Despite Our Lord’s warnings that we cannot serve two masters, and that friendship with the world constitutes enmity with God, the Synodal Hierarchy is so obstinately pursuing a secular agenda that they are now even clashing with conservative-minded civil authorities.
At present, there is a troubling standoff taking place between Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier, himself a Catholic, and Archbishop Thomas Wenski of Miami. It is a perfect example of this “call evil good and good evil” mentality that is plaguing the postconciliar Church.
Read more: Why the family is the only institution the revolution has never fully conquered
Uthmeier, a Republican, recently warned the state’s Catholic bishops that schools receiving public scholarship or voucher funds may be required to recognize religious exemptions from vaccination requirements. Florida law expressly provides that a parent may object in writing when immunization conflicts with his or her religious tenets or practices. The state’s statutes also apply immunization requirements and exemptions to children attending private schools.
One would have expected that this kind of guarantee by the government would delight the alleged shepherds of the Church, but alas, one would be seriously amiss.
Wenski instead doubled down on his refusal to submit to what could only be called a Catholic-friendly law. In an August 14 opinion piece, he defended the policy of requiring vaccination at Catholic schools, arguing that the vaccines currently administered do not violate Church teaching. He further maintained that parents who cannot accept the policy can simply choose another school.
“There are presently approximately 95,000 students in our diocesan schools throughout the state. Our vaccination policies are in place to advance the common good,” he wrote. “Requiring vaccinations protects those children.”
The Dispatch
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Although not all vaccines are immoral or dangerous, Catholic parents have a right to follow their conscience and object to vaccines connected with abortion-derived cell lines. No educational institution, never mind one claiming to be a Catholic school, should have the right to deny a child an education based on his or her parent’s refusal to comply with a vaccine mandate.
The National Catholic Bioethics Center has explained that several vaccines have historical connections to cell lines originating from abortions, including WI-38 and MRC-5, and has recommended choosing ethically unproblematic alternatives whenever they are reasonably available. Although the Center acknowledges that serious circumstances can permit the use of vaccines with such connections, moral permission should not be confused with moral obligation.
Even the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith stated in its 2020 note on COVID-19 vaccines that vaccination is not, as a general rule, a moral obligation and therefore should be voluntary. It also recognized that people may conscientiously refuse vaccines connected with abortion-derived cell lines, while emphasizing their duty to take reasonable measures to protect others from infection.
No Catholic school should be forcing parents to choose between vaccinating their child with a dubious vaccine or, should they refuse, being removed altogether from a Catholic educational environment.
This latest case reveals an irony only matched by its tragedy. Purporting to form souls according to the truth of the Catholic faith, the postconciliar Church is treating conscientious moral objection as grounds for expulsion.
Archbishop Wenski is dismally failing in his duty to ensure that the Catholic institutions entrusted to him execute their responsibility to adequately and comprehensively teach children that human life is sacred from conception to natural death.
