There has been much debate over the COVID-19 experimental injections. Now however, public health officials are pushing for vaccine mandates, or vaccine “passports” that may be required for people to participate in various aspects of society including attending schools, public events, obtaining employment or visiting businesses or stores.
Church Teaching on Vaccine Mandates
The Catholic Church has been clear that vaccines are not a moral obligation, and must always be voluntary – e.g. never mandatory* (See Church statements below). Disturbingly however, some North Carolina elected officials have expressed interest in encouraging businesses to require vaccine passports, which although not a government mandate, instead becomes a “private sector mandate” that businesses or institutions can force upon customers or employees. This goes against Church teaching and ignores respecting an individual’s conscience – especially if one has moral or prudential concerns about certain vaccines (e.g. use of aborted fetal tissue, side effects, experimental nature, etc.)
House Bill 572: Banning Vaccine “Passports”
The North Carolina House of Representatives has approved House Bill 572, which would ban vaccine “passports” and mandates by the government and protect North Carolinians from discrimination and privacy violations from the government. However, H572 currently does not provide protection for individuals against private sector vaccine mandates or passports. As of May 11, it awaits consideration by the NC Senate.
To learn more about House Bill 572 please visit:
https://standforhealthfreedom.com/action/support-a-landmark-nc-health-freedom-bill/
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Note: C-PLAN’s new family organization, the Carolina Family Coalition has been examining the issue of COVID-19 experimental injections extensively in their semi-weekly Veritas Report. To review past reports and to subscribe please click here: www.prolifecharlotte.org/report
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*Catholic Church statements:
- Pope Pius XI, Casti Connubii encyclical (On Christian Marriage) #70, December 31, 1930: “Public magistrates have no direct power over the bodies of their subjects; therefore, where no crime has taken place and there is no cause present for grave punishment, they can never directly harm, or tamper with the integrity of the body, either for the reasons of eugenics or for any other reason.”
- Catechism of the Catholic Church #1730: God created man a rational being, conferring on him the dignity of a person who can initiate and control his own actions. “God willed that man should be ‘left in the hand of his own counsel,’ so that he might of his own accord seek his Creator and freely attain his full and blessed perfection by cleaving to him.” Man is rational and therefore like God; he is created with free will and is master over his acts.
- Catechism of the Catholic Church #2295: Research or experimentation on the human being cannot legitimate acts that are in themselves contrary to the dignity of persons and to the moral law. the subjects’ potential consent does not justify such acts. Experimentation on human beings is not morally legitimate if it exposes the subject’s life or physical and psychological integrity to disproportionate or avoidable risks. Experimentation on human beings does not conform to the dignity of the person if it takes place without the informed consent of the subject or those who legitimately speak for him.
- Cardinal Raymond Burke – address to the Rome Life Forum, May 22, 2020: “[I]t must be clear that vaccination itself cannot be imposed, in a totalitarian manner, on citizens. When the State takes on such a practice, it violates the integrity of its citizens. While the State can provide reasonable regulations for the safeguarding of health, it is not the ultimate provider of health. God is. Whatever the State proposes must respect God and His Law.”
- Congregation of Doctrine and Faith, Morality of COVID-19 Vaccines, #5, December 17, 2020: “[P]ractical reason makes evident that vaccination is not, as a rule, a moral obligation and that, therefore, it must be voluntary.”
- Bishop Paprocki Offers Analysis on Notre Dame’s COVID Vaccine Mandate