![\"\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/572\/2021\/08\/Coronavirus3.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Charlie Fromm-Starkville<\/span><\/span><\/a>, a Facebook friend of mine, describes himself as a \u201ctraditional Catholic\u201d. This back-and-forth exchange took place on my Facebook page<\/a>: edited (some sub-threads not included) for the sake of relative brevity and flow of content. His words will be in blue<\/span>.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n *****<\/p>\n Pope Francis has endorsed (as he must, because it is solidly established Catholic teaching) the right to conscientious objection:<\/p>\n Moreover, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith produced on 12-21-20:\u00a0Note on the morality of using some anti-Covid-19 vaccines<\/a>.\u00a0<\/em>At the end it states:<\/p>\n The Sovereign Pontiff Francis, at the Audience granted to the undersigned Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, on 17 December 2020, examined the present Note and ordered its publication.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n This papal approval included the following, from section 5:<\/p>\n 5. 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. In any case, from the ethical point of view,\u00a0the morality of vaccination depends not only on the duty to protect one\u2019s own health, but also on the duty to pursue the common good<\/em>. In the absence of other means to stop or even prevent the epidemic, the common good may recommend vaccination, especially to protect the weakest and most exposed.\u00a0Those who, however, for reasons of conscience, refuse vaccines produced with cell lines from aborted fetuses<\/strong>, must do their utmost to avoid, by other prophylactic means and appropriate behavior, becoming vehicles for the transmission of the infectious agent. In particular, they must avoid any risk to the health of those who cannot be vaccinated for medical or other reasons, and who are the most vulnerable. [my bolding; italics in original]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n See also:<\/p>\n \u201cOn vaccination, NY archdiocese tramples the rights of the faithful\u201d<\/a>\u00a0(Phil Lawler,\u00a0Catholic Culture<\/em>, 8-5-21)<\/p>\n \u201cTwo Catholic groups: No vaccine mandate without conscience protections\u201d<\/a>\u00a0(Mark Pattison,\u00a0Catholic News Service<\/em>, 8-2-21)<\/p>\n To my knowledge, when Pope Francis has encouraged people to receive a COVID vaccine [see one example<\/a>], it was a general recommendation<\/em>: not<\/strong><\/em> a mandate<\/em><\/strong> that all<\/em><\/strong> Catholics must<\/strong><\/em> receive it, as a matter of absolute moral obligation, in conjunction with the commands to love our neighbors, etc.<\/p>\n The Church is also crystal-clear as to the individual right of conscientious objection. See, for example, the Catechism:<\/p>\n I am a traditional Catholic. I am also a realist. It brings me no joy to say this, but the reality is that Darwinism is taking care of those who object to vaccination or treat mask mandates like a conspiracy theory.<\/span><\/p>\n Peter has spoken through his successor Francis. And it appears from news reports that he is speaking directly to Catholics in America.<\/span> [provided a link<\/a>]<\/p>\n I will not receive parts of murdered babies used for vaccine research and development into my body; period.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n
I can\u2019t have in mind all cases that can exist about conscience objection. But, yes, I can say the conscientious objection is a right that is a part of every human right. It is a right. And if a person does not allow others to be a conscientious objector, he denies a right.<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
Conscientious objection must enter into every juridical structure because it is a right, a human right. Otherwise we would end up in a situation where we select what is a right, saying \u2018this right that has merit, this one does not.\u2019 It is a human right. It is a human right and if a government official is a human person, he has that right. It is a human right. (September 2015<\/a>)<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
We see every day that the powerful countries create laws that force us to go through this path \u2026 a nation that doesn\u2019t follow these modern laws, these cultures, or that at least doesn\u2019t want to have them in its laws, is accused, is politely persecuted. It\u2019s a persecution that robs man of his freedom, even from conscientious objection! Conscientious objection is a right, and part of the body of all human rights. If we want to make peace, we must respect all rights. (April 2016)<\/a><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
1776<\/strong>\u00a0\u201cDeep within his conscience man discovers a law which he has not laid upon himself but which he must obey. Its voice, ever calling him to love and to do what is good and to avoid evil, sounds in his heart at the right moment. . . . For man has in his heart a law inscribed by God. . . . His conscience is man\u2019s most secret core and his sanctuary. There he is alone with God whose voice echoes in his depths.\u201d [Footnote:\u00a0Gaudium Spes<\/em>\u00a016.]<\/div>\n*<\/div>\n1778<\/strong> Conscience is a judgment of reason whereby the human person recognizes the moral quality of a concrete act that he is going to perform, is in the process of performing, or has already completed. In all he says and does, man is obliged to follow faithfully what he knows to be just and right. It is by the judgment of his conscience that man perceives and recognizes the prescriptions of the divine law:<\/div>\n*<\/div>\n\u201cConscience is a law of the mind; yet [Christians] would not grant that it is nothing more; I mean that it was not a dictate, nor conveyed the notion of responsibility, of duty, of a threat and a promise. . . . [Conscience] is a messenger of him, who, both in nature and in grace, speaks to us behind a veil, and teaches and rules us by his representatives. Conscience is the aboriginal Vicar of Christ.\u201d<\/div>\n*<\/div>\n[Footnote for citation: John Henry Cardinal Newman, \u201cLetter to the Duke of Norfolk,\u201d<\/a> V, in Certain Difficulties felt by Anglicans in Catholic Teaching II<\/em> (London: Longmans Green, 1885), 248.]<\/div>\n*<\/div>\n1782<\/strong> Man has the right to act in conscience and in freedom so as personally to make moral decisions. \u201cHe must not be forced to act contrary to his conscience. Nor must he be prevented from acting according to his conscience, especially in religious matters.\u201d [Footnote: DH 3 \u00a7 2.]<\/div>\n*<\/div>\n1790<\/strong> A human being must always obey the certain judgment of his conscience. If he were deliberately to act against it, he would condemn himself. . . .<\/div>\n*<\/div>\n1800<\/strong>\u00a0A human being must always obey the certain judgment of his conscience.<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n\nTo me this is the moral equivalent of Nazi research on Jewish concentration camp victims. The Church has condemned it (while allowing Catholics to receive vaccines due to remoteness of participation in the evil). This is a matter of conscience<\/strong>. It applies only to me<\/strong><\/em>. I\u2019m not here telling you or anyone else what they should do. Go do your thing and leave those of us who have a different view alone.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n*<\/div>\n\n\nExactly!<\/span><\/div>\n*<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\nAs a Catholic apologist it would be completely and professionally irresponsible for you to tell others not to receive the vaccine when Pope Francis himself, the successor of St Peter, just cut a public service announcement aimed primarily at Americans telling us to undergo vaccination as an act of love towards our neighbor.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n*<\/div>\nI know many other Catholic apologists have exposed themselves as dissenters during Pope Francis\u2019 pontificate. But you have for the most part remained faithful. So I could not imagine you taking a position contrary to the Holy Father\u2019s.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n*<\/div>\nWith that in mind, though, please keep in mind that there are a number of conservative and traditionalist Catholic apologists and writers who advocate that the Church ought to take a more aggressive approach to vaccination. It\u2019s not just the Patheos crowd taking this position. Personally, I can appreciate Pope Francis\u2019 approach: which is to use both tradition (Angelus message) and modern social media (YouTube) to appeal directly to the average Catholic in those parts of the world where clergy and lay apologists and theologians have proven most resistant to vaccination. If you have not seen the Holy Father\u2019s video, it is well worth watching.\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n*<\/div>\nHere is the Holy Father\u2019s public service announcement promoting COVID vaccination.<\/span> [link<\/a>] <\/span>I much prefer the Pope Francis\u2019s fatherly and loving appeal to vaccinate out of love of neighbour (Christ\u2019s second commandment), to advocacy for mass excommunication.<\/span><\/div>\n*<\/div>\n\n\nI\u2019m not an ultramontanist, and this statement from the pope is not an infallible one. It\u2019s not binding for all Catholics. He has to abide by the Catholic Church\u2019s recognition of the right to conscientious objection, just like everyone else.<\/div>\n*<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\nAnd in fact he does<\/em> recognize it, as I documented above. He must<\/em> do so, because it is solidly established Catholic teaching) the right to conscientious objection. I have not argued that folks shouldn\u2019t get vaccinated. I have said that it is overall a good thing.<\/div>\n*<\/div>\nI do think Pope Francis is taking the right approach as pastor of the universal Church by cutting targeted public service announcements instead of using the hammer of censures and canonical penalties, as some have called for.<\/span><\/div>\n*<\/div>\nDo you agree that any and every Catholic who has conscientious objections to the use of aborted babies, is not morally obliged to ignore their conscience and receive a COVID vaccine?<\/div>\n*<\/div>\n\n\nI believe that. I also believe they have an obligation to examine and try and understand why Pope Francis, various Eastern Catholic Patriarchs, Cardinals, bishops, and learned theologians are promoting vaccination against COVID, especially if the anti-vax Catholics are clergy, religious, theologians, catechists, teachers, apologists, or public figures.<\/span><\/div>\n*<\/div>\n\n\nObviously they are promoting it because it lowers the incidence of COVID. That still doesn\u2019t touch my objection based on conscience (though that\u2019s not my only one: just the primary and most unassailable one). It doesn\u2019t follow logically that if Pope Francis says \u201cgo get vaccinated. It\u2019s an act of love\u201d etc., that he is therefore denying conscientious objection. Elsewhere he has made it clear that there is<\/strong><\/em> such a thing as conscientious objection.<\/div>\n*<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\nI\u2019m \u201canti-vax\u201d for me<\/em><\/strong>, not \u201canti-vax.\u201d It\u2019s a big and important distinction. No one has any basis to attack my position, which is firmly entrenched in Catholic moral teaching. Conscientious objection was a fundamental notion of things like the civil rights movement, protests against Vietnam, and Operation Rescue\u2019s blocking of abortion death center doors (of which I was a part).<\/div>\n*<\/div>\n\n\nI start from the position that as both a scientist and a theologian Pope Francis is much more competent in these areas than I am. I admit up front that I am no expert, and so I cannot judge, but I personally believe that Pope Francis is more competent in science and moral theology than the vast majority of his critics within the Church. So my assumption is that he has considered all objections to the vaccine prior to putting out his YouTube PSA targeted to Catholics in the Americas. This includes both objections claiming moral theology and objections claiming science as their basis.<\/span><\/div>\n*<\/div>\nTo be fair, as a traditional Catholic and a pro-lifer I also shared your initial conscientious objections. Once Pope Francis, Pope Benedict, various patriarchs, cardinals, bishops (including our local bishop who says the TLM) . . . came out in favour of vaccination, I realized there is no moral objection I could formulate that these successors to St Peter and the Apostles had not already considered.<\/span><\/div>\n*<\/div>\n\n\nIt does not<\/em> <\/strong>include those who object in good conscience, because it cannot<\/em><\/strong>. Catholic teaching on that is firm and clear. See, for example, the Catechism. Nor is he a science expert, as he himself admits, and this is not part of his jurisdiction. He can only give opinions. We must respect<\/em> them, but we\u2019re not bound<\/em> <\/strong>to them. So, for example, in his encyclical Laudato si<\/em>, he wrote:<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
There are certain environmental issues where it is not easy to achieve a broad consensus. Here I would state once more that the Church does not presume to settle scientific questions or to replace politics. But I am concerned to encourage an honest and open debate so that particular interests or ideologies will not prejudice the common good. [188]<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\nI certainly did respectfully disagree with him regarding global warming and nuclear energy. Otherwise, I enthusiastically praised the wonderful document<\/a>.<\/div>\n*<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\nVaccines are a matter of science and medicine, and the pope is assuredly not infallible in those areas. Nor is the Holy Father a \u201cscientist\u201d<\/span>. His Wikipedia page<\/a> states:<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
He attended the technical secondary school Escuela T\u00e9cnica Industrial N\u00b0 27 Hip\u00f3lito Yrigoyen, . . . and graduated with a chemical technician\u2019s diploma (not a master\u2019s degree in chemistry, as some media outlets incorrectly reported). In that capacity, he spent several years working in the food section of Hickethier-Bachmann Laboratory, . . .<\/div>\n