![]() Centers for Disease Control’s Vaccine Averse Event Reporting System ( VAERS) show hundreds of thousands of adverse short-term effects, including over a hundred thousand serious injuries and deaths-with a Harvard Pilgrim Health Care study suggesting that only one percent of actual adverse reactions to the COVID vaccines are reported to VAERS. Catholics can argue that they would not be glorifying God in their bodies by getting the jab (no matter if many other Catholics, exercising their prerogative, are willing to take their chances on the vaccines).Īs of this writing (almost a year since the release of the vaccines), data from the U.S. Paul in 1 Corinthians 6:19-20, “and so glorify God in your body” (see CCC 364). “Know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit,” writes St. In its opening line, this Statement reads: “The National Catholic Bioethics Center (NCBC) does not endorse mandated COVID-19 immunization with any of the three vaccines that have received approval or emergency use authorization as of August 23, 2021, from the US Food & Drug Administration (FDA).”Ī second, stronger argument is to maintain that, given the worrisome short-term side effects and the unknown long-term effects of all the COVID vaccines, Catholic belief in the sacredness of the body allows the faithful to oppose them. 5 of this Note, which asserts: “Practical reason makes evident that vaccination is not, as a rule, a moral obligation and that, therefore, it must be voluntary.”Ī Catholic could also cite the National Catholic Bioethics Conference-a high-level, highly regarded scholarly authority on moral biomedical issues-which issued its Statement on COVID-19 Vaccine Mandates (on August 30, 2021). ![]() Over and above the Catechism’s affirmation of the inviolate sanctity of a person’s conscience, there is the Note on the Morality of Using Some Anti-COVID Vaccines, issued by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (on December 21, 2020). Pope Francis’s remark on the moral obligation to get vaccinated notwithstanding, there are competing voices among ecclesiastical authorities on this issue. There are three sound arguments to be made.įirst, there is the appeal to Catholic authorities. Let us consider, then, how a Catholic might request a religious exemption from the COVID vaccine. The Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) clearly asserts that the faithful must never be forced to act contrary to their conscience (1782). Second, it ignores what has been highlighted above: that deciding whether to get vaccinated remains a matter of prudential judgment of conscience and that on such matters, Catholics are free to make their own judgment, regardless of what any bishop, priest, or pope might say. First, Pope Francis voiced his opinion (his private opinion) on the moral obligation to get vaccinated in an interview with Italy’s TG5 news program-hardly a case of authoritative, binding papal instruction. This marks an illegitimate move, and for two reasons. True, Pope Francis voiced such a blanket appeal, asserting on one occasion the moral obligation to get one of the COVID vaccines, since, as he suggested, it is “about the lives of others.” This remark by the Holy Father has been invoked as grounds for denying a religious exemption for those Catholics who request it. That they should use as cover generalized appeals to the moral duty not to risk causing physical harm to our neighbor compounds the problem. Let us be frank: It is deeply troublesome that certain bishops have shown themselves willing to run roughshod over such a bedrock principle of Catholic moral teaching as Catholics’ right to render a prudential judgment of conscience, especially when it concerns their physical well-being. Definitive pronouncements on such issues lie outside the proper competence of ecclesiastical authorities. ![]() This holds especially in the case of prudential judgments of conscience that concern matters of medical practice. Logically and morally speaking, it does not follow that to say a Catholic can in good conscience take the vaccine means that a different Catholic cannot oppose the vaccine (particularly when mandated). The most that any Catholic (including a bishop) can say, then, is that a Catholic may take the vaccine, never that he must. And on such matters, particularly when opposing sides are both arguable, there can be a legitimate diversity of opinion among good-willed Catholics. ![]() Whether to get vaccinated marks, at bottom, a matter of a prudential judgment of conscience. Therefore, Catholics are in no way obliged to relent to any Church authority, even in the person of the Holy Father, who insists they receive a COVID vaccine (or any vaccine). It must be stated at the outset: to pressure the faithful to “get the jab” constitutes a clear abuse of the teaching and governing authority entrusted to the office of bishop (or priest).
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |