By Janet Smith, Crisis Magazine, Sept. 27, 2021
Janet E. Smith, Ph.D., is a retired professor of moral theology.
In her National Catholic Reporter article “Catholics seeking ‘religious’ exemptions from vaccines must follow true church teaching on conscience”, M. Therese Lysaught, a professor of bioethics and a corresponding member of the Pontifical Academy for Life, maintains that Catholics in good conscience MUST receive a COVID-19 vaccine. She provides a template for a “dialogue” with someone asking for an exemption. From the get go, she makes it clear that those who refuse to get vaccinated are egocentric, deficient in their understanding of what the healing ministry of Jesus requires, not committed to unity or the common good, without concern for the poor and vulnerable, and lacking in charity.
What a beginning! Lysaught doesn’t exactly exhibit the charitable practice of assuming the best motives on the part of one’s “dialogue” partner. Indeed, neither in the template nor in the essay written to accompany the document does Lysaught show the slightest interest in why Catholics or others might resist taking a COVID-19 vaccine. Clearly, they are just selfish dunderheads who don’t understand what is manifestly true for those in the know. In such a “dialogue” the dialogue partner could not get a word in edgewise. They have nothing to say of value. …
