By John Carpay:

A friend of mine, a priest I have known for 32 years, recently told me to stop complaining about vaccine passports and various lockdown measures (masks, anti-social distancing, etc.) because they exist for the common good and are intended to save lives. Referencing the encyclical Diuturnum Illud, my priestly friend says that disobeying the law is a sin, unless that law is “openly repugnant to the natural law or the divine law.”

In similar fashion, pastors have told me that people should simply obey lockdown measures because Romans 13:1 says, “Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God.” However, the verses which follow after Romans 13:1 describe an authority which is “a servant of God” that “brings punishment on the wrongdoer” and “holds no terror for those who do right,” so Romans 13:1 is no endorsement of blind, unthinking obedience to every law. 

A law must be an ordinance of reason for the common good. A law that deviates from reason is unjust, according to the Summa Theologiae, I-II Q93, article 3. The goal of preserving human life is legitimate. But this goal does not justify irrational laws that disregard known facts. Part of the common good is to promote the flourishing of human life and society. Our rights and freedoms are needed for a just, good, and healthy society, and ought not to be confiscated on the basis of irrational fear or unfounded speculation.

Is a law a just law simply because politicians declare that that law is for the common good? I suggest that in order for a law to be just, it must actually be for the common good, in truth and in substance.

Lockdown measures, and legal discrimination against unvaccinated Canadians, are based on six falsehoods:

(1) COVID is an unusually deadly killer like the Spanish Flu of 1918, that everyone should fear;

(2) There are no treatment options for COVID, other than lockdowns and vaccines;

(3) Lockdowns have saved lives;

(4) Lockdown harms are mere inconveniences, far outweighed by lockdown benefits;

(5) the new COVID vaccines are safe and effective; and

(6) The new COVID vaccines stop the spread of COVID.

The truth is quite different from this six-part, fear-filled narrative promoted daily by power-hungry politicians and government-funded media.

First, COVID is not the 1918 Spanish Flu or the bubonic plague of medieval times. COVID is a serious threat to elderly-and-sick people in nursing homes, but mostly harmless to children and to the vast majority of healthy adults. For Canadians under 70, COVID is less dangerous than driving in a car.

Second, there are peer-reviewed scientific studies suggesting that Ivermectin is an effective treatment for COVID. Ivermectin has been used to treat COVID in India, Japan, and other countries.

Third, governments have not provided actual evidence that lockdowns have saved lives. Repeated assertions constitute propaganda, not evidence.

Fourth, Simon Fraser University professor Douglas Allen, and other researchers around the world, have demonstrated that lockdowns have killed and harmed many more people than they have saved. 

Fifth, there is mounting evidence of people being harmed and killed by the new COVID vaccine. For young males, the risk of the vaccine causing the serious heart condition myocarditis is higher than the risk of harm from COVID. In the absence of any long-term safety testing, it is utterly irresponsible for public health authorities to claim these vaccines to be “safe.” As for the COVID shots being “effective,” this seems to be true for only six months.

Sixth, the vaccine manufacturers have themselves stated publicly that COVID vaccines do not stop the spread of COVID. All that the vaccine purportedly does is reduce the severity of sickness in individuals who receive it. We see COVID spreading in places with very high vaccination rates like Ireland, Israel, and Gibraltar.

Regarding these six points above, I would challenge priests and pastors (or anyone else) to tell me specifically where I am wrong, and to provide specific authorities that show me why and how I am wrong. Daily media fearmongering does not qualify as a credible authority.

Mandatory vaccination policies, and other lockdown measures in the past 21 months, are openly repugnant to the natural law and the divine law, because they are based on fallacies and falsehoods rather than on facts and truth. The Romans 13:1 general teaching to submit to authorities needs to be interpreted in light of the command to reject unjust laws: “we ought to obey God rather than man” (Acts 5:29).

John Carpay is president of the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms (jccf.ca), which is challenging vaccine passports in courts across Canada.