A Spiritual Wasteland

The Lantern Vol 35

The Vatican has released its response to the Covid 19 virus debate. In summation, according to

the Vatican, we can take the vaccine with no moral repercussions.

The Church's response during this crisis is very reflective of the state of the church today.

Before I go on, please allow me to reflect on some simple understandings of life.

Understandings that seem lost to so many, especially those in church leadership.

As a Catholic I should understand that I am an embodied soul. A soul given by God that is meant to be nourished and cared for. My body is secondary, as it is only the vehicle which carries this soul. Albeit a sacred vessel, but the protection of the soul is of first importance.

My soul is a unique gift from God that contains His spark, His life, His grace.

We are commanded by Christ to love our neighbors as ourselves. His summary of the commandments, after loving God.

When we love one another, we recognize we are loving the soul creation of God. This is why a Catholic does not see color or nationalities in any biased way. We are to see the gift of God within each person. A beautiful grace that is uniquely theirs. Like a beautiful fall day when we look at all the colors of the changing leaves, each one different, each one beautiful.

In our lives your soul exhibits God gifts given to you, through what you do, especially in your chosen profession. A chef, an attorney, a doctor, a teacher each and every person are instruments of the graces of God manifested through their souls.

Each soul during its life on earth is an instrument that can reflect God in its own unique unrepeatable manner. So our lives are a quest to return this gift to God, after exhibiting it’s uniqueness on earth.

As a Catholic we understand that the grace of God works differently through each of us but it also unites us. The grace of the Eucharist singularly unites all of these unique souls and individuals into one body sharing one blood, that of the Son of God, our creator.

The Church has always existed to nourish the faith, to feed the souls, to lead all people to God.

It is too remind us that we are one body, one faith, one blood.

Its mission is a spiritual one. It recognizes the body is a sacred tabernacle because it is the receptacle of the divine gift, just like the tabernacle in our churches. We respect and care for the body out of respect for what it carries. Think of a motor vehicle, no matter what its value, we care for that vehicle and what happens to it because of its cargo.

The Church's response to the Corona Virus has been one that seems to lack the basic understanding of the importance of the soul over the body.

In times of great special need we should always flee to God first, He is our Divine Physician. If we believe God is in charge, then of course we run to Him in times of distress.

The Corona Virus is taking the lives of so many people, therefore as a Church, the first response must be for the care of the soul. Is the soul ready to return to its creator for judgement? The Sacraments should be open like a floodgate. Masses should be increased, confessions more available, people should be brought closer to God.

The response has been quite the opposite. We have acted as if the body has little connection to God. We are self isolated with an attitude that “everyone for themselves”, is the christian thing to do. If we stay away from each other, shun thy neighbor, take a break from God and worship, then this might help save everyone. God is a backup plan that we will return to when the problem is over. The Church basically gave up and retreated to safety, and everyone for themselves was, and remains the mantra of the day.

This self protective mindset was seen time and time again with the sexual abuse crisis.

It continues to this day because we fail to address corrupted clergy.

How are we to trust a hierarchy who justified the molestation of thousands of children, literally the devastation of thousands of souls, for the good of the church?

During this virus, an organization founded on the sacrifice of Christ hid from the world in the worst of times. So once again, they sacrificed the souls for the bodies.

Pope Francis speaks about how people have become too concerned with themselves but this is exactly the response the Church has given. Love your neighbor by staying away from them is an oxymoron. There is a lot of loving ourselves in this answer because the idea is to protect the body first, the soul is secondary. The idea of all of these people dying alone without the graces of the sacraments, without their loved ones is horrifying. The fact that the Church is leading the charge is worse.

The Church's answer to accepting the vaccine seems to be just as confusing and morally compromising..

Here is how The Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith responded:

“It is morally acceptable to receive Covid-19 vaccines that have used cell lines from aborted fetuses in their research and production process.”

Due to the situation of the ongoing pandemic, “all vaccinations recognized as clinically safe and effective can be used in good conscience with the certain knowledge that the use of such vaccines does not constitute formal cooperation with the abortion from which the cells used in production of the vaccines derive.”

Apparently, if we have no control over a situation then we just have to accept it because it is for the good of everyone. The vaccines developed have been created in some way through the harvesting cells from the murder of small children. This is not disputed, so the moral dilemma is what should we do?

The words used are “ due to the situation of the ongoing pandemic”. What does that mean? Due to people continuing to get sick we are going to abandon our moral values? That didn’t take very long!

I also found it interesting the caveat of being recognized as clinically safe was also noted. Why? If a less safe but morally ethical vaccine is developed, can we not use it?

The moral explanations are examined from the concept of participation. Are we encouraging or directly participating in encouraging immorality for the sake of ourselves?

I have heard the concentration camp example several times during this debate. It goes like this. Doctors in concentration camps experimented on Jews, and today we use the information learned to better society. Our participation is so distant that we are not morally culpable.

I understand this perspective but this is far from the case we have today. The question today would be, if the bodies of mutilated murdered jews and christians were frozen could we continue to use their body parts in experimentation? I pray and hope there would be a public outcry. So why do we put up with using murdered children?

In society we have to choose to be organ donors, but our logic of the day seems to be the good of the public overrides any moral arguments.

We are also placing a lot of trust in big business and the World Health Organization (WHO).

After we learned planned parenthood was selling aborted fetuses don’t we wonder who was buying them? Seriously, if not big Pharma then who? Do we really think they are developing these vaccines from stem cells from the 1970’s when there is a continuing new source? Then there is the World Health Organization, who was caught sterilizing people against their will while posing as health care workers providing vaccines.

The Church has deemed that for the moral good of all we can take the vaccine. What is even more disconcerting is they propose that everyone taking it is the best solution to love one another.

We are seeing and understanding that statistically the virus is especially harmful to the elderly.

So the Church’s stance is confusing in many ways.

Those most likely to die, regardless of the virus, are supposed to do something morally questionable before they meet their creator. It is as if we totally disregard the mission of the soul and focus totally on this earthly life.

We are then instructed that if something is so morally problematic that we as Catholics are supposed to, in some manner, witness against it.

How does encouraging over 99 percent of people who do not need a morally questionable vaccine to take it, produce any type of witness?

What is overlooked in the response is what this vaccine actually does and doesn't do.

The vaccine does not help curtail the spread of the virus, it does lesson the effect on the individual. So other than help lesson the strain on our healthcare industry there is no other effect on the common good.

What’s also interesting is how the church who in later years has done such a terrible jobs with moral issues such as child abuse, sexually active priests and uncontrolled embezzlement is now an authority on science.

I wonder if the vaccine was made by the blood of dead clergy if this would change things. As long as the clergy were murdered a few weeks ago then pharmaceutical companies could use their bodies, and according to the Church, we would be morally far enough removed to object? If this was the only answer to the next virus, would the church encourage everyone to get the vaccine, because it's for the greater good?

How can you encourage people to participate in wide scale scale inoculation with so little scientific information, and questionable moral implications?

Every year scores of elderly die from the seasonal flu. Although not as contagious, will they use aborted stem cells for all of the new flu shots? Will this at sometime become morally questionable? If not now, why then?

We are instructed to have some sort of objection to the morally wrong ethics involved in making the vaccine, to encourage people to do the right thing. Why? In reality the church does the wrong thing on a consistent basis when it benefits itself, and this is just another example. We have unparalleled public scandals and the church is consistently silent.

This silence is a reflection of the spiritual wasteland we have been living in for the past several decades.

People who must take the vaccine are forced with little solutions, because we have taken the moral low road. A road paved by a corrupted Church hierarchy.

We must look into the information and make a decision for ourselves. Healthcare workers and those exposed to the virus obviously may choose to take the vaccine, because they have no choices. But should everyone?

I heard Marc Siegel, MD a FOX News contributor say all healthcare workers should get the vaccine so they don’t get the virus and spread it to others. As I mentioned above, the vaccine does not keep you from getting the virus. So you could still get it and still spread it. It is designed to reduce the seriousness of the virus. So here is a prominent doctor giving out bad information. 1

For the rest of us we need to carefully look at all the factors involved and make a decision based on our souls first, not just our bodies. The continuing witness of the church to put God second leaves all of us in a spiritual wasteland. Our churches are empty and our teachers are devoid of common spiritual sense. My church looks like we worship hand sanitizer. We ourselves, must turn back to God and put Him first in our life as divine teacher, father and healer. Loving one another cannot be done in a vacuum and alone, it takes sacrifice. The sacrifice of ourselves, the sacrifice of others, the Sacrifice of the Mass. These are pleasing sacrifices to God, not the blood of the unborn.

Reference

1. https://www.chop.edu/centers-programs/vaccine-education-center/video/why-will-we-still-need-wear-masks-and-social-distance-after-covid-19-vaccine-becomes-available