Your obsession with the alleged influence of "QAnon" is itself based on conspiracy theory. Most Trump voters had never even heard of it before the Left began using it to deflect from the public's growing fear of and intimidation by non-stop nihilistic violence in the name of "social justice" that continues unabated. The tens of millions of us who voted for Trump did so not because we liked him personally, but because the alternative -- a cognitively impaired, woke "Catholic" who plagiarized his way through life, spared no effort to destroy the good name of good men like Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas, and inexplicably made millions for himself and his family on a government salary -- was unthinkable. We also recognized (some of us quite grudgingly) that Trump's policies improved the educational and economic well-being of more people in this country, particularly those who were most vulnerable, than any other President in living memory. Indeed, had those policies not created the burgeoning economy that benefited Americans at every level of society (most importantly, the poor and the underserved), we would never have been able to see our way through to the other side of a pandemic in less than a year since its infliction on us from without. Please concentrate on the real threats to this country, like the increasing empowerment -- in media, academia, and God help us, churches (including Catholic parishes) -- of Antifa and the BurningLootingMobs whose avowed Marxism continues to be lauded and applauded by those who would much rather you focus on a feckless fringe group than on government-institutionalized leftism. Beware of false equivalencies, or your otherwise commendable website simply won't be taken seriously.
Thank you for your comments about the vaccine concern as it relates to our Bishops. Sadly our San Diego diocese is led by a Mc Carrick Bishop. His actions speak so loudly we can't hear his words. He shows deep concern for the environment and loves being in front of the camera on immigration issues but silent (or actively lobbying to "tone down" the abortion issue as it relates to other social teaching) while ignoring that neither of those issues matter if a child is not allowed to live in the first place. So yes - I do not look to my Bishop or this Pope on the vaccine issue. I appreciate your reporting though and thankfully I see all of Colorado's Bishops are joined in one voice giving guidance to their flocks so I look to these faithful leaders in forming an opinion. I am sure I am not the only faithful Catholic who is struggling and "distrustful" of the conference and my own bishop.
Regarding distrust of bishops, you write that some "believe bishops decline to engage with Catholic politicians on abortion, or seem to downplay the gravity of the practice in favor of finding “common ground,” or have discouraged prayer outside of abortion clinics, or make false equivalencies between abortion and other moral issues." These are not issues of belief. They are facts to which you admit later in your article. Cardinals Cupich and Tobin and Gregory, Bishop McElroy, and others have done these things. Many other bishops hide in the shadows, coming out to make statements about racism or gun control or immigration but cannot bring themselves to comment on gay "marriage" or transgender ideology or threats to conscience. We have bishops, like Bishop Spalding in Nashville, who will not deal with openly gay priests who promote dissent from the Magisterium. On the other hand, faithful and orthodox priests who have the temerity to step into the leadership vacuum are punished and marginalized. All this on top of malfeasance for decades with homosexual predators, especially Mr. McCarrick and Rembert Weakland. It is simply not enough to say we are all sinners and turn a blind eye towards these unfaithful shepherds. The Church is indeed reaping the whirlwind sown by these unworthy successors to Our Lord and The Apostles: decades of poor catechesis, sexual scandal, public embarrassment, declining Mass attendance, parish closings, and consolidations, scandalous behavior of "Catholic" politicians without correction, clandestine support to organizations opposing Church teaching, and many more maladies. Is it any wonder that faithful Catholic mistrust them?
Hi JD: great reflections. I am thinking about a line above: “At least one effect of all that? Catholics who don’t trust their bishops’ guidance on vaccines.”
I think most Catholics just don’t listen to their bishops, period. They’ve been wrong on local administrative stuff for so long (why’d they move my priest? Why did he let fr. give a bad homily? Why are they always asking for money? Why did they allow pedophiles to run rampant for so long, etc.) that when it comes to “directing” the faithful on how to act, we just shrug.
In the place of that authority (referenced above) comes a bifurcated media, separating viewers as per corporately-manufactured consent guidelines designed to award market share among established outlets according to ideological bent. Tell me where you get your news and I’ll tell you who is your magisterium. This, to me this is the real problem and the sooner bishops start addressing the salvific need of their flock, the sooner the flock will be led. Until then, no matter what my bishop says about arcane cell lines from the 70s, about how my gay neighbors aren’t really married or that joe Biden—a man I don’t know and who will likely never directly affect me—isn’t really catholic, I will likely ignore him. I say this if I am trad, progressive, faithful or not—the bishops just have no credibility.
One issue that has been difficult with the Bishops and recent statements is the lack of Pastoral concern for their faithful. Look at the unnecessarily complicated statement on the J&J vaccine (whereas the CDF document and previous letters from the Pontifical Academy for Life make no such distinction). The statement is so ambiguous that faithful Catholics who want to follow Church teaching are left to try to figure out if they should leave their vaccine clinic after waiting months to be scheduled if they are offered the J&J vaccine over the moderna/Pfizer. I know this is nuanced, but pastorally, they should answer the very clear question, which is “if I’m offered Johnson and Johnson now at my vaccine appointment, should I leave and wait several months until I can choose?” Otherwise, this is all moot because the faithful really do not have a choice.
I think you misunderstand the reason for opposition to the vaccine. As it has been so ably expressed by Dr. Stacy Trasancos, the bishops had an opportunity to leverage the industry to change its practice of using fetal cells in research or development at all. This is a monstrous practice that should be opposed, not by expressing distaste while one has recourse to the only vaccine option available, but by ensuring the industry never uses fetal cells ever again. If all Catholics, from the Pope downwards had said, "We will not comply with the vaccine until you stop this monstrous practice" it would have forced the industry to reckoning. Certainly if the laity were to wholesale boycott the vaccine until industry bowed under pressure, it would have been effective. At the very least, the bishops could have begun with a denunciation of the current practices of the pharmaceutical industry while giving tacit approval to the vaccine for the sake of the common good. Instead, the vaccine was given wholesale approval with only tacit mention (at most) of the duty of Catholics receiving these vaccines to speak out against them. That inversion can't be reversed by the individual opting out of the vaccine, but it can draw attention to what could have been done in response to the use of fetal cells in anything we consume. What I would expect from every ethicist mentioned in your report who has declared the vaccine morally licit is an equally fervent declaration that the industry is morally wrong to use fetal cells in research or development or ever at all. The PAL said, "such cooperation occurs in a context of moral coercion of the conscience of parents, who are forced to choose to act against their conscience or otherwise, to put the health of their children and of the population as a whole at risk. This is an unjust alternative choice, which must be eliminated as soon as possible." That was in 2005. When will "as soon as possible" ever occur? This pandemic was an opportunity to leverage that elimination to occur, and everyone but Dr. Trasancos preached acquiescence instead. If I refuse the vaccine, it is to renounce that continued acquiescence to the status quo of an industry that will only slide further down the slippery slope.
Is there any sort of organized effort underway for writing to health officials and vaccine companies to voice concern over the use of HEK 293? Asking as someone who is in the course of vaccination but doesn't want to drop the ball on the other half of the directive.
Your obsession with the alleged influence of "QAnon" is itself based on conspiracy theory. Most Trump voters had never even heard of it before the Left began using it to deflect from the public's growing fear of and intimidation by non-stop nihilistic violence in the name of "social justice" that continues unabated. The tens of millions of us who voted for Trump did so not because we liked him personally, but because the alternative -- a cognitively impaired, woke "Catholic" who plagiarized his way through life, spared no effort to destroy the good name of good men like Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas, and inexplicably made millions for himself and his family on a government salary -- was unthinkable. We also recognized (some of us quite grudgingly) that Trump's policies improved the educational and economic well-being of more people in this country, particularly those who were most vulnerable, than any other President in living memory. Indeed, had those policies not created the burgeoning economy that benefited Americans at every level of society (most importantly, the poor and the underserved), we would never have been able to see our way through to the other side of a pandemic in less than a year since its infliction on us from without. Please concentrate on the real threats to this country, like the increasing empowerment -- in media, academia, and God help us, churches (including Catholic parishes) -- of Antifa and the BurningLootingMobs whose avowed Marxism continues to be lauded and applauded by those who would much rather you focus on a feckless fringe group than on government-institutionalized leftism. Beware of false equivalencies, or your otherwise commendable website simply won't be taken seriously.
Thank you for your comments about the vaccine concern as it relates to our Bishops. Sadly our San Diego diocese is led by a Mc Carrick Bishop. His actions speak so loudly we can't hear his words. He shows deep concern for the environment and loves being in front of the camera on immigration issues but silent (or actively lobbying to "tone down" the abortion issue as it relates to other social teaching) while ignoring that neither of those issues matter if a child is not allowed to live in the first place. So yes - I do not look to my Bishop or this Pope on the vaccine issue. I appreciate your reporting though and thankfully I see all of Colorado's Bishops are joined in one voice giving guidance to their flocks so I look to these faithful leaders in forming an opinion. I am sure I am not the only faithful Catholic who is struggling and "distrustful" of the conference and my own bishop.
Regarding distrust of bishops, you write that some "believe bishops decline to engage with Catholic politicians on abortion, or seem to downplay the gravity of the practice in favor of finding “common ground,” or have discouraged prayer outside of abortion clinics, or make false equivalencies between abortion and other moral issues." These are not issues of belief. They are facts to which you admit later in your article. Cardinals Cupich and Tobin and Gregory, Bishop McElroy, and others have done these things. Many other bishops hide in the shadows, coming out to make statements about racism or gun control or immigration but cannot bring themselves to comment on gay "marriage" or transgender ideology or threats to conscience. We have bishops, like Bishop Spalding in Nashville, who will not deal with openly gay priests who promote dissent from the Magisterium. On the other hand, faithful and orthodox priests who have the temerity to step into the leadership vacuum are punished and marginalized. All this on top of malfeasance for decades with homosexual predators, especially Mr. McCarrick and Rembert Weakland. It is simply not enough to say we are all sinners and turn a blind eye towards these unfaithful shepherds. The Church is indeed reaping the whirlwind sown by these unworthy successors to Our Lord and The Apostles: decades of poor catechesis, sexual scandal, public embarrassment, declining Mass attendance, parish closings, and consolidations, scandalous behavior of "Catholic" politicians without correction, clandestine support to organizations opposing Church teaching, and many more maladies. Is it any wonder that faithful Catholic mistrust them?
Hi JD: great reflections. I am thinking about a line above: “At least one effect of all that? Catholics who don’t trust their bishops’ guidance on vaccines.”
I think most Catholics just don’t listen to their bishops, period. They’ve been wrong on local administrative stuff for so long (why’d they move my priest? Why did he let fr. give a bad homily? Why are they always asking for money? Why did they allow pedophiles to run rampant for so long, etc.) that when it comes to “directing” the faithful on how to act, we just shrug.
In the place of that authority (referenced above) comes a bifurcated media, separating viewers as per corporately-manufactured consent guidelines designed to award market share among established outlets according to ideological bent. Tell me where you get your news and I’ll tell you who is your magisterium. This, to me this is the real problem and the sooner bishops start addressing the salvific need of their flock, the sooner the flock will be led. Until then, no matter what my bishop says about arcane cell lines from the 70s, about how my gay neighbors aren’t really married or that joe Biden—a man I don’t know and who will likely never directly affect me—isn’t really catholic, I will likely ignore him. I say this if I am trad, progressive, faithful or not—the bishops just have no credibility.
One issue that has been difficult with the Bishops and recent statements is the lack of Pastoral concern for their faithful. Look at the unnecessarily complicated statement on the J&J vaccine (whereas the CDF document and previous letters from the Pontifical Academy for Life make no such distinction). The statement is so ambiguous that faithful Catholics who want to follow Church teaching are left to try to figure out if they should leave their vaccine clinic after waiting months to be scheduled if they are offered the J&J vaccine over the moderna/Pfizer. I know this is nuanced, but pastorally, they should answer the very clear question, which is “if I’m offered Johnson and Johnson now at my vaccine appointment, should I leave and wait several months until I can choose?” Otherwise, this is all moot because the faithful really do not have a choice.
I think you misunderstand the reason for opposition to the vaccine. As it has been so ably expressed by Dr. Stacy Trasancos, the bishops had an opportunity to leverage the industry to change its practice of using fetal cells in research or development at all. This is a monstrous practice that should be opposed, not by expressing distaste while one has recourse to the only vaccine option available, but by ensuring the industry never uses fetal cells ever again. If all Catholics, from the Pope downwards had said, "We will not comply with the vaccine until you stop this monstrous practice" it would have forced the industry to reckoning. Certainly if the laity were to wholesale boycott the vaccine until industry bowed under pressure, it would have been effective. At the very least, the bishops could have begun with a denunciation of the current practices of the pharmaceutical industry while giving tacit approval to the vaccine for the sake of the common good. Instead, the vaccine was given wholesale approval with only tacit mention (at most) of the duty of Catholics receiving these vaccines to speak out against them. That inversion can't be reversed by the individual opting out of the vaccine, but it can draw attention to what could have been done in response to the use of fetal cells in anything we consume. What I would expect from every ethicist mentioned in your report who has declared the vaccine morally licit is an equally fervent declaration that the industry is morally wrong to use fetal cells in research or development or ever at all. The PAL said, "such cooperation occurs in a context of moral coercion of the conscience of parents, who are forced to choose to act against their conscience or otherwise, to put the health of their children and of the population as a whole at risk. This is an unjust alternative choice, which must be eliminated as soon as possible." That was in 2005. When will "as soon as possible" ever occur? This pandemic was an opportunity to leverage that elimination to occur, and everyone but Dr. Trasancos preached acquiescence instead. If I refuse the vaccine, it is to renounce that continued acquiescence to the status quo of an industry that will only slide further down the slippery slope.
Is there any sort of organized effort underway for writing to health officials and vaccine companies to voice concern over the use of HEK 293? Asking as someone who is in the course of vaccination but doesn't want to drop the ball on the other half of the directive.