(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.”
“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.
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