(LifeSiteNews) — The Archdiocese of Vancouver has instructed all of its deacons to get jabbed or else they will be suspended from their ministry.
Monsignor Gregory Smith, the director of the archdiocesan deacons, confirmed on Monday the authenticity of a letter obtained by LifeSiteNews.
Smith’s letter, dated September 23, says the “diaconal ministry is a ministry of service, not only to God but to the people of God.” It does not say anything on whether priests are required to get jabbed.
“Therefore, for the protection of all the faithful, and our priests, the archbishop has directed that any deacon not fully vaccinated may not exercise any diaconal ministry until receiving two doses of an approved vaccine by Health Canada,” Smith said.
“Being vaccinated with vaccines authorized by the competent authorities is an act of love,” Smith wrote, quoting Pope Francis. “And contributing to ensure the majority of people are vaccinated is an act of love — love for oneself, love for one’s family and friends, love for all people.”
“As Catholics we are invited to be vaccinated, both in keeping with the dictates of our conscience and in contributing to the common good by promoting the health and safety of others,” Smith said. “All COVID-19 vaccines that are medically approved by the relevant health authorities may be licitly received by Catholics.”
Smith did not answer questions from LifeSiteNews about how many deacons are currently considered fully-jabbed and how many are not.
While the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith said that Catholics may take the abortion-tainted jabs in good conscience, it specifically said that it must be “voluntary.”
Some bishops have weighed in on “vaccine mandates” and criticized the use of abortion-tainted jabs.
Voluntary medical treatment “is the moral norm governing all medical treatment, as anyone eighteen or over who has been to the doctor well knows: it must be truly consensual,” Bishop Thomas Paprocki of the Diocese of Springfield, Illinois, wrote to the president of the University of Notre Dame. The Catholic university in Indiana implemented a jab mandate in April 2021.
Paprocki, an adjunct instructor at the university and a canon lawyer, explained the flawed reasoning of the university’s inoculation requirement.
He explained why the university must let students make their own decisions about the jabs, particularly because of their connection to abortion. Paprocki said that “many Notre Dame students might judge that, although they would not be formally complicit in abortion if they were vaccinated, they nevertheless are called to give perspicuous witness to the truth about the horrors of abortion by avoiding even this sort of remote cooperation with it.”
It's official: Joe Biden has announced that his Administration will be forcing COVID vaccinations on nearly 1/3rd of American citizens, blatantly disregarding the personal objections of millions of people and moving America ever closer towards a medical dictatorship.
We cannot stand for this unprecedented overreach, and we will not submit to Biden's tyrannical public coercion efforts.
Please SIGN this urgent petition informing the President that you will NOT comply with these unconstitutional vaccine mandate orders issued by the Biden Administration, and that elected officials should act in their capacity to block these intrusive demands.
On Thursday, September 9th, Joe Biden announced the latest round of federal orders meant to further coerce large swaths of the public into getting the COVID vaccine -- many against their will.
While the legal standing of these measures is, at best, dubious, the Biden Administration appears more ready than ever to gut our individual rights and practically erase medical autonomy in our country.
This latest escalation in overreach was announced via a televised speech in which Biden outlined a new "six-point plan" that includes far more than just six avenues to achieve mass medical compliance.
Among the most egregious new federal mandates are the following:
- A requirement that all private businesses employing more than 100 people mandate their workers get the Covid-19 vaccine or submit to weekly testing (to be implemented by way of a new Department of Labor rule)
- A requirement that all federal employees and federal contractors get the COVID vaccine
- A requirement that all healthcare workers in facilities that receive reimbursement from Medicare and/or Medicaid (an estimated 17 million) get the Covid-19 vaccine without an alternative testing option
- A requirement that all Head Start teachers get the COVID vaccine
- A federal effort to lobby states to implement vaccine mandates for all school employees, and require regular testing of all students and school staff
- A federal effort to lobby entertainment venues to require proof of vaccination or testing in order to grant entry to the public
- A continuation of mask mandates on all federal properties and during interstate travel (i.e. planes, trains, buses)
All in all, these new vaccine mandates, which will go into effect within the coming weeks, will affect an estimated 100 million American workers -- 2/3rds of the entire workforce!
And, according to an administration official, violations of these unconstitutional requirements could result in fines of up to $14,000.
While this is clearly a political ploy on the part of the Joe Biden and his team of power-hungry Washington insiders to shift the focus from their disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan, the American public knows better: After nearly a year and a half's worth of arbitrary, ever-changing, and unconstitutional government mandates in response to the COVID outbreak, it was always a given that the Biden Administration would ramp things up even further when it behooved them.
And now, it would seem that time has officially come.
"This is not about freedom or personal choice," Biden uttered in his remarks, confirming his administration's blatant dismissal of all Americans' right(s) to accept or decline the experimental Covid-19 vaccine.
This is a stunning reversal from Biden's declaration last December that "I don’t think [the vaccine] should be mandatory, I wouldn’t demand it to be mandatory."
In fact, Biden even confirmed his intention to flout states' rights in the process, warning that "If these governors won’t help us beat the pandemic I’ll use my power as president to get them out of the way."
These are not the words of an "empathetic" leader; these are the words of an aspiring dictator. And, for the time being, the only way to stop Joe Biden's tyranny is through mass noncompliance.
As we've said from the beginning, science, basic logic, and common sense should dictate policy regarding COVID and the Delta variant.
But Joe Biden and the federal government have long abandoned those principles throughout this crisis, culminating into this disturbing yet inevitable flurry of intrusive vaccine mandates that use people's jobs, individual autonomy, and livelihood as leverage.
This assault on our individual rights, private businesses, and American workers cannot be tolerated, and the easiest way to combat these unlawful orders is to just say NO.
Please SIGN and SHARE this most important petition letting Joe Biden know that you will NOT comply with the unconstitutional medical demands being made by this administration, and that action should be taken to block any intrusive action against working Americans and private employers.
Thank you!
FOR MORE INFORMATION:
'Biden announces vaccine requirements for private businesses, impacting tens of millions of Americans': https://www.
“These students’ choices to give such profound moral witness should be respected, and encouraged, at our Catholic university,” Paprocki said.
“I would encourage people to resist any forcing of receiving these vaccines,” Bishop Joseph Strickland of the Diocese of Tyler, Texas, said in December 2020.
Bishop Athanasius Schneider of Kazakhstan has offered a religious exemption letter for any Catholic that wants to enroll in his Confraternity of our Lady of Fatima.
This is not the first time Canadian Catholic leaders have tried to mandate COVID shots as a condition of participating in church life.
The Archdiocese of Moncton in Canada tried to implement a “vaccine passport” system for anyone who wanted to attend Mass, weddings, baptisms, prayer groups or funerals. Archbishop Valery Vienneau withdrew his mandate for vaccination for all staff and church attendees on September 24. He still encourages his employees to get the abortion-tainted jabs.
The Archdiocese of Vancouver did not respond to LifeSite’s emailed request for comment Monday.
Contact information for respectful communication
Archdiocese of Vancouver
4885 Saint John Paul II Way
Vancouver, BC V5Z 0G3
Phone: (604) 683-0281