By DEACON MIKE MANNO
If you are a Catholic student at the University of Massachusetts and expect a conscience exemption to the COVID vaccine mandate, think again. A university official has ruled that no Catholic student is eligible for the exemption.
It seems that the vice chancellor of student affairs, Shawn DeVeau, who has a long history in school administration, but no known background in theology, made the ruling after a study of the Church’s teachings. He explained his methodology thusly:
“When reviewing students’ appeals, I engage in a holistic process: I review the student’s request, research the faith tradition on which they are basing their request, and respond to the students based on my research. . . . My process for reviewing appeals is to engage in an interactive process to discuss the student’s specific circumstances and determine if the exemption is based on a sincerely held religious belief” (emphasis mine).
In denying the student appeals, he quoted two statements from the USCCB stating that the vaccines can be morally justified. Apparently he forgot to check the statement of Archbishop Joseph Naumann of Kansas City, Kans., and chairman of the USCCB Committee on Pro-Life Activities, whom we quoted recently as stating that while it is prudent for people to get vaccinated, some “could reasonably choose” to reject the abortion-tainted vaccination to give “prophetic witness” against abortion; and he condemned those who would require vaccination as a predicate for holding or keeping their jobs.
“A society that fails to respect the rights of conscience lacks a key element of the common good,” the archbishop wrote. “The most charitable and just posture is to seek to accommodate the consciences of all persons.”
Of course Mr. DeVeau might have been too busy with his duties to have seen that. He also missed the legal point: conscience objections are not limited to a specific religious belief but a sincerely held belief irrespective of the religious status — or even non-status — of the individual.
But have no fear if you are a mandate proponent. The administration will be monitoring whether those claiming to be exempt from Mr. Biden’s mandate are “not abusing” the system.
Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy said that the administration would be keeping tabs on those businesses and workers claiming exemptions. He told CNN’s State of the Union program that “we’ve got to be vigilant there and make sure that people are using them in the spirit that they’re intended and not abusing them or asking for exemptions when they don’t apply. That’s an area that we continue to monitor in the days and weeks ahead.”
But none of this allows for any discussion of the merits of the mandate that doesn’t seem to fit in with the “one-size-fits-all” policy of the administration’s White House medical regime which, to date, has not even recognized the concept of natural immunity to the virus, nor with the spade of unexpected problems with the vaccine. And that dynamic is playing out in places where it has worked to the disadvantage of far too many citizens.
For example, in Lowville, N.Y., the Lewis County Health System says that since some nurses are refusing to take the vaccine, the hospital will have to close its maternity ward. In New York all healthcare workers are required to get the vaccine. According to the hospital administrator, 165 of the 464 hospital employees have refused to get it and 30 have resigned over the mandate.
(State regulations have been overturned, but the federal regs are still pending.)
In Texas, the CEO of the Brownfield Regional Medical Center said that 20 to 25 percent of his staff will leave due to Mr. Biden’s mandate that stipulates that healthcare workers in facilities that receive Medicaid or Medicare funds will have to get the vaccine. Losing those workers, he said, would likely cause his hospital to shut down.
Researchers and others are reporting on many unexpected negative implications with the vaccine. One, among many, involves the negative impact on breastfeeding mothers and their children.
According to LifeSiteNews, the government’s Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) reports that a six-week-old baby died from blood clots and “severe inflammation of [his] arteries” after the child’s breastfeeding mother received Pfizer’s vaccine.
“The mother had received her first dose on June 4, and her baby started experiencing a high fever shortly thereafter [and]…passed away on July 17.” According to the VAERS report, the mother wondered if “the spike protein could have gone through the breast milk and caused an inflammatory response in [her] child,” as the six-week-old was healthy prior to the injection.
But, worry not, your concerns over the vaccine can be ameliorated if you can do just one thing: Cross our southern border. True! Just look at this exchange between Fox News’ Peter Doocy and the White House’s chief propaganda minister, Jen Psaki:
Doocy: “Why is it that you’re trying to require anybody with a job or anybody who goes to school to get the COVID-19 vaccine, but you’re not requiring that of migrants that continue walking across the southern border into the country?”
Propaganda Minister Psaki: “Well, look, our objective is to get as many people vaccinated across the country as humanly possible. And so the [mandate is] an effort to empower businesses, to give businesses the tools to protect their workforces. That’s exactly what we did. But certainly we want everybody to get vaccinated.”
Doocy: “But it’s a requirement for people at a business with more than 100 people, but it’s not a requirement for migrants at the southern border.”
Propaganda Minister Psaki: “That’s correct.”
With that huge loophole in the system, why is it so important to risk side-effects and the loss of jobs and even risk the closing of hospitals and other businesses to try to vaccinate nearly everybody else? Yet the administration and its allies apparently will try to do everything to eliminate conscience and medical objections to the vaccine including attempts to ostracize the unvaxed.
Recently, former Obama Secretary for Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius was part of the pile-on, suggesting that if you are unvaccinated you should not be able to work, roam freely, or have access to children. She, like several other prominent pro-mandate observers, hinted that the unvaccinated are responsible for COVID deaths.
And some courts are even jumping into the fray. In Illinois, a judge during a routine child support hearing stripped a mother of all parenting time when she said she had not been vaccinated. The judge later withdrew the order but the father’s attorney is asking that it be reimposed.
In an Ohio court, getting the jab was a requirement for probation. In Georgia some judges are making the jab a condition of reduced sentencing, in Louisiana it will reduce community service time.
In an adjacent matter, the Federation of State Medical Boards said that physicians who spread COVID vaccine misinformation risk disciplinary action by state medical boards, including loss of their medical licenses. The American Board of Emergency Medicine made a similar announcement. Neither organization defined “misinformation,” but you can be sure it means disagreeing with Mr. Biden.
And disagreeing with Mr. Biden’s ideas about his fix-all elixir is apparently the touchstone for all that may follow. He says it’s not about freedom but public health and safety. Always the argument, it’s about safety. But, of course, if it was, they’d close the southern border, study the effects of natural immunity and those of possible therapeutics. Since they’re not doing that this must be about something else.
Go figure!
As Benjamin Franklin once said: “Those who would give up essential liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
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