The
following commentary regarding recent articles on Rorate Caeli by Professor Roberto de Mattei and Father
Richard Cipolla on vaccines, was written in response to my own conscience in
disagreement with them on this extremely important issue and alters nothing of
the high esteem and respect I have for both of them in their respective roles
as Catholic priest and Catholic historian. I am fully aware that their
scholarship and intellectual qualifications are light years ahead of mine – yet
I still believe I have something to say about this matter as a reasonably
informed and most concerned Traditional Catholic. I have no hard feelings
because we differ in our stances on this subject: just surprise and bewilderment. F. R.
I oppose the position on the so-called licit use of Covid 19 vaccines for Catholics, that Professor De Mattei and Father Cipolla have proposed in their articles on Rorate Caeli over the past 2 weeks .
First, I am not
anti-vaccine in principle and have had a few of them in my life.
Second, when I
discovered a few years ago the horrific fact that aborted human-fetal cells
were being used in or to test vaccines (and other things!) I began to have my
doubts even about ‘normal’ flu vaccines – and I did some research on the
subject. What I discovered was enough to
make my hair-stand-on-end. It took me
some time to take the horror in: that some human beings were selling to other
human-beings, parts of other human beings derived from abortion, to
pharmaceutical (and other) companies for scientific use and experimentation.
Still today this is hard for me to swallow. In fact when I tell others
(including my family) about it - most don’t
want to hear or refuse to believe it. But it doesn’t take much effort to find
the evidence for this monstrous reality. Just a click will do – putting in the
right key words. Nonetheless, I have
discovered most people (that I know) don’t really want to know or prefer to
justify the use of human-fetal-cells ( a result of procured abortion) in the
scientific experimentation of medicines - to save other lives – so they say.
Third, Prof De Mattei and Father Cipolla present the
taking of vaccines for Covid 19 as morally feasible for Catholics, even if they have been remote-tested on
human-fetal cells, in such a way as to open the door and encourage a more
general moral acceptance of the use of the cells of murdered babies for medical experimentation. At least that’s the way their proposition could be interpreted and it
is a dangerous slippery slope.
What happened to moral absolutism and the non-negotiables?
There has to be moral absolutism in this field – or I believe we are sunk. And not only me. Many Catholics. Some people
are criticizing the good Bishop Schneider for this, when he rightly condemns in
absolute terms the use of vaccines from human-fetal-cell-experimentation. So the absolutists against a vaccine-derived from human-fetal-cell-experimentation
(like myself) are being condemned as intolerant, unreasonable and rabidly
anti-intellectual. I don’t get it. Isn’t the truth found in absolutes? It is
certainly not found in grey areas…
I found the following definition:
"Absolute truth" is defined as inflexible
reality: fixed, invariable, unalterable facts. For example, it is a fixed,
invariable, unalterable fact that there are absolutely no square circles and
there are absolutely no round squares.”
Is it not absolute Catholic truth that human fetal-cells-used
in scientific experimentation come from a “human-being” – conceived and loved
by God from the very moment of his or her existence – and made in His very
image – known to God even before being formed in the womb? And that any present benefit through vaccines
derived from the use of harvested aborted-human-beings, made in the image and
likeness of God, has a taste – however remote – of cannibalism about it?
I’m not suggesting that people who partake of these types of vaccines are cannibals, but they are perhaps unaware of the way many types of vaccines are produced and my use of this term 'cannibalism' is employed in a literary not literal manner in order to provoke.
Fourth, Prof de Mattei
presents his case using as his authority the recent instruction of the Post
Vatican II Magisterium (December 2020**) which baffles me somewhat as over the
years both he and Father Cipolla have found ample and solid grounds to
criticize and challenge the same wobbly Post Vatican II Magisterium. For
example on Amoris laetitia. Is the present Magisterium now to be trusted
in so delicate a matter after its moral disasters of recent years? I will stick with the absolute non-negotiables
of John Paul II and Benedict XVI, as this latest “OK” from the present
Magisterium would seem to minimize the awfulness of abortion itself and the dreadfulness
of experimenting on a live baby at the embryonic stage. So no
thank you very much.
Fifth, Father Cipolla suggests that Catholics opposed to Covid 19 vaccines are creating “a threat” to the Traditional Movement. I, instead, say that Catholics who morally absolve the use of human-fetal-remains in scientific experimentation are in fact posing “a threat” to the Catholic Traditional Movement. He suggests that we who are opposed to the use of human-fetal scientific experimentation – remote or otherwise – are guilty of “rabid anti-intellectualism” and of “threatening the recovery of Catholic Tradition within the Catholic Church”. Again I see that it is the promoters of waiving moral responsibility about receiving these human-fetal-experimented vaccines against Covid, who point the finger at Catholics opposed to the same, accusing them of a “false heroism” as Prof de Mattei writes. There is nothing heroic, false or otherwise, about being against these types of vaccines. It is they, on the other hand, who are those seemingly creating division in the Traditional Catholic Movement inside the Church. And I don’t understand why. The opponents of the human-fetal-experimented vaccine are accused of looking down on the Catholics who wish to take the human-fetal-experimented vaccines, depicted by implication as more rational and more truly Catholic –and in the end – more intellectual. I would say that it is the latter - who started it all – and who, from a moral high-road, are looking down on the former. There is a kind of gas-lighting going on here that I find somewhat disturbing.
Then
there are two more aspects on this serious subject that should be investigated
further from a Traditional Catholic
perspective and which were not stressed enough by the two writers in question –
at least in the articles I have read.
1)
It is no secret that the Covid 19 pandemic measures, which include
mass-vaccination, are now being used as a political means (in the form of control
and possible vaccine passports) to reset
the Western nations and a new global economy. It is so easy to find confirmation
of this plan. Just go to the World Economic Forum site - and you’ll see our elite masters, Klaus
Schwab and his motley crew –Prince Charles included – happy to be at our
service – to save us from the ‘black-death’ of the Covid 19 virus and in the
process “reset” the world! And mass vaccination is a big part of it all. ***see
link below
They see the virus as a “window of
opportunity” to reset the world in such a way that according to Schwab in about
10 years or so “we will possess nothing and be happy”. Whether they will pull
this madness off or not is debatable. It depends also on us though. But the
fact is, this mentality is being spread everywhere. And the International,
Global Vaccination Program is part of the Big Plan. Governments, the mass-media
and advertising are hammering on it day and night. How can it be denied? And I don’t believe for one minute that Prof
de Mattei or Father Cipolla want to be a part of this.
However,
in Italian schools the World Economic Forum’s “2030 Sustainable Development
Plan” is being taught (I’d say hammered on) at all levels. It’s part of the
curriculum. This is not conspiracy theory – this is conspiracy fact. And
anti-Covid 19 vaccinations distributed globally are part of this wonderful
future and great reset…
1) 2)Which
brings me to the last point which I address on tip-toes and I’m open to
correction and criticism – since I’m not competent to discuss it in depth – but
as a Catholic I have gleaned enough knowledge of it I believe to inform my conscience.
Prof. De Mattei and Father Cipolla with their insistence on the moral liceity of the above-mentioned vaccines seem not to be concerned too much that these so- called Covid 19 Vaccines (AstraZeneca, Johnston and Johnston, Pfizer, Moderna etc.) whether or not they contain human fetal cells or have used them in their production, are not proven vaccines - according to some doctors and scientists. That is, they haven’t been tested over a sufficient period of time for their effectiveness and side–effects to be evaluated properly. Prevention of infection is not guaranteed as more vaccinations are suggested after some months from the first dose, and masks are still to be worn and social distancing is still to practiced!
Plus
the constant harping on vaccines anti-Covid 19 overshadows other valid cures
for the Virus. Again – you can find the
information easily about these other medicines and treatments online. Also the
Covid 19 situation cannot be compared to the past success of the Polio or
Smallpox Vaccines. And I admit I do not know how these 2 vaccines were
produced. But I sense we are on a different parallel here. From what I
understand, Covid 19 is a highly contagious nasty virus, especially dangerous
for a small minority, but not as devastating as these two diseases were for the
general population at one point.
My
question is: do Father Cipolla and Professor de Mattei not realize that with the expressing of their positions on the moral liceity of receiving
human-fetal-cell -experimented (however remote) vaccines against Covid 19 that they have created more perplexity
and aided, unwittingly, the enemies of Christ in their delirious obsession to
vaccinate the entire planet? By their
stance, it might seem that they have bought into the current totalitarian political
climate of the anti-Catholic “Great Reset”. My question is basically rhetorical
as I don’t really think they have at all – but with their position on this issue, truly
“confusion now hath made its
masterpiece.” And here again I'm being provocative.
Let
me conclude my comment with 2 excerpts from “Noi Cannibali e I figli di Medea” a magisterial article written by
the great Italian journalist and writer Oriana Fallaci in 2005, for the daily Corriere della Sera , when the bill for
experimentation on the human embryo was being debated in the Italian
Parliament. Fallaci, a non-practicing
Catholic, but a Traditional Catholic at heart**** was dead-set against this law
being passed and in her usual marvelously scathing prose thrashed the
proponents of such a law and defended the defenseless with the fierceness of a
lioness shielding her cubs.
“My friends,
Ratzinger is also right when he says that in the name of Science, grave wounds
are increasingly being inflicted on the rights to Life. He is right when he says that with the
experiments on human embryos, the dignity of Man is vilified – actually
negated. He is right when he says if we don’t want to lose respect for Man we
need to demystify scientific research, demythologize Science, that is - quit
thinking about it as an idol or divinity.”
And:
“Every
dictionary defines Ethics the part of philosophy which treats of Morality: of
what is good for Man, of what is good to do or not good to do. In fact, Ethics
generally inspire the laws of a non-barbarian or not completely barbarian
Nation and until recently in the West we have managed pretty well with this.
The trouble is that in the Modern Age, Ethics gave birth to a degenerate child
called Bioethics. Also according to the
dictionary, Bioethics is a discipline dealing with moral, individual and collective
problems connected to the advancement of studies in the genetic field and of
the technology related to the formation of vital processes…”
However, confronted
with the Idol of Science, rather - the Divinity of Science, confronted with
Scientific Research, Bioethics gets caught with its breeches down all the time.
[In the beginning]stances are taken and vetoes, condemnations [are proclaimed]
… But then everyone begins to close their eyes. To have it both ways, advancing
compromises, which in reality were consensus. It is their strategy. Their way
of being Politically Correct. At the start they shouted scandal, declaring
certain things offend decency. Then
they begin stammering that it requires more reflection, that scientific
research cannot be cancelled, that you cannot go back, and they retract their
original stances. They retract their vetoes, their condemnations. Indeed, they
even render themselves accomplices to the crime. Always with the pretext of
therapeutic purposes …of course….” (Translation: Francesca Romana)
*
a Title coined by Orianna Fallacci in
her article: http://www.mpvroma.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Noi-cannibali-e-i-figli-di-Medea.pdf
- Here it is used as a literary phrase
to provoke.
***https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/03/how-we-can-vaccinate-the-world-against-covid-19/
****
Orianna had a priest at her death-bed and admired Cardinal Ratzinger’s thought
and writings. She had a brief audience with him as Pope Benedict XVI just
before her death on September 15th 2006. She was a great Italian thinker
and writer whose voice is sorely missed here in Italy.
