Janet Smith on the fake theology of vaccine promoters in the Church

If you're attacked (and yes, it's an attack) by someone in the Church to accept the Covid vaccines against your will, I urge you to read Janet Smith's article: The Fake Theology behind Vaccine Mandates. Janet recently retired from the Father Michael J. McGivney Chair of Life Ethics at Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit. Her impressive academic credentials don't prevent her from writing a spirited and readable essay!

She rightly observes that most arguments rely on authority, not good reasoning. But what authority? The most important point she makes is that the decision to accept or reject a medical procedure is a prudential one. 

Therefore, such prudential decisions cannot be made under authority -- no authority can do more than simply offer principles. The principles in the case of the Covid vaccines tend more towards rejecting them than accepting them -- but that is my determination and opinion. Yours might be different. In the matter of a particular treatment, one must decide for oneself (or for one's children or other legal dependents).

Prof. Smith considers it deceptive that those urging vaccination, (and even, incredibly, approving of or enabling mandates), though they rest their argument on authority, fail to cite the most authoritative statement to this effect: "At the same time, practical reason makes evident that vaccination is not, as a rule, a moral obligation and that, therefore, it must be voluntary." (the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith's Note on the Morality of Using Some Anti-Covid-19 Vaccines)  

However, as she points out: "None of these documents, however, have the degree of magisterial authority to require assent; they are all low-level documents or non-magisterial statements that cannot impose obligations on Catholics."

"Lumen Gentium 25 [cited as authority for getting the vaccines] cannot possibly apply: so far as I know, no respectable theologian has ever claimed that the authority of the papal magisterium extends to whether or not an individual should get a vaccine, any vaccine, let alone an experimental vaccine. The Holy Father is not an expert on the health risks of a virus or the safety and effectiveness of vaccines and even if he were, again, papal authority does not extend to such matters."

Her whole argument should be read by everyone and shared widely with pastors and others pushing vaccines and mandates on the faithful.

I would like to add a few notes of my own:

1. Among other prudential considerations, the implications are obviously dire if we acquiesce to the power of the state to force a medical procedure on the populace, particularly one that infringes on bodily integrity, including even a passive acceptance of other institutions (corporations, schools, medical facilities, and so on) making the procedure a condition of participation. 

In this case the procedure is touted as life-saving (something questionable even by the authorities' own metrics and definitions, which change daily) Even the vaccines' manufacturers claim no more than that they will alleviate symptoms -- not that they will prevent death or even transmission), and they do carry significant risks. 

In another case the procedure could be overtly life-threatening. It's already established, and scandalously not opposed by our moral leaders, that children can be taken for an abortion or to be implanted with a contraception without parental consent or knowledge. 

We simply must be aware of where this power has already led and could lead and not be naive about the larger context. 

2. Janet points out:

Yes, the “Note” does speak of the “duty to pursue the common good” but implicitly acknowledges that there may be other ways to protect the common good and also, extremely importantly, that those who have a conscientious objection to vaccines produced from cell lines from aborted fetuses, if they work to protect the vulnerable, need not get a COVID-19 vaccine. [my emphasis]

I must add that the CDF's "Note" overreaches here in imposing an extra responsibility on those refusing the vaccine, as if we don't have positive reasons. Again, these theologians are not medical experts. They are accepting government authority's claims. The burden of protecting the vulnerable falls on all, not only those who do not take the vaccine. 

Everyone must take reasonable precautions such as normal (not obsessive) washing of hands, staying home when sick, and not coughing and sneezing on others. Some have pointed out the considerable evidence that it's the vaccinated who put the vulnerable at risk. This is certainly the case for other (actual) vaccines. It's known (though not widely so) that those receiving certain vaccines are responsible for outbreaks of the very diseases their shots protect against. 

At the same time, no one has the right not to die of natural causes. Life is about assessing risks and making decisions. We would be paralyzed -- and actually end up endangering others -- if we considered ourselves ultimately responsible for risks to others that we can't actually control.

3. Janet points out that those insisting on the vaccines give "no consideration to the fact that people have no obligation to use experimental medicines or procedures. The Declaration on Euthanasia (section 4) makes it clear that patients may use experimental means but that they need not do so if they judge the risk to be too great."

She is right. 

But additionally, it simply has to be stated that one has the right to bodily integrity, and therefore one is not under an obligation to undergo any medical treatment one wishes to avoid. Society may have the right to quarantine a contagious person (but would have to demonstrate the need and be subject to recourse in law). But as far as requiring that someone undergo a procedure such as an injection that violates bodily integrity, no. 

4. Pope Pius XI stated in the encyclical Casti Connubii paragraph 70 the position of the Church in her teaching role: "Public magistrates have no direct power over the bodies of their subjects; therefore, where no crime has taken place and there is no cause present for grave punishment, they can never directly harm, or tamper with the integrity of the body, either for the reasons of eugenics or for any other reason." 

Anyone claiming to argue from authority in the Catholic Church must grapple with this statement and the larger support of practical wisdom and conscience that the Church has always maintained.

Bishops weighing in on vaccine freedom

Of course I'm appalled at the New York bishops' letter regarding people's freedom in medical matters. They bring dishonor on themselves, making it clear that they are guided by lawyers and have no regard for anything beyond the most utilitarian, transactional considerations. They should rescind it and apologize immediately. 

The bishops of Colorado have made a good statement and will help raise the moral tenor of the conversation. I appreciate that these bishops recognize that people have reasons to resist and must be supported by their moral leaders.

Conscience issues come in with the question of aborted fetal cells, yes, but also with other matters. In conscience, one might object to treating the body in the mechanistic manner displayed in our current vaccine-based health care model. "She did not wish to be viewed in that agricultural light" as Dickens has a character remark. 

The truth is that most decisions about medical care are prudential decisions, not actually related to religious freedom but to medical freedom. There isn't "church teaching" about such things, other than to point out that people have reasons for making choices. The teaching we need now concerns the principles that inform one's decisions, and those teachings are of course based on the Commandments. An important one is that whatever a person decides, that the good he seeks not be brought about by intentionally harming another person.

The "template" letter they provide for pastors is actually better than the their own letter, in that it makes this broader, very important point regarding the prudential nature of decisions on vaccines (and other medical interventions) apart from the moral questions surrounding their provenance:

Therapeutic proportionality is an assessment of whether the benefits of a medical intervention outweigh the undesirable side-effects and burdens in light of the integral good of the person, including spiritual, psychological, and bodily goods.[5] The judgment of therapeutic proportionality must be made by the person who is the potential recipient of the intervention,[6] not by public health authorities or by other individuals who might judge differently in their own situations.

Prudential issues are simply decisions one makes when one balances risks. We have to be free in these matters and it's overly dramatic to make it sound as if there is some secret force motivating those who don't think these vaccines are going to be our salvation, or that there is some religious (and not simply rational) reason to avoid them. For instance, a Jew might not want to receive a medical product containing from pork. Even the most orthodox Jew would acknowledge that this a purely religious reason -- it would not obtain for a non-Jew. But both the Jew and the Christian of good will would resist aborted fetal tissue research and development as well as the idea that government will dictate what will be injected. These objections are not religious but have to do with violation of the universal moral law and medical freedom, respectively.

I hope that as bishops gain a voice, they begin to discuss things in a more common sense way. This letter from the Colorado bishops is a good start.

Death prevention

"Preventing one's own death is an act of charity toward one's spouse and children, and, radiating outward, to the rest of one's loved ones."

This irrational statement, an actual quote urging people to take vaccines as an obligation, perverts medicine and morality. It is a widely held opinion that didn't receive much resistance when it was written, so I won't identify the person who said it but rather try to offer a few thoughts to counteract its error.

Here is the error: I cannot prevent my own death. You cannot prevent your own death.

We will die. When and how we die is up to the Almighty. 

All we can do is live according to basic principles of the natural law (which include those that govern natural bodies), subject to Divine Law, which insists that this world is not our final home and that our earthly existence is not subject to our own will, nor is it an absolute value.

All we can do, within that fundamental framework, is prudently -- not absolutely -- minimize risk. Prudence is the virtue that sees reality as it is, seeks understanding of guiding principles, and applies what it knows to particulars.* Prudence understands that risks must be evaluated; that in this fallen world, no action (or inaction) is without its own risk.

No one can dictate prudence, any more than any other virtue, but particularly because conscience is inseparable from the person -- it cannot be outsourced.

Risk avoidance, as a prudential matter, has many factors known only to the person practicing it (and we all do practice it, more or less), including not making risk avoidance a false God.

Without setting complete risk avoidance aside, no discoveries would occur, no mountains would be climbed, no adventures would take place, no real life would occur. Some are weak and the risks they accept -- the risk of smoking, of eating too much, of not providing themselves with the basics of health such as fresh air, exercise, and moderate nourishment, are factors society works with, because we respect the freedom of the person. 

Some simply choose not to follow medical advice, and good doctors and nurses know that it is only that, advice. Every medical intervention carries risk to a certain extent; denying that this is so is bad medicine. Following every bit of medical advice does not and cannot ensure protection from illness and yes, death.

Until very recently we called people who are afraid to live life, who nervously cling to medications and treat vaccines as magic, who practice extreme risk avoidance, hypochondriacs. 

Now we are making hypochondria a religion. 

We cannot make "preventing one's death" a virtue, because it fails the reality test.