MIAMI, Florida, December 21, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) — Archbishop Thomas Wenski of Miami has posted to his Instagram account two pictures of himself receiving the abortion-tainted Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine on Dec. 16, making him the first U.S. bishop to publicly receive a COVID-19 vaccine.
The Pfizer vaccine was tested on fetal cells, as opposed to being created from fetal cells and containing that baby’s DNA.
Catholic commentator Deacon Nick Donnelly pointed out in response to Bishop Wenski’s announcement that the Pfizer vaccine was “tested on the kidney cells of a baby murdered through abortion in the 1970's.” Bishop Athanasius Schneider has stated in reference to vaccines that are in some way connected to abortion that one who “uses these vaccines must realize that his body is benefitting from the ‘fruits’ of one of mankind’s greatest crimes.”
In his second Instagram post showing a picture of his vaccination, Archbishop Wenski explained his public display, as relayed to the Florida Catholic: “I wanted to show today, first of all, that we have confidence in the vaccine and that we don’t have any ethical concerns about the vaccine. Hopefully my stepping up will encourage other people to get the vaccine as it becomes available to them.”
In his comments to the Florida Catholic, Bishop Wenski referenced the USCCB’s document “Moral Considerations Regarding the new COVID-19 Vaccines,” which says that “being vaccinated safely against COVID-19 should be considered an act of love of our neighbor and part of our moral responsibility for the common good.”
The USCCB document claims: “In view of the gravity of the current pandemic and the lack of availability of alternative vaccines, the reasons to accept the new COVID-19 vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna are sufficiently serious to justify their use, despite their remote connection to morally compromised cell lines.” It also advises that taking the “more morally compromised” AstraZeneca vaccine is permissible for the same reason.
The USCCB document in turn cites the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith’s (CDF) Instruction Dignitas Personae “On Certain Bioethical Questions,” issued in 2008. While it affirms, regarding aborted fetal remains (“biological material”), that “there is a duty to refuse to use such ‘biological material’ even when there is no close connection between the researcher and the actions of those who performed the artificial fertilization or the abortion,” it also gives an exception for vaccine recipients where “Grave reasons may be morally proportionate to justify the use” of such “biological material.”
People of goodwill can disagree about the safety, efficacy and religious implications of a new vaccine for the coronavirus.
But, everyone should agree on this point:
No government can force anyone who has reached legal adulthood to be vaccinated for the coronavirus. Equally, no government can vaccinate minors for the coronavirus against the will of their parents or guardians.
Please SIGN this urgent petition which urges policymakers at every level of government to reject calls for mandatory coronavirus vaccination.
Fear of a disease - which we know very little about, relative to other similar diseases - must not lead to knee-jerk reactions regarding public health, nor can it justify supporting the hidden agenda of governmental as well as non-governmental bodies that have apparent conflicts of interest in plans to restrict personal freedoms.
The so-called "public health experts" have gotten it wrong many times during the current crisis. We should not, therefore, allow their opinions to rush decision-makers into policies regarding vaccination.
And, while some people, like Bill Gates, may have a lot of money, his opinion and that of his NGO (the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation) - namely, that life will not return to normal till people are widely vaccinated - should not be permitted to influence policy decisions on a coronavirus vaccination program.
Finally, we must also not allow the rush by pharmaceutical companies to produce a new coronavirus vaccine to, itself, become an imperative for vaccination.
Unwitting citizens must not be used as guinea pigs for New World Order ideologues, or Big Pharma, in pursuit of a vaccine (and, profits) which may not even protect against future mutated strains of the coronavirus.
And it goes without saying that the production of vaccines using aborted babies for cell replication is a total non-starter, as the technique is gravely immoral.
However, if after sufficient study of the issue, a person who has reached the age of majority wishes to be vaccinated with a morally produced vaccine, along with his children, that is his business.
But we cannot and will not permit the government to make that decision for us.
Thank you for SIGNING and SHARING this petition, urging policymakers at all levels of government to reject mandatory coronavirus vaccination.
FOR MORE INFORMATION:
Bill Gates: Life won’t go back to ‘normal’ until population 'widely vaccinated' - https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/bill-gates-life-wont-go-back-to-normal-until-population-widely-vaccinated
COVID-19 scare leads to more digital surveillance, talk of mandatory vaccine 'tattoos' for kids' - https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/covid-19-scare-leads-to-more-digital-surveillance-talk-of-mandatory-vaccine-tattoos-for-kids
Trudeau says no return to ‘normal’ without vaccine: 'Could take 12 to 18 months' - https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/trudeau-says-no-return-to-normal-without-vaccine-could-take-12-to-18-months
Trudeau mulls making coronavirus vaccine mandatory for Canadians - https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/trudeau-mulls-making-coronavirus-vaccine-mandatory-for-canadians
US bishop vows to ‘refuse’ COVID-19 vaccine if made from ‘aborted fetal tissue' - https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/us-bishop-vows-to-refuse-covid-19-vaccine-if-made-from-aborted-fetal-tissue
** While LifeSite opposes immorally-produced vaccines using aborted fetal cell lines, we do not have a position on any particular coronavirus vaccines produced without such moral problems. We realize many have general concerns about vaccines, but also recognize that millions of lives have been saved due to vaccines.
*** Photo Credit: Shutterstock.com
“As for the moral responsibility of those who are merely the recipients of the vaccines, the Congregation affirms that a serious health danger could justify use of “a vaccine which was developed using cell lines of illicit origin, while keeping in mind that everyone has the duty to make known their disagreement and to ask that their healthcare system make other types of vaccines available,” the CDF continues.
There are compelling moral arguments being presented by bishops and priests as to why it is morally illicit to receive a vaccine connected to the use of aborted fetal tissue.
Fr. Michael Copenhagen, in his article “Restore Ye to its Owners: On the Immorality of Receiving Vaccines Derived from Abortion,” begins by highlighting the issue, [in these vaccines], of the theft and desecration of human remains.
He brings up Scripture’s story of Tobit, who “insisted on honoring God and neighbor by burying the dead at a time when the desecration of their remains was the state mandate. For this great deed, he was forced to flee and placed under a sentence of death.”
Dr. Copenhagen points out that the human remains involved in vaccines have likewise been desecrated through exploitation and trafficking, that “labelling human remains obtained through violence as ‘illicit biological material’ is not only insufficient but dehumanizing and offensive.”
Also, because the cells belong to the child, who has been “silenced,” and “the parents have forfeited by abortion any right of consent to respectful scientific use of the body, the scientists and patent holders have no right to possess or use the cells: these human remains belong to God, must be respectfully reposed.” Therefore, the remains of the child have been stolen, and our “distance” from this act does not negate moral complicity in taking a vaccine involving their exploitation.
Fr. Copenhagen compares it to benefitting from funds stolen during a murderous bank robbery: “If I am the beneficiary of a violent bank robbery where the clerk was murdered to secure funds, my personal distance from the robbery does not make it licit to possess or spend those funds or even other monies made playing the stock market with them”
To those bishops and clergy members who argue that bodily safety and health is sufficient to justify taking vaccines connected to abortion, Bishop Schneider has pointed out, “Bodily health is not an absolute value. Obedience to the law of God and the eternal salvation of the souls must be given primacy.”
Fr. Dave Nix has wondered why bishops have been devoting such efforts to encourage Catholics to take the COVID-19 vaccine in the name of health, but have not made similar efforts to discourage the oral contraceptive pill, which is both physically harmful and morally sinful.
Fr. Nix, a former paramedic, learned that the oral contraceptive pill is “extremely dangerous, having caused “countless women” to die of pulmonary embolisms and strokes secondary to the oral contraceptive pill.
“If bishops conferences wanted to save the most lives and the most souls, they would make statements like their current ones on coronavirus vaccine, but rather on the oral contraceptive pill,” he said.
Fr. Nix went on to caution bishops who are encouraging people to take the COVID-19 vaccine, warning that whereas vaccine manufacturers cannot be held liable for vaccine-related injury and death, the bishops themselves can be sued.
“My suggestion to groups of bishops and priests out there telling people to take this vaccine out of charity for their neighbor: Well you might want to note that you are not covered in any such indemnity protections.”
“In other words, if you tell your faithful that they have to take this vaccine to be a good catholic and they take it and end up non-verbal or zonked out of their mind in five years, or infertile or dead, they can sue you for going way outside of your pay grade into medicine.”
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