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MONCTON, New Brunswick (LifeSiteNews) – The Archbishop of Moncton, New Brunswick, has withdrawn a mandate requiring parishioners to be double-jabbed against COVID-19 before being permitted to attend Masses within the diocese.
On September 24, Archbishop Valery Vienneau of Moncton updated guidelines published just days earlier, on September 17, overturning the need to be “doubly vaccinated” against the novel coronavirus in order to attend “Sunday or weekday masses, baptisms, prayer groups.”
Implemented on September 22, the vaccine mandate, which applied to anyone over 12 years of age, lasted just two days before being rescinded, apparently owing to “new directives from the Minister of Health” for New Brunswick, Dorothy Shephard.
The new measures, agreed on by the four bishops of the province, now state that “no proof of vaccination will be required” for attendance at most church services, including Masses and baptisms, but that access to weddings and funerals will still be restricted to those who have taken an experimental COVID shot.
“For funerals and weddings, there is no distancing required which allows for full capacity and there is no requirement to keep a record of those present. But to be admitted, a person must have proof of full vaccination,” Vienneau’s new instructions reads.
Those teaching children’s catechesis must also be double-jabbed, according to the statement, as well as any adults who wish to attend the classes.
Parish employees are not required to be “vaccinated,” although the archbishop has expressed that it is “highly desirable” that they take the abortion-tainted shot. Those who elect to forego the shot will, however, be subject to testing for COVID “periodically according to government policy,” as well as wearing a face mask “at all times.”
“We understand the concerns of [New Brunswick] Public Health and continue to work together following the guidelines issued to reduce the transmission of COVID-19,” Vienneau wrote.
LifeSiteNews contacted the Archdiocese of Moncton for comment but did not receive a reply in time for publication.
Given the necessary connection between the currently available COVID shots and abortion, many Catholics have a strong moral opposition to taking the jabs. Respected Kazakhstan Bishop Athanasius Schneider has even insisted that the obligation to resist collaboration with the abortion industry is so grave that he would suffer imprisonment before accepting any part in taking an abortion-tainted “vaccine.”
Additionally, records collated on the Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS) show that, within the U.S., 726,963 adverse event reports have been submitted following injection with a COVID-19 shot, causing concern for the safety of taking the “vaccines.”
The COVID jabs have been correlated with 15,386 deaths on the system, accounting for over 63 percent of all vaccine-related deaths recorded on VAERS, despite being just one of 85 vaccines with adverse event reports on VAERS.
Alongside mandating vaccination for attendance at weddings and funerals, the bishops have agreed to implement mandatory masking, severely restricted church capacity (50 percent), physical distancing, contact tracing, and no congregational singing as part of the revised rulings.
However, most of these measures had been ruled out as necessary for public health by Shephard in her previous meeting with church officials in the province: “The minister made it clear to us that she does not require masks, sanitizing, or social distancing at our gatherings. These measures remain at the discretion of individuals.”
According to Vienneau’s original instruction to the archdiocese, which has since been removed from the archdiocesan website, Shephard had met with religious leaders throughout New Brunswick, explaining that the government “had only one goal” regarding the implementation of new supposed health guidelines: “to increase the rate of people fully vaccinated in the province.”
To this end, Shephard enlisted the archdiocese to assist in coercing the public into taking an experimental COVID jab by ruling out masking indoors and requiring physical distancing to allow “unvaccinated” individuals to be able to attend Mass. Though making the desire to have widespread vaccination against the virus known to diocesan administrators, the province did not require proof of being double jabbed for entry to places of worship.
“Instead, she wishes to have gatherings of fully vaccinated people to keep people safe and to act as an incentive for the unvaccinated. That is why going back to past health measures (mask, sanitizing, and social distancing) as a way to include unvaccinated people at our gatherings is not the measure promoted by the government,” Vienneau’s original statement read.
Though not required by the government, Vienneau also mandated that “at any gathering inside our churches, rectories or building under our supervision, those present shall be doubly vaccinated.”
“The government is looking for a vaccination rate of around 90% … The Minister of Health is counting on our cooperation,” the archbishop added.
While Vienneau’s vaccine mandate applies to those over 12 years old, he noted that this exemption only exists “as they cannot currently be vaccinated.”
However, Canadian authorities have indicated a desire to begin vaccinating children in this age bracket by early 2022. Manufacturers are in the midst of testing their COVID shots on children between 6 months and 11 years old, the data for which is expected to be made available to the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) “in the coming months.”
But the need for vaccinating children against the coronavirus is hotly contested, with former adviser to COVID Pandemic policy for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Dr. Paul Elias Alexander stating that “COVID injections offer children no opportunity for benefit and only potential opportunities for harm.
Corroborating Alexander’s claim, the Federal Institute for Vaccines and Biomedicines in Germany published a report detailing the number of reported cases of suspected adverse effects following COVID-19 vaccination in children aged 12–17, showing that such reports have now exceeded the total number of COVID-related hospitalizations for children within the same age group since the beginning of the coronavirus crisis.