Bishop Schneider: The blood of murdered unborn children cries to God from abortion-tainted vaccines and medicines h/t Rorate-Caeli
Ok - so I do not agree with Bishop Schneider on the his opinion vis-a-vis the immorality of receiving tainted vaccines.
I also do not agree with departing from the principles. Either it is a remote cooperation in evil or it is not. If it is, then we know what we must do, it not - then the size of the can of worms just got bigger.
While I don't like disagreeing with a Bishop, especially one that I admire and respect, but I dislike even more abandoning Catholic principles based on personal opinion.
Either the principles are Catholic or they are not.
Either St.Thomas was right, or he was not.
I strive to abide by each and it will take more than an assumption about what Pope St. JP2 would do to move me off of this point.
P^3
Particular comments ...
Abortion-tainted vaccines and the culture of death
Anti-Christian
world powers that promote the culture of death are seeking to impose on
the world’s population an implicit — though remote and passive —
collaboration with abortion. Such remote collaboration, in itself, is
also an evil because of the extraordinary historical circumstances in
which these same world powers are promoting the murder of unborn
children and the exploitation of their remains. When we use vaccines or
medicines which utilize cell lines originating from aborted babies, we
physically benefit from the “fruits” of one of the greatest evils of
mankind — the cruel genocide of the unborn (Note 1). For if one innocent child
had not been cruelly murdered, we would not have these concrete vaccines
or medicines. We should not be so naive as not to see that these
vaccines and medicines not only offer a health benefit but also promise
to promote the culture of death. (Note 2) Of course, some argue that even if
people do not take these vaccines, the abortion industry will still
continue. We may not reduce the number of abortions if we stop taking
such vaccines or medicines, but this is not the issue. The problem lies
in the moral weakening of our resistance to the crime of abortion, and
to the crime of the trafficking, exploitation and commercialization of
the body parts of murdered unborn children. The use of such vaccines and
medicines in some way morally – albeit indirectly — supports this
horrible situation. Observing the response from the Catholic Church,
abortionists and those responsible for biomedical research will conclude
that the hierarchy has acquiesced to this situation, which includes an
entire chain of crimes against life and indeed can aptly be described as
a “chain of death.” We have to wake up to the real dangers,
consequences and circumstances of the current situation.(Note 3)
Theories justifying the use of abortion-tainted vaccines
The
documents of the Holy See (from 2005, 2008 and 2020) that deal with
vaccines developed from cell lines originating from murdered unborn
children are not infallible decisions of the Magisterium (Note 4). The arguments
put forth in the aforementioned documents regarding the moral licitness
of the use of abortion-tainted vaccines are ultimately too abstract (Note 5). We
need to approach this problem in a more profound way, and not remain in a
juridical positivism and formalism of abstract theories of cooperation
with evil, benefiting from the evil deeds of others, double effect or
whatever one wishes to call such justifying theories.(Note 6)
We have to
go deeper, down to the root, and consider the aspect of proportionality.
This concrete chain of horrible crimes — of murdering, harvesting
tissue and body parts from murdered unborn children, and commercializing
their remains through the manufacturing and testing of vaccines and
medicines — is out of all proportion to other crimes, e.g. benefitting
from slave labor, paying taxes etc. (Note 7)
Tradical:
1. I don't think that abortion is one of the greatest evils of mankind. It is still murder of innocents. However, looking at the Decalogue, we find that murder is #5. The bulk of the crisis of the Church is touching on #1, 2, and 3. The desecrations and sacrilege that have been approved since V2 are by far worse than the murder of innocents.
2. This hearkens back to the key principles - principles that extend back to St. Thomas Aquinas. Either the principles surrounding the remote cooperation in evil are correct or they are not.
3. This has been addressed quite well in the cited documents, if one reads them in their entirety.
4. Yet, it is a lesser part of the teaching authority of the Church that (surprisingly)is in agreement with principles that are Catholic.
5. I definitely disagree. The need is for an understanding of Catholic principles because there is literally no way to escape cooperation with this evil. I've done a little research and it will be very difficult for a Catholic to avoid cooperation in the evil of abortion.
6. Again, these 'theories' pre-date V2 by decades and double-effect hundreds of years.
7. He leaves out the massacres perpetrated by various parties over history. Those living in the USA are cooperating in the massacres of Native women and children during the 'indian' wars. Much can be said for atrocities perpetrated during WW2 and the cooperation that we now have with those actions.
Even the most apparently impressive
historical examples, which are sometimes adduced to justify the moral
licitness of the use of abortion-tainted vaccines, are incomparable to
the issue before us. Indeed, due to the gravity of abortion, and the
current reality of an ever-expanding abortion and biomedical research
industry, which involves the trafficking and exploitation of aborted
baby body parts, the principle of material cooperation, or other similar
theories, cannot be applied in this case (Note 8). It is, therefore, highly
anti-pastoral and counterproductive to allow the use of abortion-tainted
vaccines in this historical hour. The souls of the murdered babies,
from whose body parts people are now benefitting through these medicines
and vaccines, are living and have a name before God.
When one
uses an abortion-tainted vaccine, one is standing directly and very
personally before the vaccine syringe. In paying taxes, one is not
directly and personally confronting the process of a specific abortion. A
government is not asking you concretely to give your money to “this”
concrete act of abortion now. The government often uses our money
against our will. Therefore, the use of an abortion-tainted vaccine is a
much more personal confrontation, and a much closer meeting, with the
monstrous crimes involved in its production, than for instance paying
taxes or benefitting from the evil acts of another person. Should the
government tell a citizen directly and personally, “I am taking your
money to pay for this concrete abortion,” one has to refuse, even if it
means confiscation of one’s home and imprisonment.
In the first
centuries, Christians paid taxes to a pagan government, knowing that it
would use a portion of the tax revenue to finance idol worship. However,
when the government asked Christians personally and individually to
participate in the crime of idolatry, by burning just a small grain of
incense before the statue of an idol, they refused even at the price of
being martyred for bearing witnesses to God’s First Commandment.
The exceptionally grave and unique character of abortion-tainted vaccines and medicines
How
can we, with maximum of determination, be and proclaim to be against
abortion, when we accept abortion-tainted vaccines — when their origin
lies in the murder of a child? Both logic and common-sense demand that
we not accept such vaccines or medicines. In difficult times of great
confusion, God often uses the simple and the little ones who tell the
truth while the majority swims with the tide. Unfortunately, many people
in the Church, and even some Catholic pro-life organizations, are
swimming with the tide on the specific question of abortion-tainted
vaccines and medicines. It seems that many theologians, and even the
Holy See, as well as the vast majority of bishops, are also swimming
with the tide, and there remains only a minority in the Church of our
day which is saying, “Stop. This is not good. This is a danger!” As
Christians, it is our duty to bear witness to the world by not accepting
these vaccines and medicines.
One might ask the proponents of
the moral licitness of the use of abortion-tainted vaccines or medicines
the following question, “If you travelled back in time and witnessed
the gruesome murder of an unborn child, the dismemberment of his body,
the harvesting of his tissue, and his cells then processed in the lab,
even if there were hundreds of chemical processes involved with that
particular vaccine or medicine, could you with a clear conscience
receive such a vaccine or medicine into your body? It is hard to imagine
that you could, as you would have before your eyes the scene of a child
being dismembered and you now physically benefitting from the use of
his cells.”
Vaccines that utilize cell lines originating from aborted fetuses only for testing
The
distinction is made between the direct presence of fetal cell lines
originating from the murder of an unborn child in a vaccine and their
use in testing, and certainly the latter is objectively less grave. But
we still cannot accept the use of these cell lines even for testing, as
it brings us closer to the crime of marketing the cells from murdered
babies. In this case, too, there is an accumulation of horrible crimes.
The first crime is to have killed a child. The second is to have used
and processed these cell lines. To then use these cell lines for testing
is yet another crime. We cannot collaborate in this accumulation of
crimes and we cannot benefit in any way from their “by-products.”(Note 9)
The obligation to resist
Let
us imagine the possibility of abortion being entirely forbidden
worldwide. Were this the case, the medical and pharmaceutical industries
would then have to seek out alternatives to develop a vaccine, and God
will provide them if we observe His law, specifically the Fifth
Commandment. However, God will punish us if we use the cell lines
originating from murdered babies to manufacture and test vaccines and
medicines! We have to open ourselves to a more supernatural perspective.
We have to resist the myth that there is no alternative — and by using
these vaccines or medicines, we cooperate in further propagating this
myth. Yet, there are alternatives! The anti-Christian world powers will
surely not admit that alternatives exist, and will continue to push
abortion-tainted vaccines. But we must resist. Even if there is only a
small minority of faithful, priests and bishops who do so, ultimately
the truth will prevail. History will look back and say that even some
good Catholics yielded, even high-ranking prelates responsible for the
governance of the Holy See yielded to an expanding biomedical and
pharmaceutical industry that used cell lines originating from the murder
of unborn children to produce and test vaccines and medicines. History
will say they allowed themselves to be blinded by abstract theories of
remote material cooperation, benefitting from the evil acts of others,
or other similar theories.
We have to follow the truth. Even if
we lose all our friends, we should follow our conscience, as did Saint
Thomas More and Saint John Fisher. It is also a sign of the end times
that even good people are confused about this important matter. Let us
recall the words of Our Lord, who said that even the elect will be also
seduced (cf. Mt. 24:24). A time will come when God will reveal to people
in the Church, who now defend the morality of using abortion-tainted
vaccines, some of the consequences of this choice. Their eyes will be
opened, because the truth is so powerful. We have to live for the truth
and for eternity.
To remain silent and to acquiesce to the
already widespread use of aborted baby body parts for biomedical
research, and to argue away this injustice with an abstract theory of
“remote material cooperation,” or whatever one may call such a
justifying theory, is a spiritual blindness and grave omission at a
dramatic historical moment when Christians instead should stand up and
proclaim to the whole world, “We will never acquiesce to this injustice,
even if it is already so widespread in medicine! It is not allowed to
treat unborn children, the lives of the weakest and most defenseless
people in the whole world, in such a degrading way, so that the
stronger, those already born, may receive a temporal health benefit from
their use.”
Ivan Karamazov in Dostoyevsky’s famous novel “The
Brothers Karamazov” asks the fatal question: “Tell me straight out, I
call on you—answer me: imagine that you yourself are building the
edifice of human destiny with the object of making people happy in the
finale, of giving them peace and rest at last, but for that you must
inevitably and unavoidably torture just one tiny creature, that same
child who was beating her chest with her little fist, and raise your
edifice on the foundation of her unrequited tears—would you agree to be
the architect on such conditions?“
Memorable are the words with
which Pope John Paul II forcefully condemned any experimentation on
embryos, declaring: “No circumstance, no purpose, no law whatsoever can
ever make licit an act which is intrinsically illicit, since it is
contrary to the Law of God which is written in every human heart,
knowable by reason itself, and proclaimed by the Church. This evaluation
of the morality of abortion is to be applied also to the recent forms
of intervention on human embryos which, although carried out for
purposes legitimate in themselves, inevitably involve the killing of
those embryos. This is the case with experimentation on embryos, which
is becoming increasingly widespread in the field of biomedical research
and is legally permitted in some countries. Although ‘one must uphold as
licit procedures carried out on the human embryo which respect the life
and integrity of the embryo and do not involve disproportionate risks
for it, but rather are directed to its healing, the improvement of its
condition of health, or its individual survival’, it must nonetheless be
stated that the use of human embryos or fetuses as an object of
experimentation constitutes a crime against their dignity as human
beings who have a right to the same respect owed to a child once born,
just as to every person. This moral condemnation also regards procedures
that exploit living human embryos and fetuses-sometimes specifically
‘produced’ for this purpose by in vitro fertilization-either to be used
as ‘biological material’ or as providers of organs or tissue for
transplants in the treatment of certain diseases. The killing of
innocent human creatures, even if carried out to help others,
constitutes an absolutely unacceptable act.” (Encyclical Evangelium vitae, 62-63) (Note 9)
The
blood of murdered unborn children cries to God from vaccines and
medicines which utilize their remains in any manner whatsoever. We have
to make reparation for the accumulated crimes involved in their
production. We have to ask pardon not only from God, who searches the
reins and hearts (cf. Rev. 2:23), but also from the souls of all
murdered unborn children, who have a name before God. We must especially
ask pardon from those children whose body parts are used in such a
degrading way for the health benefit of the living. It is
incomprehensible how churchmen, with the aid of abstract theories from
moral theology, can tranquilize the conscience of the faithful, by
allowing them to use such vaccines and medicines.
The blood of
the murdered unborn children cries to God from abortion-tainted vaccines
and medicines! May the Lord have mercy on us! Kyrie, eleison!
Tradical
8.What is lacking is a principled explanation of why we need to toss aside hundreds of years of development of Moral Theology regarding the cooperation in evil.
9. What he is missing is the key distinction - yes the killing of the innocent is an absolutely unacceptable act. We can thank Pope St. JP2 for stating the obvious. The key point is that our cooperation is remote, that there are conditions and obligations attached to that cooperation. There is not a 'get of our cooperation free' card.
“looking at the Decalogue, we find that murder is #5”
ReplyDeleteAn interesting point and one that, I think, is a microcosm of the situation. When we see images of the Decalogue we often see it depicted as two tablets. But a noticeable difference between Catholic and Protestant imagery is that on Catholic tablets they are not evenly distributed (i.e. we see three and seven). This is a reference to St. Augustine (Quaestiones in Exodum Q.71). The first three commandments define mans relationship with God and consequently stand on a different level than the other seven.
Abortion then resides on the second tablet under murder doesn’t it? …
But it’s not just murder, it is mass murder, no genocide, no the number of deaths is greater than all the genocides committed by man; it’s beyond genocide, it’s another ‘slaughter of the Innocent’ but the numbers make it many times worse; they are all martyrs; it’s systematic, occurs in every time zone so the Prince of this world will get get his 24x7 sacrifice, and as such are killed as offering to him, which is of course, idolatry.
And so this is their goal. To move abortion from the second tablet to the first. They know they can’t accomplish it through the theology manuals, but with emotion they think they may succeed.