VALAIS, Switzerland (LifeSiteNews) – Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) leaders are facing criticism from supporters after appearing to back COVID-19 jab mandates last week, in a statement telling people that they may need “to agree to be vaccinated” with abortion-tainted, experimental COVID shots in the face of new “health pass” measures.
The article, published Friday on the SSPX’s website, contained no mention of whether SSPX leaders support exemptions for Catholics who risk losing their jobs due to conscience objections to COVID vaccines, which, along with connections to fetal cell testing, has been linked to tens of thousands of deaths and millions of adverse reactions.
“The absolute and categorical positions that are often widespread, such as that which tends to consider the vaccinated as Judas and those who refuse to do so as martyrs, or vice versa, seem at the very least excessive and sometimes mark an obvious lack of charity,” Fr. Arnauld Sélégny, SSPX Director of Communications, wrote.
“Thus, if it is impossible to approach the dying to confer on them the sacraments without being oneself vaccinated, we should prefer the salvation of our neighbor to our own health or tranquility,” he said. “The same goes for all those who are obliged in justice, according to their duty of state, to provide for the salvation of their neighbor.”
“In the present case, it should be remembered that, while abortion is a particularly heinous crime – which certainly involves the risk of scandal – it does, however, allow the manufacture of vaccines only indirectly and very remotely,” added Sélégny. Both “inevitable loss of one’s professional activity or social responsibilities” or “the need to visit an elderly person to support him” could constitute “a reasonable motive for consenting to be vaccinated” abortion-tainted jabs, he asserted.
Echoing Pope Francis, Sélégny also claimed that a “necessity” that “arises from charity,” may require “making sacrifices to ensure the salvation or the good of the neighbor,” including with submission to vaccine passport schemes.
“However, if a health pass is needed to circulate, it may happen that the obligation to fulfill a duty of charity prompts us to agree to be vaccinated,” he said.
In an apparent attempt to justify submission to compulsory COVID vaccination, Sélégny noted that many people already “accept to submit to many pressures and constraints for reasons of justice, charity, common good or spiritual good.”
The article states:
“It is true that the current conditions may be found to be coercive – an abuse of power – as seen in the pressure applied to be vaccinated. The fear of being under increased surveillance is also not a figment of the imagination. But let us acknowledge that we accept to submit to many pressures and constraints for reasons of justice, charity, common good or spiritual good.”
“It must therefore be concluded that the fact of consenting to be vaccinated against Covid-19 may sometimes be an eminently prudent act, in the moral sense of the term,” the article later continues. “It is up to everyone to choose whether to do this or not, depending on their circumstances, after having taken the information or advice of people competent in their field.”
Sélégny’s article reflects past SSPX guidelines on COVID-19 vaccination written by him, like a statement last December that described “professional reasons” as acceptable grounds for taking even “illicit” vaccines.
“But what if, in a particular case, a person finds it necessary to be vaccinated and is unable to obtain a ‘licit’ vaccine, having only an ‘illicit’ vaccine available? This may occur for health reasons (vulnerable elderly person), or because of the professional situation (exposed medical personnel) or for professional reasons, such as traveling by plane,” Sélégny wrote at the time.
“As cooperation is only distant, and the reason given is serious enough, it is possible in these cases to use such a vaccine,” he said.
Sélégny’s December article, like his article published Friday, contained no mention of whether SSPX leaders support exemptions for Catholics who risk losing their jobs due to conscience objections to COVID vaccines, which, along with connections to fetal cell testing, has been linked to tens of thousands of deaths and millions of adverse reactions.
‘Now is not the time for Catholics to yield’
The SSPX’s official position on coronavirus vaccines stands in sharp contrast to those of various Catholic leaders, like a group of five prelates that stressed last year that vaccines implicated in the “hidden genocide” of abortion “must be utterly rejected.”
“The crime of abortion is so monstrous that any kind of concatenation with this crime, even a very remote one, is immoral and cannot be accepted under any circumstances by a Catholic once he has become fully aware of it,” wrote the bishops, who included Kazakhstan Bp. Athanasius Schneider and Bp. Joseph Strickland of Tyler, Texas. “Now is not the time for Catholics to yield; to do so would be grossly irresponsible.”
Fr. Sélégny’s latest article also falls short of the clear denunciations of vaccine mandates by several other bishops and leading Catholic organizations in recent weeks.
“In the case of the COVID-19 vaccine, we are convicted that the government should not impose medical interventions on an individual or group of persons,” the bishops of Colorado said earlier this summer, in a letter later reiterated by the South Dakota bishops’ conference. “If any person comes to an informed judgment that he or she should receive or not receive a vaccine, that person should follow their conscience, and they should not be penalized for doing so.”
The National Catholic Bioethics Center (NCBC) has likewise urged “robust, transparent, and readily accessible exemptions for medical, religious, and conscience reasons” for any vaccinee requirements and has offered a template for those seeking exemptions, as have the Colorado bishops. The Catholic Medical Association has denounced strict vaccination mandates as a condition of employment, as well.
New Jersey SSPX priest leading strong opposition to the experimental COVID jabs
In start contrast to Sélégny’s letter, New Jersey priest Fr. Kevin Robinson of SSPX’s St. Anthony of Padua Chapel in Camden has warned parishioners away from the novel vaccines and has even joined protests against restrictive vaccination policies, including one in which he performed an exorcism outside the state capitol of Connecticut.
An exemption request letter personally signed by Robinson and shared with LifeSiteNews condemns the COVID shot for relying on “elements of the body of a murdered child.”
“The Catholic Church has consistently and emphatically upheld the right to life from conception until natural death and therefore considers abortion, for whatever reason, to be gravely sinful,” the letter notes, adding that “taking gene therapy injections” connected to abortion “would make one at least a material cooperator in the grave sin of abortion.”
“Plus the fact that a moral and religious person may not commit self-harm or even risk self-harm disproportionately. To do so is a species of suicide and the questionable mandates are proving to be causing serious and even deadly effects,” the letter warns.
Robinson told LifeSite that his exemption letter “has helped a lot of people keep their jobs.”
Sélégny’s most recent comments on COVID-19 vaccination come as governments across the world roll out new coronavirus measures to segregate millions of unvaccinated citizens from much of public life. A “green pass” program took effect in the Netherlands the day after SSPX released Sélégny’s statement Friday, following implementation of similar policies throughout Europe, including in Switzerland, where the SSPX is headquartered.
In the United States, mandates announced by the Biden administration are expected impact more than 80 million unvaccinated workers in the private sector in the coming weeks.