In an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle's "It's All Political" podcast, Cordileone said he learned from his primary health physician that he has "a good immune system". He confided his personal physician had told him, "it's probably not necessary for me to be vaccinated."

Cordileone, who has been outspoken against abortion and same-sex marriage, also incorrectly said that the coronavirus inoculations "are not really vaccines."

"We think of a vaccine as a shot that gives you immunity to a disease for life or at least for a very long time. And these actually don't give any immunity at all. They give protection," Cordileone said in the interview.

"I'm stepping into another controversy, I guess," Cordileone, aged 65, told the Chronicle.

"He's just wrong. That's my first point. The second is that this bad, ill-informed advice that he's putting out there could lead to people dying unnecessarily. We just have to counter that with the truth," said Dr Philip Landrigan, director of the Program for Global Public Health and the Common Good at Boston College.

The archbishop's comments echo conservative scepticism about the COVID-19 vaccines often amplified in right-wing media. It also sharply contradicts guidance from Pope Francis. Last summer, the pontiff urged people to get vaccinated and has expressed exasperation with anti-vaccine sceptics.

Cordileone told the Chronicle that he is "not an anti-vaxxer". In a statement provided to NCR, the archbishop said he previously advised people to consult their physicians when he joined California's other Catholic bishops in urging people to get vaccinated.

"It is also important to make that decision based on as complete and accurate scientific information as one can obtain," Cordileone said in the statement. "That is what I have done in my own case. It is always a very personal decision."

Sources

National Catholic Reporter

Religion News Service

CathNews

"Beginning on October 8, 2021, we will require that all clergy (bishops, priests, deacons) be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 or provide regular proof of a recent negative COVID-19 test result in order to perform their duties," the Archdiocese of Toronto's COVID-19 Vaccine Policy says.

The same requirement applies to volunteers, lectors, choir members, ushers, and "individuals performing similar functions" as well as employees at parishes, the chancery, and "satellite offices."

Read More

In an Aug 28 letter posted on his website, he said he would remain hospitalized as he begins what he described as "intensive rehabilitation."

The cardinal did not disclose his location.

His letter credited hospital staff who have "provided vigilant, superb and steadfast medical care" during his hospitalization.

"For these dedicated professionals, too, I offer heartfelt thanks, as well as to the priests who have ministered to me sacramentally. To those who have offered innumerable rosaries and prayers, lighted candles, and requested the offering of the Holy Mass, I extend my sincere gratitude, and I ask the Lord and his Mother to bless all of you," the letter said.

Read More

According to an Aug 21 update on the cardinal's health, Burke was able to speak by phone with his sister on Saturday morning and "expressed his deep gratitude for the many prayers offered on his behalf," the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe reported.

The shrine, located in La Crosse, Wisconsin, has been providing information about the 73-year-old cardinal's health after he was admitted to the hospital and put on a ventilator Aug. 14 due to complications from COVID-19.

Read More

A source who had spoken to someone close to the cardinal told CNA on Tuesday that his condition had deteriorated, and the next 48 hours were crucial.

Cardinal Burke's Twitter account had announced Aug 14 that he "has been admitted to the hospital with COVID-19 and is being assisted by a ventilator."

A report in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch said the cardinal, who lives in Rome and is prefect emeritus of the Apostolic Signatura, became ill while visiting Wisconsin, where he was raised.

Read More

The tweet reported: "Cardinal Burke has been admitted to the hospital with COVID-19 and is being assisted by a ventilator.

"Doctors are encouraged by his progress. "

His Eminence faithfully prayed the Rosary for those suffering from the virus. On this Vigil of the Assumption, let us now pray the Rosary for him."

Burke, 73, is a former Vatican official who has expressed scepticism about the need for distancing measures to contain the coronavirus. He has also opposed mandatory vaccination schemes.

The cardinal did not say if he had recently been feeling ill or not, nor did he say whether he had been vaccinated for COVID-19.

A report Saturday in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch said Burke, who lives in Rome, became ill while visiting Wisconsin, where he was raised.

In previous remarks, sermons and speeches, Burke has raised concerns about how governments have handled the virus and vaccines. The tone of his messages echoed far-right conspiracy theories.

Burke said the virus "has been used by certain forces, inimical to families and to the freedom of nations, to advance their evil agenda."

"These forces tell us that we are now the subjects of the so-called 'Great Reset,' the 'new normal'. This is dictated to us by their manipulation of citizens and nations through ignorance and fear," said the cardinal.

In a May 2020 talk he delivered at the virtual Rome Life Forum, Burke spoke out against governments imposing vaccination mandates.

Burke also warned that some groups in modern society would suggest that "a kind of microchip needs to be placed under the skin of every person, so that at any moment he or she can be controlled by the state regarding health and about other matters which we can only imagine."

In a March 2020 blog post, Cardinal Burke wrote, "In combating the evil of the coronavirus, our most effective weapon is, therefore, our relationship with Christ through prayer and penance, and devotions and sacred worship.

"We turn to Christ to deliver us from pestilence and from all harm, and He never fails to respond with pure and selfless love."

Sources

Catholic News Agency

National Catholic Reporter

The dead include an Italian parish priest who brought the cinema to his small town in the 1950s; a beloved New York pastor who ministered to teens and the homeless; and a nun in India who travelled home to bury her father after he died from COVID-19 only to contract the virus herself.

In some countries, most of those lost were older and lived in nursing or retirement homes where they didn't regularly engage in person-to-person pastoral work.

Other places, though, saw a bigger hit to active clergy, accelerating a decades-old decline in the ranks that Pope Francis in 2017 called a " hemorrhage."

Read More