John Carpay:
Have Canada’s Catholic bishops seriously evaluated lockdowns and vaccine passports through the lens of the Catechism of the Catholic Church? The Catechism teaches that a law is just only to the extent that it accords with right reason, and otherwise it “has not so much the nature of law as of a kind of violence” (1902).
Are lockdowns and vaccine passports in accord with right reason? All of the laws in the past 23 months have been based on the false predictions of Neil Ferguson of Imperial College London, who claimed in March of 2020 that COVID would be like the Spanish Flu of 1918, which killed tens of millions of people (when world population was barely a fourth of what it is today). Fast-forward to February 2022, and we know beyond any doubt that COVID is very much closer to an annual flu than to the Spanish Flu. Further, lockdowns disregard the fact that no society in human history has ever succeeded in stopping a virus from spreading by locking up and harming the healthy population.
The Catechism teaches that state authority exists to promote the common good (1903), which is the sum total of social conditions which allow people, either as groups or as individuals, to reach their fulfillment more fully and more easily (1906).
Lockdowns and vaccine passports create social conditions which obviously prevent people from reaching their fulfillment. Since March of 2020, churches have been restricted and even closed entirely; socializing with friends and family has been illegal; adults and even teenagers have been prevented from going to the gym and from participating in sports; vulnerable and marginalized Canadians have been pushed into isolation, loneliness, and despair, contributing to alcoholism, drug overdoses and suicides.
The Catechism teaches that public authorities must respect the fundamental and inalienable rights of the human person, and facilitate the exercise of the natural freedoms indispensable for the development of the human vocation (1907). Millions of Canadians have been threatened with job loss or expulsion from university unless they get two COVID shots (soon to be three, then four, then five, and so on). Millions have become second-class citizens in their own country. Politicians would argue that vaccine coercion is needed to protect people and save lives. But the vaccine manufacturers have themselves stated publicly that their product does not prevent people from catching COVID or from spreading it; the only claim is reduced severity of illness. High vaccination rates in Israel, Gibraltar, Ireland, Canada, and other jurisdictions are obviously not stopping the spread of Omicron, so there is no medical or scientific basis for discriminating against the vaccine-free. How does vaccine coercion line up with respect for the fundamental and inalienable rights of the human person?
The Catechism extols the rule of law, meaning that the law is sovereign and not the arbitrary will of men; each power should be balanced by other powers and by other spheres of responsibility which keep it within proper bounds (1904). In Canada in 2020, Parliament was effectively replaced by press conferences held at the Prime Minister’s cottage. Practically speaking, every province is now governed for the most part by an unelected, unaccountable medical doctor, who suddenly decrees new laws on a monthly (and sometimes weekly) basis, without scrutiny by the public or by elected representatives. The powers exercised by politically appointed doctors are not balanced by other powers. Lockdowns and vaccine passports are an affront to the rule of law.
The Catechism teaches that the state should guarantee individual freedom and private property, so that those who work and produce can enjoy the fruits of their labours and thus feel encouraged to work efficiently and honestly (2431). Unemployment almost always wounds its victim’s dignity and threatens the equilibrium of his life. Besides the harm done to him personally, it entails many risks for his family (2436). Lockdowns and vaccine passports violate individual freedom and thrust Canadians into unemployment.
The flagrant violations of our Charter freedoms to move, travel, assemble, associate and worship, along with the more recent violation of our Charter right to bodily autonomy, have been condoned (and even supported enthusiastically) by almost all Catholic bishops during the past 22 months. For example, Vancouver Archbishop Miller has directed that any deacon not injected with two COVID shots may not exercise any diaconal ministry. Lockdowns and vaccine passports are irrational, unscientific, disproportionate, contrary to the common good, and undermine the rule of law. They urgently deserve the bishops’ condemnation.
Lawyer John Carpay practices constitutional law, including defending religious freedom.
