O’Connor’s website, the firm’s lobbyist assigned to the Catholic Charities of Chicago account is Patrick G. Martin, who is also a member of the Catholic Charities of Chicago Mercy Society and on its government advisory committee. According to public records, Martin himself does not appear to do any pro-abortion lobbying work.

Prior to hiring Cozen O’Connor, from 2016 to 2022, Catholic Charities of Chicago had employed Illinois lobbyist Nancy Kimme of Advantage Government Strategies. In 2019, Kimme, a pro-life Republican, brought on former Illinois Rep. Lou Lang, a Democrat, as a partner in the firm. While serving in the state Legislature, in 2017 Lang co-sponsored a bill that, among other things, removed language from state law describing an unborn child as a human being and allowed abortion to be covered by the state’s Medicaid program.

According to public records over the past five years, Lang also made multiple donations to Personal PAC.

Catholic Charities of Chicago is the official charitable arm of the Catholic Church in the third-largest city in the U.S., which is home to more than 2 million Catholics and is the birthplace of Pope Leo XIV. It operates with a budget of $180 million, according to its website, and has more than 1,200 employees, providing critical services that support children, families, and immigrants.

*Catholic teaching on cooperation with evil*

Catholic moral theology and the Church’s definitive teaching that human life is sacred from conception to natural death raise the question about whether it is considered cooperation with evil, and subsequently ethically problematic, for Catholic Charities to contract with a lobbying firm that supports abortion. 

Catholic moral theology distinguishes between formal and material cooperation with evil. Formal cooperation is when someone who participates in an immoral act intends the same evil as the main person carrying it out. Material cooperation, however, is when a person participates in an evil act without intending the evil. The Church teaches that formal cooperation is always wrong, while some forms of material cooperation may be considered permissible.

The Church further distinguishes between immediate and mediate material cooperation. Immediate cooperation is when a person is involved in the essence of the act, even though he or she does not intend it, and is not permissible. Mediate cooperation is when a person’s actions are not necessary to the sinful act and which can be either remote or proximate to the act. The Church teaches that some forms of mediate cooperation can be permissible if the intended good outweighs the evil.

“The first thing you have to ask is whether it is the intention of Catholic Charities to promote abortion,” Benedictine College moral theology professor John Rziha told CNA.

“If the intention is to promote abortion, it is formal cooperation and evil, and it’s always wrong,” he continued. “I don’t think that’s the case here.” 

The partnership between Catholic Charities and Cozen O’Connor, according to Rziha, is remote mediate material cooperation because Catholic Charities does not directly give its money to support abortion. In the context of the arrangement, Catholic Charities is significantly removed from the act of abortion itself.

“But that’s not the end of the diagnosis,” he said. 

According to Rziha, in this case the level of cooperation with evil is “pretty low,” and therefore “it wouldn’t take a huge good to outweigh it, even though it is a bad action.”

However, he continued, “it’s a legitimate question whether Catholic Charities is actually undermining what they’re doing by contributing to a culture which goes against what the Church teaches.” 

*Morally permissible for a proportionally grave reason*

The Catholic University of America moral theology professor John Grabowski told CNA that some cases of material cooperation can be morally permissible “if there is a proportionally grave reason to tolerate the cooperation with evil.” 

One factor Grabowski said could be “morally relevant” in terms of Catholic Charities of Chicago’s decision to engage Cozen O’Connor is that the Illinois state government is Democrat-controlled. 

“They might make a prudential judgment and say, ‘This firm has a much better chance of being effective in its lobbying because they have definite connections to the people who are in positions of power in state government,’” he explained.

*Potential for scandal*

Because Catholic Charities provides many health-care-related services, Rziha pointed to the USCCB’s Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services, in which U.S. bishops call on Catholic health care providers to consider whether particular collaborative arrangements with non-Catholic institutions entail material collaboration with evil that would give rise to scandal or undermine the Church’s witness.

“The bishops, and I think they’re right about this, would say … Catholic Charities should come out and attempt to explain what’s going on if this is becoming scandalous,” he said. “Because if they’re not witnessing to the faith and transforming culture as Catholic Charities, then they’re actually not doing nearly as much good as they think they are.” 

Considering the issue, Rziha distinguished between direct scandal, when a person’s actions directly lead somebody else to do evil, and indirect scandal, when a person’s actions “contribute to a culture which is anti-Catholic or anti-Christian by its nature.”

Ultimately, Catholic Charities engaging a pro-abortion firm can be justified, according to Rziha, so long as the organization can overcome the issue of scandal and ensure that it is not undermining its pro-life witness. “I could understand,” he said, echoing Grabowski, that “this is a liberal state government: If [Catholic Charities] trusts this particular lobby firm, this may be the most effective way for it to lobby.”

However, he added, “I think that to address the issue of scandal, Catholic Charities should explain why they are choosing this firm and say that they are equivocally against abortion: ‘We work against it, and we’re trying to transform our culture by helping women to be empowered within the confines of Church teachings.’”

*Illinois Right to Life’s position*

As Illinois Right to Life President Mary Kate Zander sees it, however, Catholic Charities of Chicago has “a responsibility to due diligence” in selecting a lobbying firm that is aligned with the pro-life cause. 

Zander told CNA that Catholic Charities of Chicago CEO Sally Blount had personally assured her of her commitment to life issues when they met several years ago. “If I had the chance, I would encourage her to consider what that commitment looks like in action,” she added. 

“Catholic Charities serves pregnant women in need every day,” Zander said, adding: “We are failing them if we are contributing to the proliferation of abortion in our state in any capacity.”