Vatican Requires Covid Vaccine
Again, something I would post about on Facebook but prefer to mention here -- I would appreciate comments being about this particular vaccine and the principle of medical freedom/bodily integrity:
This article about the Vatican giving consequences to employees not receiving the Covid vaccine prompts a few quick thoughts:
Vaccines are not magic. They have side effects and risks (and they are all different and target different kinds of health issues) -- you only have to read the inserts that come with them to know this.
Agreeing to a vaccine is a matter of being informed and of medical freedom. Up until recently, it was understood that one ought to have recourse to a "religious exemption" -- which I think is commonly interpreted to mean having a right to refuse (which could be and often is actually a scientific, medical assessment of risk/benefit). I think it's not a good name for it; it should be a "medical freedom exemption."
Not allowing medical freedom in the matter of something that is injected into one's body is a dangerous stance. Just because the substance in question seems inoffensive doesn't mean that every substance will always be inoffensive. Next time it could be something to cause sterility or a chip... remember, even today girls are given contraceptives (including implants) by health operatives without parental knowledge; they are even taken for abortions.
This particular vaccine is stated by its manufacturers to be experimental, and it's a human right not to be medically experimented on without one's consent.
The administrative body making decisions is usually the department of health, which is an agency run, remember, by bureaucrats, not scientists. In the case of an institution like the Vatican or a university or a hospital, it's just managers. Much of what drives vaccinations is a combination of checking off public health boxes and trying to avoid lawsuits.
The information they base their decision on comes from the manufacturer of the vaccine, who is indemnified (cannot be sued) for this product's malfunction (unlike other products they offer).
Bodily integrity is a human right. In Casti Connubii #70, Pope Pius XI writes: "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."