June 21, 2021 (LifeSiteNews) — Cardinal Willem Eijk, archbishop of Utrecht, Netherlands, known as one of the most outspoken defenders of the perennial teachings of the Church, has revealed to LifeSite that he chose personally to receive the COVID-19 vaccine and has been fully vaccinated for several weeks. The response to LifeSite’s questions about the experimental vaccine came by telephone, by way of his spokesman, who called back after having had a conversation with the cardinal.
While acknowledging that this could be considered as an “example” for Catholics — and this was one of the reasons why he chose to reveal his own choice to be vaccinated against COVID to LifeSite — the cardinal insisted on making clear that this “was not a call” to Catholics to receive the vaccine, because people should freely make their own decision regarding the procedure, and should be allowed to do so.
Cardinal Willem Eijk has recently decided to enter into a three-month period of rest, after a period of about ten days in hospital around Pentecost due to “high fever.” The illness “has had a great physical impact on him,” according to the statement published on the website of the archdiocese of Utrecht on June 2nd, and “he has decided to observe rest for the next three months,” hoping to resume work in September.
LifeSite asked the cardinal’s spokesman whether there was a potential link between the “vaccine” and the cardinal’s present health condition, by way of some kind of adverse effect.
The spokesman stated very clearly that this was not the case. He noted that Cardinal Eijk had received the first jab some three weeks before the illness that led to his hospitalization, and the second one shortly after leaving hospital, with no ill effects. He also made clear that the cardinal’s illness did not involve symptoms that point to an adverse effect of the COVID shot.
Before answering the call to become a priest, Willem Eijk studied medicine at the university of Amsterdam; he then took a specialization course in medical ethics while studying for the priesthood in the seminary of Rolduc and completed his medical formation as a doctor of medicine in 1985 one year after his ordination.
From then on, he continued his studies in philosophy and medical ethics and bioethics, and has taught moral theology in various universities and seminaries, also writing a thesis on genetic manipulation at the Dominican university of the Angelicum in Rome in 1990.
Cardinal Eijk, as can be inferred from his choice to receive the experimental COVID shot, does not consider the “vaccines” immoral because of the use of cell-lines of aborted fetuses in the testing, production or post-production verifications in the products currently approved in most EU countries: Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca, and Johnson & Johnson. Nor does he consider their use unethical despite the fact that clinical trials are not complete. However, he has strongly insisted from the start that reception of the vaccine is a matter of free individual choice, and should not be imposed on citizens.
This standpoint is in line with several statements of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith — which insisted, moreover, on the duty of Catholics to make known their opposition to the use of living cells obtained from elective abortions in the development or production of vaccines and to act in favor of ethical research — and of a majority of moral theologians, both “traditional” and “progressive.” Some, however, such as Bishop Athanasius Schneider, continue to question the morality of receiving the COVID “vaccines” that are “abortion-tainted.”
In a short interview published on December 8th, 2020, on the central website of the Catholic Church in the Netherlands, Cardinal Eijk expressed his view in his capacity of “Ethical Medicine Referent” on behalf of the Dutch Bishops’ Conference.
Here below is LifeSite’s translation of this interview from the original Dutch.
May the government impose measures in the area of health care as is now happening in connection with preventing the spread of Covid-19?
Many people in our society resist government-imposed measures by appealing to their individual freedom. Seen from a purely individual perspective, in which people put themselves first and tend to see others from a spectator’s viewpoint, a government that imposes coercive measures is considered a threat. The common good is easily lost sight of in the process.
When we speak of the common good within Christian social teaching, it is not about a general interest of the state to which the individual members of society may or must be sacrificed. The common good ultimately aims at the personal well-being of all members of society. From its specific responsibility, the state may, and even must, impose coercive measures for the common good when that is necessary to protect the health of all members of society.
We are getting closer and closer to a working vaccine. What requirements would such a vaccine have to meet in order to be acceptable?
The coronavirus can only be stopped by vaccination. However, we are waiting for a vaccine that produces the desired effect, namely a sufficient immune reaction against the coronavirus that therefore will protect the vaccinated person against infection with the coronavirus. Man, created in God’s image and likeness, has will and reason and therefore a certain amount of providence as does God, albeit to a very limited degree. This creates a responsibility which he must also live up to. It is therefore also an ethical task to ensure that a vaccine becomes available as soon as possible.
This vaccine must meet a number of conditions: it must obviously be effective and actually prevent infection by the coronavirus and its spread. In addition, it must have either no or almost no side effects, because the vaccine must, in principle, be administered to a very large number of healthy people. In people who are already at higher risk of becoming seriously ill from the coronavirus anyway, one might be allowed to take more risks. But vaccination aims to make a large part of the population immune to COVID infection. Therefore, the vaccine should not have serious side effects.
Should the government be allowed to force people to be vaccinated?
As a matter of principle, the government cannot use an appeal to the public good to force people to be vaccinated. The reason is that vaccination involves an intrusion into the integrity of the human person’s body. This requires the consent of the person in question. What the government can and should do is educate members of society as much as possible about the vaccine and the importance of vaccination with the goal of encouraging as many people as possible to be vaccinated.
It can also encourage people to get vaccinated by making vaccination free. The World Health Organization calls for a vaccination rate of over 95 percent. For some infectious diseases, a vaccination rate of 90 percent also appears to be sufficient. This already achieves group immunity, which gives good protection against infection with the coronavirus for all members of society — including those who have not been vaccinated. Should someone who has not been vaccinated then contract a corona infection, at least it cannot lead to an epidemic. For this reason, too, it is unnecessary to force people to be vaccinated.
There are many questions about the method of vaccine production and the use of cell lines from aborted fetuses. Is this objection valid, and if so, how should it be handled?
Sometimes the way in which a vaccine is produced is indeed questionable. In a number of cases, cell lines are used that were obtained through induced abortion in the 1960s and 1970s. The question then arises whether the use of these cell lines is not a kind of cooperation with this abortion.
According to Catholic teaching, cooperation with an act that is wrong or evil in itself is generally forbidden. But this cooperation can be justified in some cases, namely if the person who cooperates does not consent to the evil act as such and the act with which one cooperates is not near to, but separate from, the evil act. This is the case when the researchers use the cell lines in question, which come from two human fetuses aborted more than half a century ago.
Such a form of cooperation with an evil act also requires, according to Catholic doctrine, a proportionately sufficient serious reason. The development of a vaccine against the coronavirus, which seriously disrupts life in practically all parts of the world, is such a reason (cf. a 2005 statement on the subject from the Pontifical Academy for Life: note academyforlife.va). By the way, if vaccines are available that have been developed without the use of cell lines derived from aborted fetuses, those vaccines should be preferred.
So do you recommend that Catholics get vaccinated against COVID-19 as soon as possible?
Yes, in the interest of the common good, where the human person is central, I recommend vaccination. People are then not only protected from the virus themselves, but their loved ones are also protected, and in this sense vaccination is also an act of charity. The objection that there may be to the use of certain cell lines obtained by an evil act is thereby weighed against the serious reason for stopping COVID-19 — and its disruptive effects on global society.
These statements call for some comments and questions which LifeSite would have wanted to put before the cardinal if his state of health had made such an interview possible.
With due respect, here are some of the points that appear to require further thought.
In the first place, Cardinal Eijk clearly was of the opinion that there was at the time of publication no efficient treatment of COVID-19, and he appears still to believe this insofar as he personally received the experimental vaccine some four months later: He stated that “the coronavirus can only be stopped by vaccination.”
This opinion, which to be sure is widely shared among vaccine promoters and has been imposed by most international organizations and governments, has been abundantly contradicted on the grounds of experience. If this opinion is in fact untrue, and treatments do exist that would significantly reduce the mortality rate of COVID-19 if they were used consistently, then, following the Cardinal’s reasoning, vaccination should not be so glibly recommended.
The question of the efficiency of the COVID shots also plays a role in his answer: Cardinal Eijk notes that “it must obviously be effective and actually prevent infection by the coronavirus and its spread.”
At the present time, it is not clear whether the COVID “vaccines” actually prevent infection, given the number of breakthrough cases and even deaths attributed to COVID-19 among fully vaccinated patients (see here the statistics for the U.S. alone by June 1, at which point 535 deaths following full vaccination had been registered).
As for spreading the SARS-CoV-2 virus while vaccinated, present consensus it that this is at least possible. A quick search on Internet on June 17 obtains a first response from a mainstream, pro-vaccine source (Cleveland Clinic) dated June 14, in which infectious disease specialist Lyssette Cardona answered the question “Can fully vaccinated people still transmit the virus to others, including other vaccinated people?” by saying that while it is “possible,” the ability to transmit COVID-19 “may occur at a lower rate.” “May.” No one’s sure.
She added that “the elderly, those with immune or chronic health conditions or those with underlying health disorders may not have the best protective response to vaccines, such as the COVID-19 vaccines.” But young and middle-aged people who do not have serious health problems are in their immense majority not at risk of having a severe form of COVID, and having COVID in their case contributes to herd immunity and the protection of the most vulnerable.
“In addition, it must have either no or almost no side effects, because the vaccine must, in principle, be administered to a very large number of healthy people,” said Cardinal Eijk. In many countries, an unusual number of severe side-effects, and deaths following “vaccination,” even if their proportion is small compared to the millions of shots, have been documented and continue to be registered — so much so that in many countries, the population for which the AstraZeneca jab was approved was modified because young people appeared to be more at risk of severe adverse events and even death than from COVID itself.
At the time of the interview, these data were not available because the “vaccine roll-out” was only beginning. Has Cardinal Eijk followed more recent developments? Would it not have been worthwhile to ask him about the experimental nature of the COVID “vaccines,” in particular the mRNA and genetically engineered jabs whose longterm effects are totally unknown?
It is interesting to note, at any rate, that his guidelines can lead to rejecting the COVID “vaccine” if one has reason not to agree with his opinion on the concrete efficiency or safety of the jabs.
A crucial element of his guidelines is that the Cardinal stated that “as a matter of principle, the government cannot use an appeal to the public good to force people to be vaccinated.”
In the Netherlands, where political correctness and so-called “care for the other” are such a thing, this is an important reminder of the importance of personal freedom. People who are not getting the vaccine are already being called “anti-social” by friends and family. They are being pointed at and risk being shunned. Official rules say that vaccination against COVID is not compulsory, but social shaming is already underway.
Can such social pressure be construed as a form of constraint? Cardinal Eijk’s insistence, in the comments he allowed to be transmitted to LifeSite, that he was not making a call for people to receive the vaccine, gives the beginnings of an answer to that question.
In his December interview, Cardinal Eijk went even further in recalling: “The reason is that vaccination involves an intrusion into the integrity of the human person’s body. This requires the consent of the person in question.”
This is a very important point and, given the way mRNA “vaccines” work, in particular, making the human body produce viral Spike proteins by intruding into its very cells, would seem to require further analysis.
The cardinal’s December statements also involved the moral issue of “abortion-tainted vaccines.” He gave the now classic answer of distant cooperation, speaking of the use of “two” aborted fetuses “half a century ago.” These statements came one month before Pamela Acker’s revelations regarding the number of aborted fetuses used, and the manner in which they were most probably cruelly “harvested” alive to obtain not two, but many aborted fetal cell-lines, became widely known.
Nor do the Cardinal’s statements take into account what is now also more widely known: that the use of cell-lines obtained through specific elective abortions is incredibly widespread not only in vaccines, but in the field of drug development, production and testing, and even in the food industry, so that obtaining, perpetuating and using these “questionable” cell lines (as the Cardinal himself remarked) has turned into a major reality in our time.
Cardinal Eijk did say, however: “If vaccines are available that have been developed without the use of cell lines derived from aborted fetuses, those vaccines should be preferred.” This is also an important indication that shows that acceptance of abortion-tainted vaccines should at least not be taken for granted.
Finally, regarding the “proportionately sufficient serious reason” for using abortion-tainted vaccines, the cardinal quoted the legitimate aim to protect vulnerable people from illness combined with “disruptive effects on global society.”
But these “disruptive effects” have been made worse (and, for many of them, imposed) by governmental decisions that have been increasingly proved to be either useless for stopping the spread of COVID-19, or harmful, or totally out of proportion when one looks at the exaggeration of the mortality rate officially linked with COVID. Another way of stopping the “disruptive effects on global society” than vaccination would be to put an end to those public measures, and to offer treatment to the ill.