No Covid amnesty for bishops, theologians, et al., either

In her infuriating and ignobly equivocal article in The Atlantic, Let's Declare a Pandemic Amnesty, Emily Oster hides her own culpability* in lockdown matters by begging for universal amnesty, so that we can "try to work together to build back and move forward." 

"In April 2020, no one got the coronavirus from passing someone else hiking. Outdoor transmission was vanishingly rare. Our cloth masks made out of old bandanas wouldn’t have done anything, anyway. But the thing is: We didn’t know."

We knew, Emily. And we tried to tell you. Ask yourself what happened to our voices.

"When the vaccines came out, we lacked definitive data on the relative efficacies of the Johnson & Johnson shot versus the mRNA options from Pfizer and Moderna." 

With this anodyne statement, hopefully trying to cast the "sides" as equally culpable, as if one side were not in power, silencing and harming the other, Oster fails to mention further developments warned against by honest questioners, at great cost to themselves and their reputations, that the lockdowns and shots would prove to be devastating (the real, if soft-pedaled, meaning of the quote above).

For many reasons, not least having to do with how much we let ourselves know in the future, we should not move on, despite this transparent effort from a now-spooked ruling class to impute bad motives to those they attacked and harmed, hoping to evade a reckoning.

But there's another class of experts who also must not be allowed to fade into the background. 

And that is Catholic authorities and experts who followed those in the government and the media who now say "we didn't know" -- but who at the time were obviously silencing discussion (let alone criticism).

These Catholics insisted on following calls to mask and vaccinate, using religious authority, theological arguments, and the virtue of obedience to harm persons, families, and consciences. 

This group includes various bishops' conferences, bishops, vicar generals, pastors, parish administrators, theologians, and ethicists, not to mention random pundits, columnists, and podcasters. Many are left-leaning, politically, but some are conservative and even quite traditional. 

All abdicated their duty to defend personal autonomy and bodily integrity, as well as justice and right reason. 

Astoundingly, this cohort, this unholy cabal, ratcheted up fear and shut down our churches. Oh, some of them may have not wished to go that far, but their complicity in one or more aspects of the regime undermined their discomfort.

On a matter of utter prudential judgement on medical and social matters -- the Covid response -- that required information and only then, consent, by the persons in question, these religious experts and authorities abused their position and the respect accorded to them by the helpless faithful, and presumed to make judgements about matters outside their proper sphere of providing teaching of objective principle. 

They pompously rejected or provided the pretext for rejecting religious (really, conscience) exemptions from tormented people, their brothers and sisters in Christ. (My husband Phil Lawler wrote a book about all this: Contagious Faith - affiliate link.) 

Never will I forget images of children sitting at desks, once school did reopen, swathed in plastic, masked, behind plexiglass -- for the cowardice of our moral leaders. 

Many young people missed meeting their best friend or spouse; are now drug-addicted; many committed suicide. Many families lost a loved one and did not have the opportunity to say goodbye or comfort them in their last hours. 

For these Covid fellow-travelers, too, who enabled all this, there ought to be a tribunal and a requirement for apology and reparation. I don't know what that tribunal would be. Let their consciences accuse them.

The important point I want to emphasize in this matter of "moving on" is that the harm is not all in the past. The economy is in tatters (with the fallout being borne by the truly poor, near and far away). So is the Church (ditto). 

Fathers of families still are without jobs and pay, anguished and burdened by their means of provision and protection being taken away. Mothers are still traumatized by not being heard, by giving birth wearing a mask and alone, by being kept inside with young children who needed to go outside. Children have been subjected to loss of education, friendship, and well being (including physical well being, as immune systems are weakened by lockdown). Children in some places still wear a mask. Many of us can't go to the doctor without one (though I won't wear it).

Even today, the fearful wear masks outside or while driving alone, their psyches permanently scarred. 

I can't even go through the whole list of wrongs and evils -- it's too long. And it's not over.

But anyone in the Catholic Church who went along with lockdowns, vaccine mandates, masking, and/or social (and religious!) pressure ought to be ashamed. All along, we told them how it would end. Now even the ones who tried to suppress the truth see that it's coming out. Will they too ask for amnesty without any sign of repentance? For shame.

Christianity or capitulation

"Taking the jab is the Christian duty of loving your neighbor."

"Forgiving student loans is the Christian duty of forgiving debt."

"Raising taxes to provide for pregnant women, maternal care, and early childhood 'education' is a pro-life Christian duty."

What these bright policy ideas have in common is that they represent a turn away from personal responsibility and towards the state as an ideological entity capable of solving all ills, and they leverage faith in Christ to achieve it. Their proponents opportunistically use the good will of Christians to inflict serious harm on our already reeling polity.

Not coincidentally, each of these political notions masquerading as religious precepts promotes socialism, the doctrine that the state, and only the state, can administer to its citizens the actions it has deemed appropriate, and whom it regards as fair game for its ambitions. 

I say "administer" because each requires a bureaucratic structure which will, once established, be impervious to recourse from the citizens it inflicts its designs upon. When the inevitable inequities arise from the very remedy sought, no normal political process, among the many we are the increasingly ungrateful inheritors of, will be effective in undoing the damage or removing those to whom power was imprudently given.

The state ought to insure freedom, in justice, for good people to act -- for the good. The state's role is to preserve the common good (those immaterial goods not owned by anyone nor attainable by any one person, but shared by all) and to defend the innocent from evil. 

When a free people give the state permission to override bodily integrity, private property, and marital bonds, they will soon find that they are no longer free.

The hidden reason Roe fell

This article by Suzan Sammons is exactly right! Covid Jabs Revealed Hidden Pro-life Heroes

There are so many heroes of the pro-life movement -- some we know well, some we do not know. My own dear husband, Phil Lawler, was arrested when we had five small children (I think it was five then... ) and became the object of a federal RICO suit. 

Phil even wrote a book about the largest civil rights movement ever in our country, the one you never heard of (both the movement and the book): Operation Rescue, a Challenge to the Nation's Conscience. 

Our friend Bill Cotter, Operation Rescue leader, spent 18 months in prison for a misdemeanor in his efforts for the unborn. That was so long ago that most pro-life activists today would hardly recognize his name. Joan Andrews spend that long in solitary confinement -- solitary confinement -- for her peaceful witness in saving the unborn. 

But Suzan is correct when she says:

As much gratitude as I have for the pro-life leaders—the big names—who inspired me and guided me in my pro-life work, I am proudest of you hidden heroes. You were only revealed by the diabolical process that brought us the Covid vaccines, and few of us know your names. But when the moment of truth came, your convictions withstood the intense pressures of the regime that surrounds us. You stood by those truly nameless little ones whose only voice is ours.

Finally, after years and decades of some (but not all) pro-lifers trying to tell people that many vaccines use aborted fetal tissue in their development, testing, and production, the truth came out and people had the time -- were forced into having the time -- to read about it. 

As Suzan explains, the extreme Covid lockdowns and unjust pressure to take the jab are to thank for the awakening of a solid portion of our population to the ugly reality of our medical system's reliance on the death of countless unborn babies. 

Those who were awakened took a costly stand in many cases.

Everyone whose heart was truly with the unborn quickly realized the moral problem presented by the Covid vaccines. With their release coming at the same time as ever-increasing and horrifying revelations about the use of fetal tissue, many individuals had simply had enough. 

Sure, they’d prayed for an end to abortion, they’d gone to the March for Life for years, they were dedicated to supporting their local pregnancy care centers, they’d voted pro-life, boycotted the right companies, and stood up for life in debates with their friends or family. But now their beliefs were going to really cost them. They were going to lose their jobs—or in some cases their whole careers. They were not going to be able to go to their chosen college. They would not be able to visit their aging parents. The rubber met the road. 

And we passed the test. A pharmacist was fired because he refused to administer the vaccine…A hospital insurance processor took an entry level job in a new field to get out of the healthcare industry… A 30-year veteran teacher was forced out of her school system…A priest was willing to sign religious exemptions in spite of pressure not to do so…A breadwinner of a large family risked his job rather than comply with a vaccine mandate…A career military dad had to leave the Air Force without his benefits because of his refusal to take the jab…

And these real life examples? Multiply them by thousands. 

Finally, many did what is the only thing one can do, when moderate theological arguments fail and hope for gradual change runs out, when bishops refuse to witness (with a few exceptions) and people lose interest or succumb to what they see as the exigencies of normal life (school and sports participation, for instance). In the lockdown shakeup of everyday life, in the midst of fear, with all normality vanished, it was the ultimatum of all the so-called experts to submit that made enough people say, "I'm just not going to go along with this any more. There is no way I will take that shot. It's just wrong."

I do give credit to and must name one clergyman (and husband and father, as he is a Melkite), who spoke out in a compelling way before the lockdowns, when the political pressure for mandated vaccines was looming, and that is Fr. Michael Copenhagen. 

At a rally in 2019, in a brief but stirring speech, Fr. Copenhagen made the case that in conscience, one cannot go along with immorally derived medical products or the legalistic rationale for accepting them. I believe his clarifying words broke the ground for people to rise up against the Covid vaccines when they were pushed on us.

Fr. Copenhagen was able presciently and boldly to challenge* the prevailing line of acquiescence to immoral products comfortably offered by theologians and adopted by the hierarchy:

For those who argue that participation becomes licit if receiving the vaccine is looked at as a temporary solution to a significant public health danger, they should know that it is not temporary but expanding and that it will be forced regardless of whether it helps public health or not. Public authorities who support public murder cannot be taken seriously as guarantors of public health...

When [Tobit] was mocked by his kinsmen for adherence to these good works and told that his deeds were hopeless, he rebuked them: “Speak not so. For we are the children of saints, and look for that life which God will give to those that never changetheir faith from Him.”3 I remind all those who imitate Tobit’s naysayers and persecutors that the God of heaven and earth is very much alive and very much offended, that He loves each of these murdered and exploited children as His particular creatures, that He will restore life to their bodies in the Resurrection on the last day, rejoining body and soul in these innocents who were denied baptism and the chance to live based on the whim of tinkerers trying to extend our finite years, that He will restore this “biological material” to its rightful place and its rightful owner on that day, and we will all meet these children face to face. 

Suzan says:

In the profound working of God’s unfathomable providence, Roe was overturned on June 24, when the feast of the Sacred Heart of our dear Lord converged with the feast of St. John the Baptist. Overflowing love meets unshakeable moral conviction in these two feasts, and this is no coincidence. 

St. John the Baptist [on whose feast and that of the Sacred Heart Roe was overturned] refused to wink at the sin of Herod, and he publicly called him to repentance. He gave his life to uphold the moral law. You who were willing to sacrifice rather than accept a jab tainted by abortion did likewise. Perhaps you felt your stance was small in the grand scheme of things. I would say that our Lord has shown us otherwise. Your choice was rooted in sacrificial love like that of His own Sacred Heart. He honored that gift—those thousands of gifts from the lifeblood of American pro-lifers. 

Do read Suzan Sammons' whole article -- it's outstanding. 

It's never a waste to follow one's conscience. In fact, it's required of us. In this case, we were given the grace to see the outcome in a big way: the final toppling of the most deadly court case our nation has ever known. 

One woman's journey on a medical question

I urge you to read this post from Leila Miller, on her honest and self-accusing look at how she came to face the moral and political issues surrounding the question of vaccination, something that, as a person close to many medical professionals, she took for granted as being good and trustworthy. She writes:

My first child was born in 1991, and I did not hesitate to vaccinate her on schedule, just as I did with the next two children. About a year after my third child was born, the chickenpox vaccine came out to much fanfare, and I remember hesitating about that one. I wondered why it was such an important inoculation, because all of my generation had gotten chickenpox, and it was really not a big deal (aside from the itch)...

... As the years went by, all my children received all their shots on schedule—until the HPV vaccine (GARDASIL) came out. That one was a game-changer for me, as I was finally willing to reject one of the recommended vaccines. An injection to prevent a sexually-transmitted virus that might cause a highly curable cancer was a bridge too far. The hype around it did not make sense to me. I was not alone in questioning the shot, and several other pro-vaccine friends refused it for their children as well. 

... [however,] I still sat in judgment of a couple of friends who didn’t want their kids to get any shots. I had less judgment for those who were on a “delayed schedule,” but I still thought their caution was unnecessary. The “crunchy” Catholics, I admit, made me roll my eyes. Sure, reject the shots dealing with sexual transmission. I get that. But measles? Measles was making a comeback! We needed to be smart and sophisticated, not rubes and ignoramuses. 

I believed that the “anti-vax” sentiment was dangerous to society.  

... But there was always something bothering my conscience. Throughout all the years of vaccinating my eight children (and all ten of us getting our flu shots every year), there was an underlying ethical issue that I tried—mostly successfully—to ignore. .. that most vaccines in use were morally compromised, as they were produced by using the bodies of aborted human children. In other words, produced via a sophisticated cannibalism. I also learned the Church’s stance on the use of those abortion-tainted vaccines, namely that if there is only “remote material cooperation” involved, the shot may (not must) be taken. However, for a Catholic who makes the decision to take the shot, there is a moral obligation to speak out, to object, to demand the creation of an ethical alternative, and to make it difficult for the pharmaceutical companies to continue to make unethical vaccines. 

...  And then it was just a few years ago, probably a year or two before the Covid cult and vaccine idolatry, that my dear friend Leila Marie Lawler (the “other Leila”) started telling me that certain blue states were working to make it illegal for parents to opt out of vaccines for their children. Parents’ rights would be stripped, and no religious or conscience exemptions given for those enrolling in public schools. She gently warned me that power was changing hands from the parent to the state, and I needed to get on this bandwagon, and quickly. Once this blow against freedom and parental rights was enacted, there would be no going back... 

... With horror, I understood the obvious implications, and then I proceeded to … hide my head in the sand. I did nothing and said nothing publicly. It disturbed my peace to think about it, so I pulled a Scarlett O’Hara: I’d think about it another day. 

Read the whole thing. 

And when you have finished, I ask you, beg you, to watch the seven-minute video embedded here, especially if you doubt the moral centrality of the use of aborted baby cells in the research and development of these products (and more). Watch the body language of Stanley Plotkin, "godfather [sic] of modern vaccines." Watch his hands and eyes when he says this, if you are sure that the use of aborted babies in medical products is safely in the past:

The Catholic church has actually issued a document on that which says that individuals who need the vaccine should receive the vaccines regardless of the fact and that, uh, that I think it implies that I am the individual who will go to hell because of the use of aborted tissues, which I am glad to do. (emphasis added)

 

The aborted fetal cell research world you know nothing about

This Crisis article by Monica Seeley: Why the Blackout on Fetal Tissue Research Among Pro-Lifers? offers a useful survey of the use of aborted fetal tissue in Covid vaccines. It's important to tell the truth about how these cell lines are developed and how our medical system is corrupted by them, taking our consciences with them -- to the point that even those opposed to abortion refrain from their mention.

I have posted a lot about this issue (you can see the archive here -- this post has information challenging one common assurance, that DNA from the source does not end up in the vaccine itself).  

There is much more to be done to expose what can only be described as a huge industry, one poised to exceed its already large share of the economy -- the monetization of health in all its aspects. (For more on this, unfortunately behind a paywall in the Wall Street Journal, see "Will We All Soon Live in Cancerland? New technologies promise to help us discover more cancers in time to treat them. But they also risk ushering even the well into an all-encompassing kingdom of the ill.") 

As the populace is overcome by fear of illness, the medical-pharmaceutical-insurance complex stands to gain, especially by offering -- or mandating -- products that manipulate the very genetic processes of our bodies. 

Covid vaccines have provided the pretext for forging ahead into this ghastly realm. Despite protests from self-appointed ethical gate-keepers like Fr. Matthew Schneider, LC, it really is this particular virus and no other that has incentivized aborted fetal tissue. This shift is distilled in a March 16, 2021 -- and the date is significant, as it marks the rollout of the Covid vaccines -- article in the MIT Technology Review: Scientists plan to drop the 14-day embryo rule, a key limit on stem cell research. 

Because this article is technological, not polemical, it contains information that is normally kept away from the public. I urge you to read it, as it reveals a world far from the emotion-laded one we are carefully restricted to when we discuss abortion, the world of difficult choices made by suffering women in hard situations, the world of abortion as a misguided remedy for a personal problem. Instead, it puts us squarely in a different world of trafficking in human flesh, of the life and death of little ones in the clinics and in the labs, for medical research purposes:

Because embryo research doesn’t receive federal funding in the US, and laws differ widely around the world, the ISSCR [International Society for Stem Cell Research, "an influential professional society" that sets voluntary guidelines] has taken on outsize importance as the field’s de facto ethics regulator. The society’s rules are relied on by universities and by scientific journals to determine what kinds of research they can publish...

 The 14-day limit arose after the birth of the first test-tube babies in the 1970s. “It was ‘Oh, we can create human embryos outside the body—we need rules,” says Josephine Johnston, a scholar with the Hastings Center, a nonprofit bioethics organization. “It was a political decision to show the public there is a framework for this research, that we aren’t growing babies in labs.”

The rule stood unchallenged for many years. That was in part because scientist couldn’t grow embryos more than four or five days anyway, which was sufficient for in vitro fertilization.

Note that although the scientists are discussing embryo use, what is really happening, ultimately, is abortion, the deliberate ending of human life.

According to Ishii, new experiments “might ignite abortion debates,” especially if the researchers develop human embryos to the point where they take on recognizable characteristics like a head, beating heart cells, or the beginning of limbs.

During the Trump administration, embryologists endeavored to keep a low profile for the startling technical advances in their labs. Fears of a presidential tweet or government action to impede research helped keep discussion of changing the 14-day rule in the background. For instance, the ISSCR guidelines were complete in December, according to one person, but they still have not been published...

“I agree the rule has to be changed, but it should be done in an incremental manner, on a case-by-case basis,” says Alfonso Martinez Arias, a developmental biologist at Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona, who thinks researchers should ease their experiments forward a day or two at a time so they don’t lose public support. “My view is opening up too fast could allow very poor science,” he says. “I do worry about getting a flood of experiments that do not help us.”...

“We would have to ensure they develop normally, and to do that you have to study them beyond 14 days,” says Insoo Hyun, a bioethicist at Case Western Reserve University, who has argued in favor of easing the rule. “You need to study that embryo as long as you can.”

You should know that this is just one small corner of this industry. It's so vast, so global, that a dedicated, hidden supply chain exists just to keep it in motion. This is the industrial reality that even pro-lifers are ignorant of, and that apologists for the system shore up (such as, prominently, Fr. Matthew Schneider, LC, whose articles have provided cover to the leaders in the Catholic Church for support for participation in vaccine mandates, and to whom I have conveyed all this information on numerous occasions). 

As Seeley's article makes clear, the use of harvested organs will only grow. The technology to do so is very much in place and has been for a while; as the MIT article demonstrates, it was somewhat restrained by a combination of self-limitation and perceived political pressure. With Covid mandates in place, imposing a demand for gene therapies derived from fetal cells, the financial incentives are bursting the seams of the corporations and institutions that benefit. 

There is only one way to restrain this growth industry that depends on death, and that is to remove the demand. The horrors will stop only when information about what is going on is no longer kept from people of good will, and when they -- we --  are moved to refuse to participate -- to refuse to benefit from evil.

Fr. Michael Copenhagen: "Things will get worse before they get better"

I encourage you to listen in on a conversation between Patrick Coffin and Fr. Michael Copenhagen. I have admired Father ever since I heard his address at a rally in DC. You can read a transcript here of his straightforward, compelling remarks. 

We are moral actors, as he says -- our morality springs from within, from our union with God. We are not robots who download the latest version of theologians' attempts to rationalize current medical practices. Somehow we've been maneuvered into having the notion that when "the Vatican says" such-and-such, we are off the hook for moral reasoning, that our sense of right and wrong can be outsourced. But conscience has never before been treated this way in the Church -- we have to act out of complete conformity to God's Law, having clean consciences.

In his long talk with Coffin, Fr. Copenhagen explains how cooperation, on such flimsy terms, with immorally derived medical products harms our humanity and our relationship with God -- and will lead and has already led to serious injustice that will be decried in the future. 

I particularly urge you to watch between the 37 and 42 minute marks. The need for repentance is real and his way of expressing it is so helpful for those who are wondering how this all can be happening. Until we reach the point he speaks of, through suffering -- until we are convinced that God alone is God -- we will continue in this purgative way. But if you have time for the whole discussion, I think you will find it helpful.

You can watch here on You Tube or on Facebook where the livestream first occurred.

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.

Help is not on the way

I'm a housewife who won't lose her job if she doesn't get the jab, because I don't have a job. I probably will have to stay put and not go on airplanes, but I'm also 61, have traveled a fair amount, and can live with that. 

But I have known for a long time, long before Covid and the current delusional vaccine juggernaut, that the bishops would not come to the aid of anyone daring to question groupthink on this topic. Even if a parent, without challenging vaccines in principle, merely has common-sense objections to sticking an infant with over 20 shots in his first year of life, starting on day one -- even if the parent simply wants to modify the schedule -- the required "religious exemption" will not be supported by any spiritual leader in the Catholic Church he is likely to come across. If a parent is challenged by legal authorities (as many have been, to the point of the child being taken away, even for wanting to delay a shot), I doubt his bishop would come to rescue him.

They haven't heeded the warnings of Fr. Michael Copenhagen about the legitimate concerns of parents faced with subjecting their children to the twin evils of a jab using aborted fetal cells and a mandate to be jabbed in order to participate in society. He rightly points out that without the bishops' support, parents are at the mercy of the bureaucracy in this matter, having no recourse for conscience (or really, medical freedom), since so-called religious exemptions require a declaration from the spiritual leader -- regarding conscience, not the particular intervention.

These issues have been known and have been with us for decades now. Moms like me have been left alone in doctors' offices, trying to navigate the maze that is the balancing of risks and benefits with vaccines for our children, arguing with health professionals who demand submission. I say left alone because I am referring to spiritual support -- at a minimum on the grave subject of aborted fetal cell tissue used in the process.

Bishops caved on the main issues long ago, thanks to legalistic and unscientific theological support from those who dwell in unreal academic corridors, not among the vaccine harmed and those skeptical of increasing governmental intrusion on personal matters.

Now, with Covid, things have come to a head. As the pressure increases to get the still-unapproved, experimental vaccine to work, travel, and otherwise take part in normal activities, people face losing their jobs and their freedom. I have just heard of a nurse in this situation, seeking intervention from her bishop. I can honestly say I doubt he would even read her letter. After all, they didn't read the letters or answer the calls of those reporting abuse of children (see my husband's book, The Faithful Departed, and the tragic story of, among many, Marjory Gallant, the aunt of a boy abused by the notorious John Geoghan). They have moved on to another sort of abandonment.

The bishops are not only unconcerned with such injustices and official overreaction, they have run headlong to support this totalitarian scenario by getting jabbed themselves as a matter of public relations on behalf of a bureaucracy they should resist. They forget the teaching of our Church, expressed in Casti Connubii:

70. 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. St. Thomas teaches this when inquiring whether human judges for the sake of preventing future evils can inflict punishment, he admits that the power indeed exists as regards certain other forms of evil, but justly and properly denies it as regards the maiming of the body...

In my anger, I want to ask them -- should we apostatize, becoming Jehovah's Witnesses or Christian Scientists, to obtain from you support for conscience and medical freedom? Can you really not imagine any circumstance in the future that you would deplore, arising from this precedent? Why not understand that people have valid reasons to refuse injection? Why not do as Catherine Pakaluk, Stacy Trasancos, and thousands of those who signed their statement beg: uphold the right to conscience and awaken the consciences of others? 

How the CDC is manipulating data to prop-up “vaccine effectiveness”

I doubt many would get the vaccine if they didn't think it was necessary to live normally (vs. necessary to escape infection). Yesterday I learned of another elderly person who died after receiving the Pfizer jab. Apparently, what is not well known is that acute appendicitis is the leading side effect, and that indeed is what she died of, in a miserable and drawn-out way. 

So what do we think of this new development: How the CDC is manipulating data to prop-up “vaccine effectiveness”? 

The trick is in their reporting of what they call “breakthrough infections” – that is people who are fully “vaccinated” against Sars-Cov-2 infection, but get infected anyway.

Essentially, Covid19 has long been shown – to those willing to pay attention – to be an entirely created pandemic narrative built on two key factors:

False-postive tests. The unreliable PCR test can be manipulated into reporting a high number of false-positives by altering the cycle threshold (CT value)

Inflated Case-count. The incredibly broad definition of “Covid case”, used all over the world, lists anyone who receives a positive test as a “Covid19 case”, even if they never experienced any symptoms.

Without these two policies, there would never have been an appreciable pandemic at all, and now the CDC has enacted two policy changes which means they no longer apply to vaccinated people.

Really, tell me (the CDC link is here, on which this analysis is based). I don't pretend to be able to interpret these things with any particular expertise. But I do think that there is something not above-board about the way the vaccine has been presented. The book The Price of Panic (affiliate link) details the issue of first, the models used to predict the pandemic and secure support for policies (or at least silence criticism) and second, the testing used to shore it all up. Now that we are well in the vaccine phase of our national and global ordeal, I think we need to start asking hard questions about how the data are presented.

Do we proceed under the right method?

An important essay that examines the reasons given to accept vaccines (and any product) that uses aborted fetal cells, from Michael Pakaluk: 

Why I Signed “To Awaken Conscience”

In ethical questions, one has to follow the right method. Right method does not mean coming up with an argument that seems obvious to you, even if it implies that lots of thoughtful people are deluded. This is how the EPPC signatories proceed. It’s obvious to them that only the abortions in the past could be wrong; these are remotely distant. Therefore, only forward-looking effects can be ethically relevant now. And, so long as one limits oneself to using “immortalized cells,” there can be no such effects.  

So they say. I hold that every step of this reasoning is flawed. But more importantly, their method is flawed. If, on their view, past statements of the Pontifical Academy of Life, the CDF, the U.S. Bishops, and many other thoughtful “pro-life scholars,” such as those at the Charlotte Lozier Institute and the National Catholic Bioethics Center, end up being not simply mistaken but actually insanely deluded, then they’ve made a wrong turn. Their view cannot be correct, because it does not “save the appearances,” as Aristotle would say.  

We are somewhat hemmed in by the insistence on a certain approach of theologians who are bound and determined that we take the vaccines. But is their framework valid? Before we assent to the discussion, we have to decide if it's the discussion that offers answers:

First, we need to clear up some confusions involving Liguori’s distinction, from his Theologia Moralis, between “formal” and “material” cooperation. That distinction is useful only when cooperation is verified, and one wants to know what sort of cooperation it is. 

Michael thinks they have the wrong end of the stick: 

For Catholic ethicists to assure us solemnly, as some have done, that we can licitly take the “abortion tainted” vaccines, for the reason that our material cooperation with abortions in the past would be “very very remote,” is philosophical foolishness of the highest order.

Read the whole thing to find out why from a philosophical point of view.

I believe the theologians err by falling into the trap of legalism, which takes as given that the thing will be done, and merely seeks a path of reasoning that shows that it can licitly be done. Is this how we want to live? Or do we want to do good.  

Funny how that doesn't work

 The vaccine manufacturers do not claim that you will not get others sick -- only that your symptoms may be less severe than if you weren't vaccinated -- and even then there is some question, and whether people are being properly informed.

So why is this Catholic Church lying about it?

Confessions Are Now Available

for Those Who Are Vaccinated

Only those vaccinated may come to the Sacrament of Penance in order to protect yourself, and more importantly, to protect others in case you are asymptomatic and contagious. (emphasis added)

UPDATE:

Here is the screenshot of the page before:

The page has been "updated" to say this:

The faithful cannot, canonically speaking, be deprived of anonymous confession. It certainly doesn't make sense, if the worry is about infection, for those who are presumptively contagious to be relegated to face-to-face confession... just think about it. 

Of course, the vaccine manufacturers do not claim that it makes the person taking it not contagious. And it doesn't make sense to bring up anything about the effect of lowering "viral load" while simultaneously claiming that masks are essential to protect against the asymptomatic. The two are mutually exclusive ideas. 

In any case, even the most enthusiastic vaccine supporter does not think that it makes the situation inside a confessional safer -- unless that supporter is Catholic, apparently. Catholics seem to attribute all sorts of magic to the vaccine. 

Human DNA in the Covid vaccines

Eugenio Derbez interviews Dr. Fauci. (The introduction is in Spanish but actual video is in English.)

Eugenio Derbez: "Is that true that there is residual DNA from an aborted baby in the Johnson and Johnson?
Anthony Fauci: "No, there is no residual DNA that gets injected into you at all....there's no residual human fetal DNA at all."

Johnson & Johnson COVID vaccine FDA insert, page 17: "Each dose may also contain residual amounts of host cell proteins (≤0.15 mcg) and/or host cell DNA (≤3 ng)."

For the layman, this question of human DNA in injections is not an easy one to navigate, especially when any discussion is scoffed at by vaccine promoters. But it is a question, a valid one. We can't be satisfied with "the experts know" -- we have a right to be informed before we consent to an injection for ourselves or for our children.

Dr. Theresa's Deisher’s letter on human DNA in the MMR states,

“Levels in our children can reach up to 5 ng/ml after vaccination, depending on the age, weight and blood volume of the child. That level is known to activate Toll-like receptor 9 (TLR9), which can cause autoimmune attacks.”

For comparison labor is induced by the child’s DNA mixing with her mother’s blood at lower levels:

“When they reach between 0.46– 5.08 ng/mL, they trigger labor via the TLR9 mechanism”

“The rubella portion of the MMR vaccine contains human derived fetal DNA contaminants of about 175 ngs, more than 10x over the recommended WHO threshold of 10 ng per vaccine dose[x].”

[x] Series, WHO Technical Report. WHO EXPERT COMMITTEE ON BIOLOGICAL STANDARDIZATION 941; Deisher et al. Issues Law Med. 2015 Spring;30(1):47-70

Dr. Fauci asserts these vaccines do not contain human DNA; the insert of the vaccine says it may. 3 ng is not zero. The FDA requires that these injections need only contain levels that equal a third of what is acceptable in the MMR. Levels, however, which are more than sufficient to induce an autoimmune response in infants. (Covid vaccine trials are beginning on babies as young as 6 months.) Who verifies that these levels are even met?

Why are we satisfied with a vague protest?

 Animal rights activists: No testing on animals.

Governor Ralph Northam has signed the Humane Cosmetics Act, which prohibits those who manufacture cosmetic products from contracting or conducting their product testing to be done on animals in Commonwealth areas after January 1, 2022. This law will also end the sale of cosmetics that have been tested on animals for profit.

https://www.klkntv.com/virginia-is-now-the-4th-state-to-ban-cosmetic-animal-testing/

Catholics on aborted fetal tissue use in (apparently all, including medical) products: "There is still such a thing as a stiff letter to the Times! I'll take that vaccine now."

Let's be clear about how vaccines feed the tyranny of the administrative state

A bill introduced in the Massachusetts State Legislature provides a case study, and make no mistake, what starts in MA will soon be the law of the land (think "gay marriage" and "affordable [sic] health care"). Edited to say: This particular bill expired but new bills will appear under a different number. It is well to be mentally prepared. 

Further edit: the bill has been reintroduced. 

I urge you to read the whole article outlining the bill, but the bottom line that those optimistically touting vaccines as the easy way out of this Covid mess are feeding tyranny.

Vaccines seem like a way to good health, and perhaps they are (of course, each one is its own thing with its own risks and benefits; any responsible person would do well to research each one).

The problem is when vaccines mean that our lives will increasingly be ruled by bureaucracy -- that is, unelected state employees. We will feel virtuous when we cast our votes for legislators, all unconscious that what we are doing is providing a rubber stamp for functionaries in various agencies who serve as conduits for, in this case, manufacturers of vaccines and other medical products to ply their wares. There will be no recourse (as written in the bill, please read about it) when these products fail or harm.

Parents will not only not consent to their child's health care, they will not have knowledge of it. Think about what this means: your child might have received a vaccine at school and suffered an ill effect -- you take him to the ER and they ask you what medications or procedures he has had so that they can treat him properly, and you won't know. (Sound farfetched? This happens already with contraceptives and abortions.)

Doctors will not be able to consult with parents on individual cases (for instance, even if your doctor advises your child not to receive a vaccine due to a medical condition, a health department official or his agent, read: unknown school nurse, can override it). This bill takes away a doctor's right to practice medicine according to his conscience.

The bill (similar to bills in other states, perhaps yours) forces speech, which is against human rights: 

"The bill would also require parents requesting a religious exemption to sign a document acknowledging that:

The parent or child has a sincere religious belief prohibiting immunizations.

Refusing to immunize the child may result in serious illness or death of the child. 

Refusing to immunize the child is against public health policy and may result in serious illness or death of others."

The bill coerces institutions into becoming agents of the state:

"The bill would require that any school or program that did not achieve a high enough vaccination rate to achieve “herd immunity” be designated as an “elevated risk program.” These programs would be required to notify all participants and potential participants of the new designation, distribute pro-vaccine literature to all parents, and invite all parents to a presentation by the state about vaccine safety."

The dangers of this bill go on and on. Vaccines seem like such a nice idea until you realize they are cover for taking away freedom.

Think about it. If the administrative state can "regularize" such things as injections into your or your child's body, what will be next? Just think....

PLEASE READ ABOUT IT even if you are not a MA resident, simply because this tyranny is barreling down the road, aimed at you.  

Statement of conscience, to awaken conscience

 I urge you to read (and click through to sign if you agree that conscience must be protected) this statement on the morality of Covid vaccines.

It's disheartening to see fellow people of good will acquiesce to the premise of the vaccines -- that the situation is grave and warrants such a response, and that a morally tainted response is the right one. 

Statement of Conscience to Awaken Conscience (when you click through you will also see embedded links to support statements)

“Abortion has become the greatest destroyer of peace, because it destroys 

two lives, the life of the child and the conscience of the mother.” 

Mother Teresa of Calcutta (1988)

“She is the human and sacred image; all around her the social fabric

shall sway and split and fall; the pillars of society shall be shaken, and the 

roofs of ages come rushing down, and not one hair of her head shall be harmed.”

G.K. Chesterton, What’s Wrong with the World

We the undersigned, men and women in solidarity with the weakest among us, wish to respond publicly to what appears to be a growing consensus among Catholic ethicists that vaccines derived from aborted fetal tissue are not only morally permissible (licit), but also (nearly) morally obligatory for the sake of the common good. Examples include, among others, this statement organized by EPPC, the steady position of the Catholic Health Association (CHA), and a December statement of the USCCB which says that receiving the (abortion-tainted) COVID-19 vaccine “should be considered...part of our moral responsibility for the common good.” These statements are troubling to us, and seem to run afoul of our rights of conscience to refuse such vaccines, clearly defended by the Church, in Dignitas Personae (CDF 2008) and Note on the morality of using some Covid-19 vaccines (CDF 2020). We now fear the circling of the wagons around abortion-tainted vaccines, advanced by powerful voices which seem ready to silence our moral intuitions. 

We resist this “consensus” being foisted upon us as morally repugnant: we do not wish to benefit from abortion. We deplore the lack of moral imagination displayed by public health officials, politicians, and all those who disregard the natural disgust felt by persons who wish to remain separate from the crime of abortion in every way possible. And we lament a “soulless scientism” that fails to account for the unique dignity of the human person and the role of suffering in human life.

We are puzzled and pained by the lack of reasonable skepticism which pro-life persons ought to show for the scientific-industrial complex (SIC). A distortion of medical and scientific standards so often accompanies questionable ethical practices, and a “science” which denies life inevitably takes life. Consequently, there are many reasons why a person may feel duty-bound to avoid these vaccines besides religious conviction, such as the experimental nature of them (FDA “emergency use”) and the unknown effects, especially on children and pregnant women. 

We hereby urge, by our witness and testimony, that people who agree with us—and also those who disagree but who admire our stance, and who wish to defend our right to hold it—join together to claim the freedom in conscience to refuse vaccines derived from aborted fetal cell lines.

“There is a grave responsibility to use alternative vaccines and to make a conscientious objection with regard to those which have moral problems,” wrote the Pontifical Academy for Life in 2005, in guidance confirmed by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith; abortion-tainted vaccines create a ”context of moral coercion of the conscience of parents, who are forced to choose to act against their conscience.” Indeed, many of us have spent decades trying to resist the abortion-tainted varicella and MMR vaccines, which were produced in the same compromised way, meeting resistance everywhere, being ‘fired’ by our physicians, and opposed even by leaders of our own churches. Many Catholic schools even require students to obtain the morally objectionable vaccines in order to attend.

These failures make us now question whether earlier capitulations (on the grounds that there was ‘no alternative’) were the right courses of action. The threats grow by the moment. Even now, there is pending legislation which would allow children the right to consent to vaccines without parental knowledge. Such a policy has implications far beyond the present crisis. We wish to call attention to the unintended consequences of a ‘soft opposition’ of words and not of deeds. Coercion in these and other matters hostile to life is coming.   

We are told there is nearly ubiquitous use of HEK-293 cells in the scientific and medical industry. If this is so, we take it to be evidence of structures of sin surrounding abortion. We invite (and call upon our lawmakers to require) all product manufacturers to reveal publicly and label their use of these cells, so that we can go forward avoiding such products. More has been done to resist animal cruelty and the use of genetically modified organisms than to resist the benefiting from the murder of a child. (The very same papers which report tests of vaccines using HEK-293 cells take pains in their disclosures to say that no animals were mistreated in the course of their research!) We lament that we have been led to use compromised products and medicines in the past without knowledge. Let all that has been hidden be brought into the light. 

We find insufficient the accounts of moralists who lean on casuistical distinctions, originally designed to analyze private action in a Christian society, when we are crushed by a public edifice determined to protect the so-called ‘right to abortion’, and determined in addition to benefit from its byproducts in many ways beyond the current (and previous) vaccines. We know that trafficking in aborted fetal body parts exists and amounts to an industry. The acceptance of the use of tissues derived in the past does have implications for incentivizing this industry. While no attention is given to the truth about human life in the public square, and while academia, the media, and elite institutions remain in the grips of a “culture of death,” we believe a more radical public witness is needed today.

We remember the holy mother in 2 Maccabees, a type of Our Lady, who urged her sons to resist violating God's law even if it meant their death, saying, "Therefore the Creator of the world, who shaped the beginning of man and devised the origin of all things, will in his mercy give life and breath back to you again, since you now forget yourselves for the sake of his laws.” We expect great public good to arise if her example of witness to higher goods and God’s sovereignty inspires our actions today. The march of science, the treatments it pursues, the political incentives it responds to, are none of them are immune from moral witness. Without our courage we fear that pinches of incense will continue to be extracted from us, rendering us insensitive to what should cause our indignation, sorrow, and determination to change. 

The abortions from which the cell lines are derived are said to be so “remote” as to be like roads constructed by slave laborers hundreds of years ago. Surely remoteness is a judgment in conscience. How “remote” is a cell line connected by continuous life with the murdered child? How “remotely” long ago is the abortion of a child who would be only 50 years old today? It is urged, as if it mattered, that the abortions were not carried out in order to create the cell lines—and yet the tissue of the aborted child (which no lab scientist had authority to use) did not miraculously give rise to cell lines but instead was manipulated deliberately, precisely in order to create the cell lines. Therefore, the use of these cell lines exactly corresponds to and complements the depraved intention to create them.

“Protect unborn man from born man!” St. John Paul II exhorted us. We live in a world divided into a Way of Life and a Way of Death. The Way of Death is this: born man subordinates unborn man to himself, for his own advantage. The Way of Life is this: born man unwaveringly and resolutely protects unborn man, even to his own disadvantage. To which culture do we wish to belong? With which do we identify? “What does it profit a man to gain his life but lose his soul?”

We therefore urge our ethicists to resist a premature “consensus” about abortion-tainted SARS-CoV-2 vaccines. We insist on our freedom of conscience in this matter, to witness to life as we judge we are being called to do.  We also urge a reconsideration of earlier “consensus” views about previous abortion-tainted vaccines. And we urge a public reckoning as regards every secret use of these cells derived from an abortion. 

We reiterate in closing: even if, as a matter of general principles, it is not always morally illicit to use such abortion-tainted vaccines temporarily, in extreme necessity, and even then under strenous protest, the use of such vaccines must never be advanced as mandatory, or as a universal duty.  Because some of us in conscience believe that we are called to refuse to take them.

St. Gianna Beretta Molla, pray for us!

Signed by,

Catherine Ruth Pakaluk, Ph.D. 

The Catholic University of America

Washington, DC

[Corresponding Author: pakalukc@cua.edu]

And by,

Stacy Ann Trasancos, Ph.D.

St. Philip Institute of Catechesis and Evangelization

Tyler, TX

[Correspondence: strasancos@stphilipinstitute.org]

Michael Pakaluk, Ph.D.

The Catholic University of America

Washington, DC

Jose Luis Trasancos, Ph.D. 

Children of God for Life

Tyler, TX

Most Rev. Bishop Joseph E. Strickland, J.C.L.

Bishop of Tyler

Tyler, TX

Media Inquiries: ysosa@stphilipinstitute.org

Do only hypocrites object to testing vaccines using aborted fetal tissue?

Some hold that it is immoral to test vaccines using aborted fetal tissue, and that this moral taint makes it impossible for them to take the vaccine (especially considering that the need for it is not grave).  

One argument against those with this position (not, notice, an argument saying it is moral to test using aborted fetal tissue) is that many if not most of the drugs we use are tested this way.

I have been one of the more aware observers on the issue of aborted fetal cells in the production of medical products. I don't say I'm an expert -- I am not. I just say that I am what could be called a "high-information" reader on the topic.

And I had not known that this was the case. (*see UPDATE below)

I think it safe to say that most people don't know that vaccines or any other medical product is tested (leaving aside other steps) using aborted fetal cells.

Therefore, it is not correct to state or even imply some sort of double standard on the topic. I'd say it's information that is only now becoming known. 

The position that there is some sort of hypocrisy in refusing such vaccines while taking, say, a heart medication is an example of the "tu quoque" logical fallacy. 

You know who indulges in this fallacy on a regular basis? Fr. James Martin, SJ. He often faults Catholic institutions for dismissing employees in "same-sex marriages" on the basis of the same institutions allowing divorced and remarried Catholics to continue to be in their employ.

The two instances (vaccines and irregular unions) differ in this way: No one, as I say, in the general public knew until very recently that most medicines are tested using aborted fetal products, while many Catholic institutions do wink and nod at divorced and remarried couples. 

But in both cases, the appropriate response (and the one that anyone committed to following Our Lord's teachings on the Commandments is ready to give) is simply to conclude that something is also very wrong in the prior case.

We have been too lax in allowing the divorced and remarried to hold positions where they present a bad example and present a scandal, especially to young people. Only a person bent on the destruction of the common good would say, "Oh, right, we've broken God's Commandment in one way, therefore let us go ahead and break it in some other ways as well!"

Likewise, the proper conclusion to draw from this discovery that aborted fetal cells are used broadly in medical production is to begin holding our medical system accountable and to require changes in how medications are tested, derived, and produced -- certainly not to say that our previous ignorance now makes this heinous activity acceptable.

On the contrary. Vaccines represent a challenge, a line we will not cross, when we can call a halt to a practice we oppose. We can seize this opportunity and then begin to address the rest. My husband called for us to do this when we were able, and sadly, the opportunity passed. Nevertheless, better late than never. 

And you know, Providence is actually making it easy for us. We have very little to lose by refusing this vaccine. As far as any risk is concerned, the odds are overwhelmingly in our favor.**

____

*UPDATE: Please read this article by Dr. Brian Kopp to understand how Fr. Matthew Schneider LC uses spurious methods to arrive at the conclusion that most objecting to the aborted fetal tissue use are hypocrites: Not so fast. The Very Misleading Article By a Priest on Drugs And Abortion Testing

"The author simply searched an over the counter or prescription medication name plus “Hek 293” cells and if they came up positively associated in medical or scientific literature, he claimed they too were “ethically tainted” and all us pro lifers had to abandon the use of those drugs too, if we were going to oppose fetal stem cell tainted Covid vaccines on those grounds.

"However, when he researched these medications, he failed to distinguish those that were tested on, developed with and/or manufactured with fetal cells before or during their initial introduction, from those that, for academic reasons, years later were tested on fetal stem cell lines." 

The article goes on to show how most of the medications cited by Fr. Schneider LC do not meet the criterion of taintedness. 

**Manufacturers of the vaccines do not recommend them for those at risk; those not at risk are... not at risk. I'm not going to argue about this, as it's all a matter of record and can be read in their own material (as opposed to the propaganda put out by the so-called experts who have a vested interest in our overlooking what the manufacturers themselves claim for their products). In addition, every medical intervention, including vaccination, carries risks. The key is to evaluate relative risk.

Vatican Requires Covid Vaccine

Again, something I would post about on Facebook but prefer to mention here -- I would appreciate comments being about this particular vaccine and the principle of medical freedom/bodily integrity:

This article about the Vatican giving consequences to employees not receiving the Covid vaccine prompts a few quick thoughts:

Vaccines are not magic. They have side effects and risks (and they are all different and target different kinds of health issues) -- you only have to read the inserts that come with them to know this. 

Agreeing to a vaccine is a matter of being informed and of medical freedom. Up until recently, it was understood that one ought to have recourse to a "religious exemption" -- which I think is commonly interpreted to mean having a right to refuse (which could be and often is actually a scientific, medical assessment of risk/benefit). I think it's not a good name for it; it should be a "medical freedom exemption."

Not allowing medical freedom in the matter of something that is injected into one's body is a dangerous stance. Just because the substance in question seems inoffensive doesn't mean that every substance will always be inoffensive. Next time it could be something to cause sterility or a chip... remember, even today girls are given contraceptives (including implants) by health operatives without parental knowledge; they are even taken for abortions.

This particular vaccine is stated by its manufacturers to be experimental, and it's a human right not to be medically experimented on without one's consent.

The administrative body making decisions is usually the department of health, which is an agency run, remember, by bureaucrats, not scientists. In the case of an institution like the Vatican or a university or a hospital, it's just managers. Much of what drives vaccinations is a combination of checking off public health boxes and trying to avoid lawsuits.

The information they base their decision on comes from the manufacturer of the vaccine, who is indemnified (cannot be sued) for this product's malfunction (unlike other products they offer).

Bodily integrity is a human right. In Casti Connubii #70, Pope Pius XI writes: "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."