The Letter:


________________________
[Date]
To Whom It May Concern,
___________________________________________________ is a baptized Catholic seeking a religious exemption from an immunization requirement. This letter explains how the Catholic Church’s teachings may lead individual Catholics, including __________________________________________________, to decline certain vaccines.
The Roman Catholic Church teaches that a person may be required to refuse a medical intervention, including a vaccination, if his or her informed conscience comes to this sure judgment. While the Catholic Church does not prohibit the use of any vaccine, and generally encourages the use of safe and effective vaccines as a way of safeguarding personal and public health, the following authoritative Church teachings demonstrate the principled religious basis on which a Catholic may determine that he or she ought to refuse certain vaccines:
1
• Vaccination is not morally obligatory in principle and so must be voluntary.
• There is a general moral duty to refuse the use of medical products, including certain vaccines, that are produced using human cells lines derived from direct abortions. It is permissible to use such vaccines only
2
• A person’s informed judgments about the proportionality of medical interventions are to be respected
under certain case-specific conditions, based on a judgment of conscience.
3
• A person is morally required to obey his or her sure conscience, even if it errs.
unless they contradict authoritative Catholic moral teachings.
A Catholic may judge it wrong to receive certain vaccines for a variety of reasons consistent with these teachings, and there is no authoritative Church teaching universally obliging Catholics to receive any vaccine. An individual Catholic may invoke Church teaching to refuse a vaccine developed or produced using abortion-derived cell lines. More generally, a Catholic might refuse a vaccine based on the Church’s teachings concerning therapeutic proportionality. Therapeutic proportionality is an assessment of whether the benefits of a medical intervention outweigh the undesirable side-effects and burdens considering the integral good of the person, including spiritual,
5
At the core of the Church’s teaching are the first and last points listed above: vaccination is not a universal obligation, and a person must obey the judgment of his or her own informed and certain conscience. In fact, the Catechism of the Catholic Church instructs that following one’s conscience is following Christ Himself:
In all he says and does, man is obliged to follow faithfully what he knows to be just and right. It is by the judgment of his conscience that man perceives and recognizes the prescriptions of the divine law: “Conscience is a law of the mind; yet [Christians] would not grant that it is nothing more; . . . [Conscience] is a messenger of him, who,
psychological, and bodily goods.
entail spiritual and moral dimensions and are not reducible to public health. The judgment of therapeutic proportionality must be made by the person who is the potential recipient of the intervention in the concrete circuмstances,6 not by public health authorities or by other individuals who might judge differently in their own situations.
It can also extend to the good of others and the common good, which likewise
4

both in nature and in grace, speaks to us behind a veil, and teaches and rules us by his representatives. Conscience is the aboriginal Vicar of Christ.”7
Therefore, if a Catholic comes to an informed and sure judgment in conscience that he or she should not receive a vaccine, then the Catholic Church requires that the person follow this certain judgment of conscience and refuse the vaccine. The Catechism is clear: “Man has the right to act in conscience and in freedom so as personally to make moral decisions. ‘He must not be forced to act contrary to his conscience. Nor must he be prevented from acting according to his conscience, especially in religious matters.’”8
Sincerely,

1 Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), “Note on the Morality of Using Some Anti-COVID-19 Vaccines,” December 17, 2020, n. 5: “At the same time, practical reason makes evident that vaccination is not, as a rule, a moral obligation and that, therefore, it must be voluntary.”
2 See Pontifical Academy for Life, “Moral Reflections on Vaccines Prepared from Cells Derived from Aborted Human Foetuses,” June 9, 2005; Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Instruction Dignitas personae, 2008, nn. 34-35; Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, “Note on the Morality of Using Some Anti-COVID-19 Vaccines,” nn. 1-3. When there is a sufficiently serious reason to use the product and there is no reasonable alternative available, the Catholic Church teaches that it may be permissible to use the immorally sourced product under protest. In any case, whether the product is used or not, the Catholic Church teaches that all must make their disagreement known and request the development of equal or better products using biological material that does not come from abortions.
3 See United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services, 6th ed. (Washington, DC: USCCB Publishing, 2018), n. 28. Hereafter “ERDs.”
4 “A human being must always obey the certain judgment of his conscience. If he were deliberately to act against it, he would condemn himself. Yet it can happen that moral conscience remains in ignorance and makes erroneous judgments about acts to be performed or already committed.” Catechism of the Catholic Church (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1993), www.vatican.va, n. 1790. Hereafter “CCC.”
5 See ERDs, nn. 32-33; nn. 56-57; Part Three, Introduction, para. 2; Part Five, Introduction, para. 3.
6 See ERDs, nn. 56-57. Both of these directives state that the proportionality of medical interventions is established “in the patient’s judgment.”
7 CCC, n. 1777, citing John Henry Cardinal Newman, "Letter to the Duke of Norfolk," V, in Certain Difficulties felt by Anglicans in Catholic Teaching II (London: Longmans Green, 1885), 248.
8 CCC, n. 1782, citing Second Vatican Council, Dignitatis humanae, December 7, 1965, n. 3.
NOTES

One is better off getting a letter from a conservative protestant pastor.

Compare the above letter (used by, but not FROM, mind you!) to this one from the local indult diocesan priest:

1) It says it comes from him as my pastor (ie., it’s not from me and my “mistaken conscience,” but from an authority of the Catholic Church), even though he isn’t my pastor; he has cojones;

2) It deliberately avoids that which the SSPX-recommended letter carefully stipulates: No mention of abortion tainted vaccines being acceptable in certain circuмstances.

Let me ask you all something:

Which is more helpful?  A letter coming not from the Church, and which makes your resistance mistaken and meaningless (on the moral objection), or the second one?

I don’t even think I could use the one circulating in the SSPX anyway, since it deliberately assents to a point which I consider debatable at best, and which is contradicted not only by Vigano and the best of the conciliarists, but by many SSPX priests themselves.

August 11, 2021
To Whom It May Concern:
Holy Trinity Parish 749 6th Avenue South South St. Paul, MN 55075
As Pastor I can attest that Sean Johnson has a deeply held religious conviction against receiving any of the currently available Covid vaccinations. I can further attest that this religious conviction is in full accord with the teachings of the Catholic Church, most especially in light of the connections of these Covid vaccines, directly or indirectly, to abortion and for other religious reasons as well.
Furthermore, in the realm of medical procedures and vaccinations, the Catholic Church affirms that each individual has a right to make personal decisions in these matters, weighing out whatever risks are involved related to any good achieved.
Finally, the Catholic Church teaches that individual conscience is supreme in these matters and must be followed. In light of this, I pray that you will grant Sean Johnson a religious exemption from any Covid vaccine that may be mandated.
If I may be of further assistance, please contact me at jechert@holytrinityssp.org Thank you.
Rev. John Paul Echert Pastor, Holy Trinity Parish 651 455 1302
 

Wow.  Where does one START with this note?

Yup

Wow.  What spinelessness....  

Compared to the diocesan priest, who announced to his 700 person TLM parish from the pulpit last Sunday that he’ll give this exemption letter to any Catholic requesting it (and his secretary simply asks for your name and email, and five minutes later you have the letter).
Not sure it would convince any employers outside the Minneapolis/St. Paul area though.

• Vaccination is not morally obligatory in principle and so must be voluntary.
• A person’s informed judgments about the proportionality of medical interventions are to be respected under certain case-specific conditions, based on a judgment of conscience.

At the core of the Church’s teaching are the first and last points listed above: vaccination is not a universal obligation, and a person must obey the judgment of his or her own informed and certain conscience.

I believe all arguments of this nature are an enormous and catastrophic error. The reason you need to give is: I will be sinning by receiving this drug because ... not You people are sinning in trying to force me to take this drug. The people you are addressing the exemption letter to don't give one tiny flash in hell whether you think they are doing anything wrong.
.
Moreover, the argument that I get to choose what goes into my body, not you, is just as bad, if not worse. Or the slightly less disastrous version: I would be violating my conscience if I put something into my body that I sincerely think, for reasons you would disagree with, that I should not put into my body. The obvious response to that is, "Well, you can choose whether you inject yourself or not, but that's not a conscientious objection. You can easily choose to inject yourself without violating your code of belief." So if you make that argument, I think you have painted yourself into a corner.
.
I am concerned and frustrated at seeing these types of arguments made in many of the exemption letters I am seeing. I have no idea whether they will work or not, but I would never make such a statement in an exemption letter. The only statement that I think will work is to claim you will go to some place of supernatural punishment after death, or offend some supernatural entity, by receiving the drug.

Well, the CMRI is far more consistent on this issue.  
[color=var(--ytd-video-primary-info-renderer-title-color, var(--yt-spec-text-primary))]Father Gabriel Lavery's testimony for HB 248 "Vaccine Choice and Anti-Discrimination Act"[/color]