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New Zealand’s Catholic bishops have been asked to help persuade the government to review the Covid vaccine mandate.
In their over 3000-word letter, a group identifying simply as “catholic men” tell the bishops not to “try to combine faith … with the making of distinctions between classes of people”.
They say “practical reason makes evident that vaccination is not, as a rule, a moral obligation and that therefore it must be voluntary”
Another concern is the “practical and spiritual harms” that have been caused by the Covid vaccine mandate, they say.
The bishops presently “have an opportunity to help lead the transition from segregation back to freedom, both in our churches and in wider society” by calling for a review, the men say.
They note they aren’t questioning the bishops’ pandemic management efforts last November. But they want them to reconsider their position as the group thinks the situation today is quite different from last November’s.
The spiritual harms resulting from the vaccine mandates include Catholics being “driven away from the Church”, the men tell the bishops.
In addition, “some Catholics, excluded from Mass, have abandoned the Church as their spiritual home”.
Other criticisms:
- Create coercion on the conscience and will of lay Catholics forcing choices between a conscientious objection to vaccines and careers, ability to visit loved ones, or freedom to worship.
- Have changed the Church from a place of refuge to a place of exclusion: for some socially isolated or ostracised by the vaccine pass system, the Church safe haven has additionally marginalised them.
- Have segregated Catholic parishes, with two classes based on a medical choice, actively fostering divisions between Catholics
- Have brought unhealthy psychology of fear and of judgment (particularly of the “other”) into our parishes
- Have been associated with spiritual abuses – accusations that unvaccinated Catholics are violating the commandment to love your neighbour.
- Have lost their job and now have no income and remain unable to work, go out, shop or use public facilities.
“We realise that ultimately public health decisions lie with the public health authorities, and not with you as Catholic bishops.
“But every reasonable person knows that the mandates must eventually be abandoned, and as respected leaders … you…could play a role in galvanising a move in this direction.
Although not a reply to the men’s letter, correspondence dated 17 February from Cardinal John Dew, to priests and lay pastoral leaders in the Archdiocese of Wellington indicates a different perspective.
The letter outlines the archbishop’s position on the mandate with Dew saying the archdiocese will go beyond the government’s guidelines in some areas, for example by not singing and requesting the priest and other ministers be masked.
Dew says it is important to relieve people’s anxiety by clearly having precautions in place.
He says it is vital to help people coming to Mass feel safe, even to the point of cancelling Masses for safety reasons.
Today in the NZ Herald, a top heart specialist is warning New Zealand is facing a “tsunami” of long Covid after the Omicron outbreak subsides
Cardiologist Professor Harvey White says the country is faced with a tidal wave of heart disease and strokes and myriad other debilitating symptoms.
White fears New Zealanders are too blasé about the risk of Omicron infection, which has been painted as mild for most people.
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