Mark Lopez tackles the issue, often faced by NGOs and charitable institutions, of whether or not to accept funds from donors whose business practices or sources of income are morally dubious. In order to concretize the moral problem, he presents a hypothetical case of Bishop W, the apostolic vicar of an under-resourced Vicariate in Southern Mindanao that provides microcredit to indigent communities. Should the bishop accept a donation from XYZ Corporation, a company that is notorious for unjust labor practices and is involved in several land disputes with indigenous peoples in other parts of Northern Mindanao? Lopez uses three moral frames to weigh the issue: 1) cooperation with evil, 2) the appropriation of evil, and 3) the consideration of scandal. The first and third are traditional principles of morality. The second is a more recent principle proposed by Cathleen Kaveny (“Appropriation of Evil: Cooperation’s Mirror Image,” Theological Studies, 2000). In line with virtue ethics, this moral frame highlights how evil acts cause harm not only to the victim but also to the agent. At the end of the case study, Lopez concludes that

“we can also hereby appreciate the depth and range of contributions that continuously developing moral theories provide for our understanding of ethical issues. Kaveny’s principle of appropriation is a clear case in point. In the above case, we saw that, without undermining the value of the principle of cooperation, the principle of appropriation was able to highlight several considerations that should significantly bear on the decision to be made by the Bishop.” – from the Editor’s Preface