Yes, so would I. I always prefer a hard nose approach as regards Faith and Morals. The more hard nosed the better I like it. Wide and easy is the path that leads to destruction and many there are who take it.
Josetxu, Clarification: the vaccines are not made with aborted cells, but have been either, derived from a fetal cell line of a baby aborted in the 1970s, or after being developed synthetically, have then been tested on cell line derived from a fetal cell line of a baby aborted in the 1970s. The Pfizer vaccine is the one being offered to staff at the hospital where I serve, and it falls into the second group. No matter what one's personal stance, the association can logically be considered remote; still, that association relates to the destruction of a living baby child in the womb. Therein lies the problem of conscience. Lord have mercy.
I understand in a sense his point to protect others. However, Jesus knowingly and willingly came into the world and gave up His life for us. But the aborted babies whose cells have been used either in the vaccines themselves or in the testing did not give up their life for us, had no opportunity to even think about it. To give up one's life for others is the greatest gift we can give to another human being, but taking one's life is against God's commandment. I have this image in my head of a bunch of ravenous wolves tearing at its prey after the kill to save themselves. It doesn't matter who killed, we are partakers when we try to reap the benefit and the mere knowledge of what we are doing, I fear is a mortal sin, regardless of what our Sheppards may say ..they may be leading us into perdition even with good intent. A child or someone who has no knowledge of what they are being given is innocent of that mortal sin, but I have knowledge, and with full knowledge deciding to go ahead takes me to eternal damnation. Those babies did not give up their lives so we could live! And I would rather die here than live eternally in the fire of hell. This is my opinion and it may differ from others. We each need to decide and listen to what God is telling us un our own hearts. This is what I hear Him saying to me.
While driving my son, Fr. Patrick, to home from Connecticut yesterday, we had a long talk concerning conscience and the vaccines. Fr. Patrick first reminded me that Americans buy products everyday from China, a country which persecutes Christians, which aborts untold numbers of babies, which uses the virtual slave labor of the Uyghur people, who outright extract organs as they murder the Uyghur peoples in order to supply fresh organs for Western clients in need of transplants. How careful are Catholics to disconnect ourselves from purchasing such products with such remote associations. Similarly, he stated firms like Amazon have been accused of unjust labor practices to maximize production and minimize production costs. As I stated in the above post of mine (#305): ...the association [with aborted cell lines and vaccines] can logically be considered remote; still, that association relates to the destruction of a living baby child in the womb. Therein lies the problem of conscience. The Vatican and episcopal conferences have adopted this position of remote association with the fetal cell lines of aborted babies. Does remoteness justify receiving the vaccine? Are those who do so, condemned or not? Fr. Patrick stated: only God can condemn. What Patrick said to me is, "If all your friends receive the vaccine, and you ignore your conscience because of the association with abortion, to follow suit, then he knows that I, at least, would be condemned. Let us each form our conscience properly, follow our conscience faithfully, and suffer whatever consequences befall us individually. We can agree with Bishop Strickland, promote his viewpoint vigorously, we disagree with the Vatican, but we can judge no one else. James 1:5 If any of you is lacking in wisdom, ask God, who gives to all generously and ungrudgingly, and it will be given you. 6 But ask in faith, never doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind.
Thank you for this..it never even dawned on me that I'm partaking in the evil from China and amazon. Since this lockdown I'm one of their best customers...how can we ever get out of this? Prayer, prayer, prayer...
Your son makes a good point about products from China. There are consequences to all of our choices. God help us.
This article says it perfectly: Rev. Jerry J. Pokorsky THURSDAY, DECEMBER 31, 2020 The Vatican and the U.S. bishops have affirmed the morality of several of the recent anti-COVID vaccines, some developed using testing that involved embryonic stem cells. They have evaluated the methods employed for each of the vaccines currently approved and encouraged the use of those least morally compromised. But where options are limited, they say, the faithful will not be sinning by being vaccinated. This teaching follows the orthodox moral analysis that has existed for decades, including the papacies of St. John Paul II and Benedict XVI. There remain, however, a few loose ends. We sin when we choose an evil action. We know it is wrong, and we freely do it anyway. We cooperate with the sinful acts of others when we approve of or facilitate their sin. When we vote for a politician because of his pro-abortion positions, we formally cooperate in the evil he promotes. If we oppose his pro-abortion policies and vote for him anyway, we materially cooperate in the evil he supports. If the material cooperation is avoidable (it’s possible to vote for a candidate that has comparatively more morally upright policy positions), we are guilty of the sin. A nurse who disapproves of abortion but assists an abortionist during the medical procedure also shares in the guilt with “proximate material cooperation.” Hospital maintenance personnel who mop the floors of an abortion facility may or may not be guilty of sin. The clean-up is “remote material cooperation,” but there is an obligation to seek employment elsewhere then, if possible. These moral analyses are rational, but there are hard cases. In 1972, for example, an airplane crash stranded the Uruguayan rugby team in freezing weather. The survivors ate the bodies of their dead comrades to survive. As grotesque as the situation was, their moral status is certain. There was no formal cooperation in the death of the passengers. Their circumstances were desperate. Finally, there was little or no chance that the cannibalism would encourage murder. But one could hardly blame a person who chose to die rather than to dine on a teammate. Among the notorious Nazi experiments on concentration camp prisoners (see here): Doctors immersed prisoners into tanks of ice water for hours at a time, often dying of exposure, to discover how long German pilots downed by enemy fire could survive the frozen waters of the North Sea. To develop a vaccination serum against tuberculosis, doctors injected live tubercle bacilli into the lungs of prisoners. They also removed lymph glands from the arms of twenty Jewish children. Doctors amputated the shoulders and legs of inmates in futile attempts to transplant the limbs onto other victims. Thousands of inmates had their genitals mutilated to discover cheap methods of mass sterilization. Is it morally permissible for us today to use Nazi research to save lives? Doctor John Hayward, a Biology Professor at Victoria University, justified his use of the murderous Nazi hypothermia data with the same logic as the bishops and Holy See have applied to some COVID vaccines: “I don’t want to have to use the Nazi data, but there is no other and will be no other in an ethical world. . . .But not to use it would be equally bad. I’m trying to make something constructive out of it. I use it with my guard up, but it’s useful.” Moral analyses using formal, proximate, and remote material cooperation apply to all of these examples. Yet, there remains an emotional factor. Could we blame family members of the victims for torching the research papers and rejecting those who blithely promote using the findings in the service of the common good? The American bishops suggest (statement here) that the use of the COVID-19 vaccines is not only morally permissible but a matter of Christian charity: it “should be considered an act of love of our neighbor and part of our moral responsibility for the common good.” Still, is a spontaneous disgust and rejection of medical research and vaccines based on unborn baby body parts unreasonable – indeed, sinful? Granting that being vaccinated does not jeopardize our salvation, does refusal constitute sin against charity? Conspiracy theories abound. Some vaccinations cause sterility. How do we know whether authorities are using the entire population as experimental guinea pigs for population control or other ideological purposes? Conspiracy theories are, sometimes, true. In 1974, the National Security Council – under Henry Kissinger’s direction – released a classified National Security Study Memorandum 200: Implications of Worldwide Population Growth for U.S. Security and Overseas Interests (NSSM200). President Ford adopted it as official U.S. policy. In this extensive secret memorandum was a plan for a massive cultural transformation of Third World countries: “The great necessity is to convince the masses of the population that it is to their individual and national interest to have, on the average, only three and then only two children.” Cultural subversion would occur by targeting “those who are now in elementary school or younger.” So, given our culture of death, the bishops’ cautions are extremely weak: “[W]e should be on guard so that the new COVID-19 vaccines do not desensitize us or weaken our determination to oppose the evil of abortion itself and the subsequent use of fetal cells in research.” How do we register our protest? Absent large-scale protest, will researchers and pharmaceutical companies pursue alternatives to using aborted baby body parts in their work? Such alternatives seem easily available. People must push back as they can, and that may include – in some cases – refusing to be vaccinated with a particular vaccine. But they could use the backing of the bishops – and other leaders who understand what is at stake. Our shepherds should show resolve to resist Big Pharma’s Nazi-like experimentation, imposing ecclesiastical censures on transgressing Catholics cooperating in the machinery of death, including pro-abortion politicians at the highest levels of government. Of course, there would be a public-relations firestorm. But that’s the price to pay if we want to do more than just talk about a “new evangelization.” https://www.thecatholicthing.org/2020/12/31/a-pastor-on-the-vaccines/
I can see it is a lot more complicated than I thought. When I have problem I struggle with I always love to take it to God in prayer, especially before the Blessed Sacrament. But it is quite easy for me really since I was never , ever going to take the vaccine anyway fetal cells or no fetal cells anyway, since i just don't trust these things.
It's not a bad thing to know we don't have all the answers to everything, it teaches humility. Someone emailed me tonight if it really took if it really took Noah 40 years to build the ark? I sent back that I had just no idea....
I don't know if this is any clearer to me now. Knowing there is remote connection to aborted baby cell lines if I get the vaccine am I then more culpable? This is a moral and ethical quagmire.
Just saw this on our local news station and it gives me lots of hope. Its a plant-based vaccine that is in the second stage of clinical trial now. I would live get more info as what else it may contain. They say it should be available mid 2021. COVID-19Medicago's Development Programs COVID-19 Vaccine Development Program On March 12, 2020, Medicago announced the successful production of Virus-Like Particle (VLPs) of the coronavirus just 20 days after obtaining the SARS-CoV-2 (virus causing the COVID-19 disease) gene. Production of VLPs is the first step in developing a vaccine against COVID-19 before preclinical testing for safety and efficacy. VLPs mimic the native structure of viruses, allowing them to be easily recognized by the immune system. However, they lack core genetic material which makes them non-infectious and unable to replicate. The photos below were taken using an electron microscopy to illustrate the similarity of Medicago's Coronavirus VLP with a wild-type SARS-CoV-2 virus: Medicago has started on November 12th, 2020 the phase 2/3 of the clinical development of its COVID-19 vaccine candidate, with the objective of completing the development program and submitting a dossier to authorities by the middle of 2021. This research is being partially funded by the Governments of Canada and Quebec. COVID-19 Antibody Development Program In addition to the vaccine program, Medicago is using its technology platform to develop antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 in collaboration with the Laval University's Infectious Disease Research Centre. These SARS-CoV-2 antibodies could potentially be used to treat people infected by the virus. This research is being partially funded by the Canadian Institutes for Health Research (CIHR). Disclaimer: These vaccine and antibody candidates are not approved for human use in ANY country or region and are currently under pre-clinical investigation. Our VLP vaccine candidate for the coronavirus is currently in pre-clinical studies and the antibody is at the stage of research and development. We will investigate the safety and efficacy of these products when they reach the clinical stage of evaluation. https://www.medicago.com/en/covid-19-programs/
AED, Here's a different situation that might help understand the idea of remoteness. If I'm a Catholic cashier at a drug store, and a customer buys a contraceptive product, is it immoral to participate in the sale by cashing them out? This is an example of remote cooperation. Is a cashier involved in the creation, production, advertising, and/or decision to offer the product to the customer at the store? No. Will the refusal to be a cashier at that particular store insure the possibility of being a cashier at another store where similar sales won't take place? Probably not. So I would not hesitate to be a cashier. The Bishops claim that the benefit of the vaccine, combined with the fact that one is not dealing with fetal cells, but with fetal cell lines that are over 40 yrs. olds, allows a Catholic to be vaccinated. It is remote cooperation. However, Archbishop Schneider claims that we are dealing with cell lines that resulted in the murder of the most innocent, and are part of a mindset of complicity that today results in the murder of two babies every three seconds! He feels Catholics should avoid even remote cooperation if we are able. Personally, the horror of abortion is so outrageous, even this remote cooperation appalls me! The only way that such a decision raises tension within me is that the hospital may demand I take the vaccine if I desire to continue serve as chaplain, the specific ministry my bishop asked of me when I was ordained. The Two Hearts will show me the way! Luke 14:27 Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me, cannot be my disciple.
AED, I'm confused by your angst. The bishops have stated there is a remote connection, but use the fact of remote connection as the reason we're not culpable. Were you willing to take the vaccine before thinking there was no connection? Safe in the Arms of Mary!
I worded it badly. Let me try again. Do I trust the bishops who say it is licit to take the vaccine? Or is that risking my soul since I know it is remotely connected to an aborted baby and am not at peace about it as they are? And no I do not desire to take the vaccine on ethical grounds but I also know tremendous pressure may be applied including " the Church says it is licit."
