VIENNA (LifeSiteNews) — Austria’s bishops have signaled submission to the Austrian government rather than the Vatican, as they defended mandatory COVID-19 injections saying they would be permissible when “all other possibilities have been exhausted to protect the population.
In a statement released Tuesday, dated December 6 and called “Protect. Heal. Reconcile,” the Austrian Bishops’ Conference weighed in on the “debate about a temporary vaccination obligation.”
The letter did not define exactly what a “temporary” vaccine mandate would look like in practical terms.
Stating that COVID-19 “continues to pose great challenges,” the bishops bemoaned how “quite a few people in our country” had not yet taken the abortion-tainted injections, which were styled as providing “protection against severe courses of the disease.”
Noting how the Austrian government is now proposing to mandate the COVID shots as of February, the bishops offered a brief comment on this, while also adding the caveat that they are “not in a position to give a detailed opinion on the concrete form of the law and will therefore not participate in the review process.”
Calling mandatory vaccination a “serious interference in the physical integrity and freedom of the individual,” the Austrian bishops nevertheless defended it in particular circumstances.
“It is therefore only permissible if, taking into account proportionality, all other possibilities have been exhausted to protect the population — in the case of the pandemic, the health system and thus human lives,” they declared. “It is ultimately the responsibility of those in power to assess whether the preconditions are met and whether a temporary vaccination obligation is now the appropriate means of protecting the common good.”
The only defense the bishops made of personal autonomy was to urge that there should be “exceptions” accounted for in any scheme of mandatory injections, writing also that legislators should “keep the legal consequences within an appropriate framework. The aim must be to protect health and freedom in equal measure.”
However, the bishops also criticized remarks which compared the state’s COVID policies to “the National Socialist regime of injustice.” Such comparisons were a “shameful trivialization of Nazi crimes” and “must not be tolerated,” declared the prelates. The bishops’ letter did also protest against the “blanket vilification of everyone who does not want to be vaccinated.”
Instead, they urged a period of “listening” and “healing” during Advent, in an apparent bid to deal with the “debate on the appropriateness of COVID control measures.”
Opposition to the Vatican, freedom of conscience and bodily integrity
Just as Austria became the first Western nation to mandate the COVID shots for citizens, the nation’s bishops are the first to advocate so clearly in favor of mandatory injections, despite going against the Vatican in doing so.
In December 2020, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith released its controversial guidance on the abortion-tainted COVID injections. While saying that in some instances “when ethically irreproachable COVID-19 vaccines are not available,” it would be “morally acceptable to receive COVID-19 vaccines that have used cell lines from aborted fetuses in their research and production process,” the CDF was clear on respecting personal freedom.
“[P]ractical reason makes evident that vaccination is not, as a rule, a moral obligation and that, therefore, it must be voluntary,” the note stated.
This was supported by the U.S. National Catholic Bioethics Center, which noted that due to the lack of knowledge about the long-term effects of these vaccines, “coercive measures requiring persons” to take such a vaccine would be “ethically unacceptable.”
Reporting on the document, kath.net warned that it could even be “likely to contribute to vaccination opponents leaving the Catholic Church.”
LifeSiteNews contacted the Austrian Bishops’ Conference, as well as its president Archbishop Franz Lackner, but received no response.
Alexander Tschugguel, known for having pushed into the Tiber the “Pachamama” statuettes that had been on display in a Roman church during the Amazon Synod, called the bishops’ document “Unacceptable!”
The Austrian Bishops are now officially endorsing the governments coming dictatorship.
They just declared their support for the #VaccineMandate!
This is contrary to the note issued by the CDF that clearly says vaccination “must be voluntary.”
Unacceptable!#resist— Alexander Tschugguel (@ATschugguel) December 7, 2021
Tschugguel has repeatedly warned of the emerging tyranny in Austria, which the bishops now support, as the unvaccinated face stringent restrictions, fines, and potential imprisonment.
Vienna-based St. Boniface Institute, founded and led by Tschugguel, posted a statement about the bishops’ document, saying that Austrian politicians had pressured the bishops to “endorse their politics,” in order “not only discourage the resisting catholics [sic] but also to create the pretense that the whole Catholic Church is backing their mandate.”
“Sadly, they agreed to play a part in the states effort to push this obviously uncatholic mandate which directly contradicts the note from the CDF concerning these vaccines,” continued the St. Boniface Institute. [sic]
“Vaccine mandates are clearly against #Catholic doctrine,” added the group.
Today the Austrian Bishops Conference was pressured to endorse the #VaccineMandate. This comes after many cardinals, bishops and priests from around the world publicly denounced these new totalitarian measures. Why?
(Thread 1/6)— St. Boniface Institute (@Inst_StBoniface) December 7, 2021
Austria’s latest chancellor, Karl Nehammer — the third in two months — has continued his predecessors’ restrictions on the unvaccinated, with the national lockdown ending on Sunday, but only for the vaccinated population.
Meanwhile, Gerrit Loibl, vice president of the Lower Austrian Medical Association, called for unvaccinated Austrians to face a monthly tax for continued rejection of the injection.
A Reuters tracker suggests that 12,844 COVID-linked deaths have taken place in Austria since March 2020. In contrast, the U.S. Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) now numbers 927,740 reports of adverse events following COVID injections between December 14, 2020, and November 26.
With 146,720 reports of serious injuries including deaths, 19,532 reports of deaths, the true figure of adverse reactions and deaths is likely to be much higher, as a 2010 report submitted to the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services’ Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality warned that VAERS caught “fewer than 1% of vaccine adverse events.”
For Respectful Communication:
Austrian Bishops’ Conference
Rotenturmstraße 2
1010 Vienna
Austria
Tel.: +43 (0)1 516 11-0
Fax: +43 (0)1 516 11-3436
E-Mail: [email protected]
President:
Archbishop Franz Lackner OFM, of Salzburg.
Email: [email protected]
Address: Kapitelplatz 2, 5020 Salzburg