17 May 2021

Vaccination ...

... is a word that ought to mean "Self-identifying with a cow".

I have recently received a most excellent booklet from the august and brilliant Professor Roberto de Mattei, whom I had the pleasure and privilege to get to know when we were working together on the Correctio Filialis. He is President of the Lepanto Foundation and the author of a history of Vatican II which blew the gaffe ...

The booklet is called  

ON THE MORAL LICEITY OF THE VACCINATION A clear and comprehensive response to those who consider vaccination gainst Covid-19 illicit, because of its association with abortion.

I urge anybody to get it who still has any scruples about accepting anti-Covid Vaccines. Edizioni Fiducia. 10 euro. 

Could somebody who knows their way around the world append information about how to procure copies in Anglophone countries?

The Magisterium, of course, decided this question in the document Dignitatis personae, Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith 2008, Joseph Ratzinger Cardinal Prefect. It was approved and ordered to be promulgated by John Paul II. 

27 comments:

Jhayes said...

See Professor deMattei's website

https://www.robertodemattei.it/en/category/articoli-rdm-en/

For English translations of excepts from his writings on vaccines

FatherTF said...

The ebook of the English translation can be downloaded free, from Edizioni Fiducia at this link.

The paperback of the English translation can be ordered for 10 euro plus 8 euro "shipment" from Edizioni Fiducia at this link.

Bud said...

Go to www.robertodemattei.it
Top right change language to English
Article “10 questions to all those holding anti vax position”
First paragraph contains link to Edizioni Fiducia now in English
Can be downloaded free of charge.
Thank you Fr for bringing this up. I had a problem at first over the vaccine but made the decision to go ahead and have not regretted this. One problem I have is LifeSite News which decided against the vaccine and since has run daily scare stories about the side effects without any opposing view. While it is legitimate to oppose the vaccine on moral grounds or on concerns about long term effects all the evidence seems to me to show the huge benefits of the vaccine now. I am very sad LifeSite News is in my opinion lacking any balance.
Brian Wacey

Jhayes said...

You can order the English version here for €10 plus postage

https://www.edizionifiducia.it/collections/libri-fiducia/products/on-the-moral-liceity-of-the-vaccination

frjustin said...

Prof de Mattei's work is available in English as an e-book (74 pages) at
https://libri.edizionifiducia.it/on-the-moral-liceity-of-the-vaccination/

Brian M said...

https://libri.edizionifiducia.it/on-the-moral-liceity-of-the-vaccination/

Fr. C. A. Fogielman said...

Dear Fr. Hunwicke, can you assuage my fears that the question of liceity of the vaccine in connection to abortion is a complete red herring? My first questions had nothing to do with abortion. They were, in order:
1. Is it safer than exposure to the natural pathogen?
2. Is it effective?
3. Are other prophylactics available?
Based on my research as a layman (ut ita dicam), the answers seem to be:
1. Only if you're older than 75 or so
2. Not terribly, considering extra shots every six months are being considered, with no foreseeable end in sight
3. Yes, most notably Ivermectin, which does not raise the same concerns over side-effects.
I am rather afraid anything positive said about vaccines might add to the pressure many might feel to take the jab, against their gut feeling...

Sue Sims said...

Yes, Life Site News is so annoying that I've unsubscribed. I can understand that plenty of Catholics (particularly in the US) reject the vaccine on moral grounds (even though I don't agree with them), but Life Site keeps throwing numbers at us ('20 people die after receiving the vaccine!!!') without any sort of statistical context. And they seem to be muddled about whether the vaccine is immoral (in which case we shouldn't accept it even if it's 100% effective) or not very effective (in which case we should accept it because partial success is better than none).

Inutilissimus Servus said...

Dignitas Personae was signed by Cardinal Levada (then Prefect) and Archbishop Ladaria (Secretary), with Pope Benedict approving and ordering its publication.

Antrodemus said...

The argument that "getting the jab" is wrong on principle, because it involves benefitting from an evil act (i.e., abortion) strikes me as very weak. One might as well argue, I think, that a man is not entitled to assume an inheritance that has been left to him by someone who has been murdered, because he is benefitting from an evil act, even though he had nothing to do with the murder. This is excessively and unreasonably rigorous. We can also note that, even if abortion were outlawed and stopped tomorrow, the cell lines used to develop or test the vaccines would remain in use. Finally, there is almost certainly no single child who will be aborted because of the vaccines who would not have been aborted anyway, and not one child otherwise destined to be aborted who would not be aborted if only enough of us refused to be "jabbed."
That said, it seems to me that there are some almost overwhelmingly strong prudential arguments against vaccination, at least for most of us. Why, for a disease with something like a 99.7% survival rate, should most of us line up to get injected with a treatment that is still experimental, whose long-term effects are not known, and for which the loudest propagandists include some extremely dodgy characters with highly suspect agendas? In addition, the more of us who do get vaccinated, the sooner our political masters (or would-be masters) will find it possible to introduce "vaccine passports," with all that that implies.
It seems to me that those trying to be orthodox Catholics in today's age sometimes are a bit too quick to argue that this or that is required by, or is contrary to, faith or justice (and their annexed and associated virtues) and forget that prudence is also a virtue--and a cardinal one, not a mere afterthought. Perhaps many of us are so quick to appeal to principles and to skip over prudence because we have been taught to think that only the former can justify disobedience to authority, but that appeals to our own prudential judgments are little better than "private interpretation."
If memory serves me right, Napoleon Bonaparte once said, "Any idiot can follow orders and lose a battle. I want my marshals to use their heads to win battles for me." The basic idea here seems to me to have wider applicability.
Can some moral theologian please come forward to restore prudence to its proper place?

Steve said...

This controversy reminds me of the story of Elazar who was killed for refusing to eat pork and also meat that was not pork if he asserted that it was.

There will never be "vaccines" which are free from cell lines of aborted children if there is no pushback.

It was not just one aborted child that was used but many to obtain a cell line. How distant from the original act will make the use of these substances licit? Will it be one generation or two or three?

Thomas said...

But one of the conditions is the gravity of the situation....very brief summary I know...what if the person reaches the prudential conclusion that the risk of the vaccine is so low....or has been inflated by malevolent forces...surely they must in good conscience refuse it.
Also am I wrong in concluding that he does not address the "spike protein" risk to future fertility amongst the young...an I or any young woman playing Russian Roulette with my fertility...surely proper discernment must also look at the sources of these " remedies". Gates is steeped in Planned Parenthood.He is dripping in its profits.Should I assume that him and his contraception soon to be ex wife are benevolent prophets.

Thomas said...

What you say about Prudential judgement makes sense to me.Legally and morally I cannot make an informed consent judgement when the manufacturers say that the " vaccine" is experimental and is also really a gene therapy and not a "traditional" vaccine. Also the Boards of the Pharma companies have said they will not take the vaccine until everybody else is vaccinated. This is either heroic altruism or in the back of my brain memories of "friendly" assurances at certain remote European train stops come to mind.

Cosmos said...

Antrodemus states: "One might as well argue, I think, that a man is not entitled to assume an inheritance that has been left to him by someone who has been murdered, because he is benefitting from an evil act, even though he had nothing to do with the murder."

This is not a helpful analogy. Murder of adults is universally condemned as evil and no one in your scenario is intentionally benefitting from the evil act. The money follows the normal path of inheritances, which was not devised to provides society at large with a benefit possible only from such murders.

With vaccines, the argument is that society at large condones a form of intentional murder (abortion) and has further devised a way to derive an additional benefit from the murder (i.e., by harvesting human materials from the murdered babies for its living members).

Your analogy might work if society condemned abortions, depending on how the doctors ended up with the stem cells.

In any event, while the abortion-based antivaccine argument may break down under intense scrutiny, it is appalling to me that we should act as if we cannot understand where our fellow believers are coming from on this score. It's obvious that they hate the abortion industry and area appalled by the idea of personally profiting from it. It's not complicated or wicked, even if apparently misplaced.

I don't know if this is true or not, but when I was in Catholic school as a child in Maryland, we learned that the Allies intentionally discarded terrifying medical research that was conducted on unwilling Jewish prisoners by the Nazis. The research was undeniably the fruit of a barbaric enterprise. To keep it would, on some level, justify the barbarity. So the utilitarian argument was disregarded. That all made immediate sense to us kids.

Jovan-Marya Weismiller, T.O.Carm. said...

I refuse to get the jab for one simple reason. It is an untested and unapproved treatment. Even if it was 100% morally licit (and given the statements from Rome, it may very well be), the fact is that none of the various vaccines has undergone the long testing process that drugs normally undergo. They have only been given an 'Emergency Use Authorisation', not 'approval'. Thalidomide, anyone?

Jhayes said...

Antrodemus and Cosmos

It is perhaps useful to know that:

The Moderna and Pfizer vaccines do not use fetal cells in the production of the vaccines. In the process of developing the vaccines, they were tested using aa fetal cell line derived from an abortion performed in 1973 in the Netherlands.

The Janssen (J&J) vaccine does use a fetal cell line in the production of the vaccine. That cell line is derived from an abortion performed in 1985 in the Netherlands

Those fetal cell lines are thousands of generations removed from the original fetal tissue. They do not contain any tissue from a fetus.

No new abortions are required to continue producing the vaccines.

For a more detailled discussion, see

https://www.nebraskamed.com/COVID/you-asked-we-answered-do-the-covid-19-vaccines-contain-aborted-fetal-cells

lynn said...

So we are to get the state sponsored vaccine. Don't ask questions. The CDC admits to over 3000 vaccine related deaths. Never mind. Trust Mattei. Not a proud intellectual.....a humble child of God.

Joseph Revesz Sr. said...

After reading Dignatatis Personae, I will continue to pray and wait for a vaccine that I can take in good faith.

Joseph Revesz Sr. said...

After reading Dignatatis Personae, I will continue to pray and wait for a vaccine that I can take in good faith.

Liam Ronan said...

I wonder if you are acquainted with Christopher Ferrara, Father Hunwicke? A Catholic attorney, author, and apologist, he has rather a different take on the Professor's views and enthusiasms. Mr. Ferrara has written extensively on the issue of the liceity of the Covid-19 vaccinations in The Catholic Family News. Here is a link for those who may interested in his views.

https://catholicfamilynews.com/blog/2021/05/14/covid-vaccines-the-common-good-and-moral-liceity-a-response-to-professor-de-mattei-part-ii/#_edn16

raphaelheals said...

What Antromedus and Cosmos says is in error. When Dr. Stanley Plotkin, who made the rubella vaccine...he had to use somewhere between 76 and 100 other aborted babies in the process of creating that vaccine. He had to admit this under oath as a begrudging witness. CNA came out with a very good article yesterday about how the vaccine industry has its roots in eugenics and abortion since the twenties. I was so shocked and dismayed to see how long babies have been kept alive in order to procure their parts and kept on ice to use their organs for vaccines. Even long before the legalization of abortion.
To take this gene therapy only enriches the profiteers of this pharmaceutical/ abortion industry and this will never end if society does not stand up and say "ENOUGH!" The Vatican missed a crucial opportunity to be a witness to life and to speak out against the culture of death and has in a sense contributed to more abortions, as those cell lines HEK293 ( who, we must remember, was a living child of God! will need to be replaced at some point. The medical research done on aborted fetuses goes on EVERY SINGLE day. Dr. Fauci gave money for research where aborted fetal tissues are being grafted onto a rodent's head. WHEN are we going to be outraged? The Vatican's push for this vaccine BEFORE crying out to end illicit vaccines, and prudently telling people to wait for a licit vaccine would have wielded power and perhaps results. The horse is now out of the barn, and with every vile used, more money is made on the backs of a huge abortion industry and assures us of more trading of human body parts. We have the murderers in Planned Parenthood, the buyers and suppliers in the FDA, Medical researchers and pharmaceutical companies, and the consumers......WE the people. We must say NO!!What do you really think that our Mighty Savior thinks about this? The voices of the voiceless unborn "products" are crying out to heaven for vengeance and He will hear them because "The Lord hears the cry of the poor."

Michael Ortiz said...

Dignitatis Personae actually says if there is a proportionate reason, one may get a vaccine that derives from cell lines of aborted fetuses.

Opening the world, stopping the slide of hundreds of thousands of young people into depression and suicide, stopping the economic damage of the shut-downs so millions of folks aren't on the dole: if that isn't "proportionate" what the hell is?

Pat said...

I will not take the vaccine because it would be stupid to do so. Those who are pushing it are the enemies of God. Many Catholic dupes out there, sad to say. Turn the tv off and turn your brain on. De Mattei is no more an authority on health issues than the pope and shouldn't be encouraging people to be guinea pigs.

Lady Jane Perdue said...

Dear Fr. Hunwicke, Say it isn't so.
CDF prudential decisions are only as true as data input. Getting people to believe One remote-controlled abortion was weaponised to produce multiple abortions is the Enemy's ruse.
If only the Church had stood steadfast against abortion-produced vaxxes, alternatives would be more widely available, as they are in other countries w far lower rates of vax-re med conditions. We work w autistic clients so we know how vax correlates.
Vax abortions have morphed into a lucrative biotech industry based on aborted babies. I say this as daughter of those who participated in development of abortion-derived vaccines.
Please,dear Fr.,read Lifesite for other pts of view.

Catholic4life4eternity said...

The following link is to an article that that highlights a priest’s moral analysis that uses the Holy See’s own Documents to prove that it is immoral to take these COVID “vaccines”, which are, in fact, actually experimental gene therapies. Dignitas Personae explicitly requires that such substances be at least fully tested before it is morally acceptable to take them. There has been no long term testing upon animals to determine the long term effects of these experimental products- which is standard protocol for all real vaccines (the main subject of the CDF Documents). And thus, according to Dignitas Personae, due to the lack of long term testing, these dangerous products are immoral to take! The CDF’s conclusion that it is morally permissible to take these abortion tainted injections is contradicted by the principles set forth in their own Documents.

Please thoughtfully read and accept the truth contained in the following articles, or at least attempt to refute the specific points that the author and priest make:

https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/vatican-doc-confirms-its-mortally-sinful-to-take-or-facilitate-covid-vaccine-priest

https://www.lifesitenews.com/opinion/on-abortion-tainted-vaccines

And here are two excellent articles by Christopher Ferrara that thoroughly refute de Mattei and the CDF’s positions. Simply ignoring or misrepresenting the specific arguments raised against the moral liceity of these extremely dangerous abortion tainted products is not very convincing. Please thoughtfully read:

https://catholicfamilynews.com/blog/2021/04/18/covid-vaccines-the-common-good-and-moral-liceity-a-response-to-professor-de-mattei-part-i/

https://catholicfamilynews.com/blog/2021/05/14/covid-vaccines-the-common-good-and-moral-liceity-a-response-to-professor-de-mattei-part-ii/

I also propose that it would be good to consider, what if, instead of being abortion tainted, the “vaccines” in question were tainted by the cells stolen from people who were murdered in concentration camps during World War II? What if the ADL vehemently objected to the use of such “vaccines”? I for one would agree with the ADL that it would be completely immoral to use such heinously tainted products. What about you?

For the love of God and the salvation of souls, just say no to these evil products and the nefarious agendas behind them.

Cosmos said...

I would just like to clarify that I (1) understand the fact that the Church, on some level, has approved the use of the vaccine, and (2) the arguments against taking the vaccine make sense to me and I am sympathetic with those who make them.

PseudonymousposterJohn said...

Oh dear; you have been duped.
The government has approved propaganda telling people that if they comply they will get their freedom back
This is untrue – the only way to get our freedom back is NOT to comply
Or there will ever be return to freedom.
It takes a little longer and I appreciate the elderly ae in something of hurry
Do you recall sacrifice? Or martyrdom?

So you may think,
But surely
They can’t keep on denying me the right to fly out to Lake Gardai (more than 3km) and chat to professor di Stoogei?
Yes they can.
You may care about chatting away to Stoogei about how Bergoglio may be an absolute fright but still pope while the vaccine is an absolute godsend, but while they don’t, they know you do so they’ll use that to stop you going until you have done enough to persuade everyone you speak to sign up to putting enough details of what medical treatments they have received on their mobile phone to keep the tech companies happy that they can make more excess profits out of people – until the next time and they want more.
How else are the phone companies expected to make excess profits of the government doesn’t force you to put your medical records on them?