Popes & Vaccinations

[Geremia]

Someone uploaded:

These articles chronicle some of the efforts by popes to either support or mandate vaccination usage in the papal states in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
Other articles for reference:

• Pope Leo XII and the Vaccination Ban
• An Anti-Vaxx Pope?
• Vaccines for everyone, for the poor: examples from Pius VII and Pius IX

Here are the NMT English translations of them:

• Yves-Marie Bercé and Jean-Claude Otteni, "Pratique de La Vaccination Antivariolique Dans Les Provinces de l'État Pontifical Au 19ème Siècle (English)," Revue d'Histoire Ecclésiastique, n.d., 448–66
• Yves-Marie Bercé, "Le clergé et la diffusion de la vaccination (English)," Revue d'histoire de l'Église de France 69, no. 182 (1983): 87–106.

[tacf]

All of this may be true enough, but is there a flood of Catholics improperly catechized with this part of Church History and are subsequently making false moral judgements based on it? I have yet to meet a Catholic who said vaccines are per se sinful. Even those I've met who are across the board anti-vax always argue on the level of prudential judgement.

Far more useful right now would be a truthful analysis of the Covid vaccines, for they are why vaccines are being talked about.

Last I checked, all available Covid jabs are made with or tested on aborted babies. So murder supplies a sine qua non material or a sine qua non disposing efficient cause for the act of "getting vaxxed". How does one then make a cogent argument on the principle of double effect, which can only justify an act if the only objection to the act is evil elements in its multiple proximate final causes?

Let us still consider the final causes, used by so many for justification. They are (1) the preservation of bodily health, (2) the further robbery of parts from the murdered babies. (2) is so because all the companies publicly state they intend to continue their vaccine production as is, which by the design of the companies essentially includes such robbery.
As a brief explanation of the robbery, Pfizer, Moderna and J&J all still hold at least parts of the corpses of the murdered babes on their properties - and use them, if for nothing else to at least dip each batch of jabs in the highly manipulated blood of infants to confirm the jabs' conformance with the makers' intent ("confirmatory lab testing").*
https://lozierinstitute.org/update-covid-19-vaccine-candidates-and-abortion-derived-cell-lines/

Confirmatory Lab Tests on Product: tests to analyze quality, nucleic acid or protein sequence, protein conformation, antibody reactivity, etc. of final vaccine product.

And how far remote is a man from (2)? The companies have made public avowals to continue. And it is not as though they are taking surplus booty from the robbery to engage in evil outside their business purpose, like so many other companies do who support evil causes politically. So take your pick from among the assisting causes of robbery given by St Thomas:
Summa Theologica, Second Part of the Second Part, Q 62, Article 7:

a person is bound to restitution not only on account of someone else's property which he has taken, but also on account of the injurious taking. Hence whoever is cause of an unjust taking is bound to restitution. This happens in two ways, directly and indirectly. Directly, when a man induces another to take, and this in three ways. First, on the part of the taking, by moving a man to take, either by express command, counsel, or consent, or by praising a man for his courage in thieving. Secondly, on the part of the taker, by giving him shelter or any other kind of assistance. Thirdly, on the part of the thing taken, by taking part in the theft or robbery, as a fellow evil-doer. Indirectly, when a man does not prevent another from evil-doing (provided he be able and bound to prevent him), either by omitting the command or counsel which would hinder him from thieving or robbing, or by omitting to do what would have hindered him, or by sheltering him after the deed. All these are expressed as follows:
"By command, by counsel, by consent, by flattery, by receiving, by participation, by silence, by not preventing, by not denouncing."
It must be observed, however, that in five of these cases the cooperator is always bound to restitution. First, in the case of command: because he that commands is the chief mover, wherefore he is bound to restitution principally. Secondly, in the case of consent; namely of one without whose consent the robbery cannot take place. Thirdly, in the case of receiving; when, to wit, a man is a receiver of thieves, and gives them assistance. Fourthly, in the case of participation; when a man takes part in the theft and in the booty. Fifthly, he who does not prevent the theft, whereas he is bound to do so; for instance, persons in authority who are bound to safeguard justice on earth, are bound to restitution, if by their neglect thieves prosper, because their salary is given to them in payment of their preserving justice here below.
In the other cases mentioned above, a man is not always bound to restitution: because counsel and flattery are not always the efficacious cause of robbery. Hence the counsellor or flatterer is bound to restitution, only when it may be judged with probability that the unjust taking resulted from such causes.

So is (1) enough to justify (2)? Tobias says no.
Tobias thought it right to risk his own life and to an extent those of his wife and his son to bury the dead bodies held "legally" by the state.
Tobias Chapter 1:

[21] And when king Sennacherib was come back, fleeing from Judea by reason of the slaughter that God had made about him for his blasphemy, and being angry slew many of the children of Israel, Tobias buried their bodies. [22] But when it was told the king, he commanded him to be slain, and took away all his substance. [23] But Tobias fleeing naked away with his son and with his wife, lay concealed, for many loved him. [24] But after forty-five days, the king was killed by his own sons. [25] And Tobias returned to his house, and all his substance was restored to him.

And Tobias Chapter 2:

[1] But after this, when there was a festival of the Lord, and a good dinner was prepared in Tobias's house, [2] He said to his son: Go, and bring some of our tribe that fear God, to feast with us. [3] And when he had gone, returning he told him, that one of the children of Israel lay slain in the street. And he forthwith leaped up from his place at the table, and left his dinner, and came fasting to the body: [4] And taking it up carried it privately to his house, that after the sun was down, he might bury him cautiously. [5] And when he had hid the body, he ate bread with mourning and fear,
[6] Remembering the word which the Lord spoke by Amos the prophet: Your festival days shall be turned into lamentation and mourning. [7] So when the sun was down, he went and buried him. [8] Now all his neighbours blamed him, saying: Once already commandment was given for thee to be slain because of this matter, and thou didst scarce escape the sentence of death, and dost thou again bury the dead? [9] But Tobias fearing God more than the king, carried off the bodies of them that were slain, and hid them in his house, and at midnight buried them.

Now Pfizer, Moderna and J&J hold the dead bodies "legally", meaning they are backed by the power of the state. And yet the discussion is now if one should get vaxxed, not how to give these innocents their due burial! Due as in they have a right to it! Due as in Tobias thought it worthwhile risking his own life to give them their due!

And with respect to the RNA vaccines, last I checked exposure to RNA vaccines always carry a risk of per accidens DNA alteration. And DNA alteration of this type risks mutilation. And reproductive cells are not spared this risk. And a mutilation permanently indisposing the matter of man for not only his soul but also all generations subsequent to him is a mutilation greater than the mutilation Bruce Jenner underwent, for his at least can not be passed to his children.

That RNA carries a risk of per accidens DNA alteration:
Reverse-transcribed SARS-CoV-2 RNA can integrate into the genome of cultured human cells and can be expressed in patient-derived tissues. Liguo Zhang, Alexsia Richards, M. Inmaculada Barrasa, Stephen H. Hughes, Richard A. Young, Rudolf Jaenisch. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences May 2021, 118 (21) e2105968118; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2105968118

An unresolved issue of SARS-CoV-2 disease is that patients often remain positive for viral RNA as detected by PCR many weeks after the initial infection in the absence of evidence for viral replication. We show here that SARS-CoV-2 RNA can be reverse-transcribed and integrated into the genome of the infected cell and be expressed as chimeric transcripts fusing viral with cellular sequences. Importantly, such chimeric transcripts are detected in patient-derived tissues. Our data suggest that, in some patient tissues, the majority of all viral transcripts are derived from integrated sequences. Our data provide an insight into the consequence of SARS-CoV-2 infections that may help to explain why patients can continue to produce viral RNA after recovery.

The objection is that the reference is studying the virus, not the part of the virus placed in the jab after manipulation. My reply is that I only have to show it is possible. What is needed is a reverse transcriptase. But this our cells have before the introduction of any RNA, and its activation is the postulated mechanism for how viral SARS-CoV-2 RNA is integrated:
Zhang L, Richards A, Khalil A, Wogram E, Ma H, Young RA, Jaenisch R. SARS-CoV-2 RNA reverse-transcribed and integrated into the human genome. bioRxiv [Preprint]. 2020 Dec 13:2020.12.12.422516. doi: 10.1101/2020.12.12.422516. PMID: 33330870; PMCID: PMC7743078.

To experimentally corroborate the possibility of viral retro-integration, we describe evidence that SARS-CoV-2 RNAs can be reverse transcribed in human cells by reverse transcriptase (RT) from LINE-1 elements or by HIV-1 RT, and that these DNA sequences can be integrated into the cell genome and subsequently be transcribed. Human endogenous LINE-1 expression was induced upon SARS-CoV-2 infection or by cytokine exposure in cultured cells, suggesting a molecular mechanism for SARS-CoV-2 retro-integration in patients. This novel feature of SARS-CoV-2 infection may explain why patients can continue to produce viral RNA after recovery and suggests a new aspect of RNA virus replication.

That per accidens DNA alteration risks mutilation. Alteration of the DNA in this case is per accidens (not intended), and occurs at random locations. This means it risks incorporation in a manner which has deleterious effects on the cells, which means sacrificing them for the sake of the whole. But sacrificing a part for the whole is mutilation.
Moral principle regarding mutilation:
Moral and Pastoral Theology, Henry Davis SJ, page 156:

"The body may not be mutilated unless mutilation is the only available means of saving the rest of the body, i.e., its life or health. Since man may not take away his life, so neither may he mutilate his body, for the members of his body are not his to dispose of, but are to be used in their integrity to help him to fulfill the divine purpose and achieve his own perfection and last end. But since life is better than a member of the body, the latter may be sacrificed, if necessary, to save the whole body."

And with respect to mandates of acts which risk mutilation:
Pius XI's encyclical on Christian Marriage Casti Connubii:

Public magistrates have no direct power over the bodies of their subjects; therefore, where no crime has taken place and there is no cause present for grave punishment, they can never directly harm, or tamper with the integrity of the body, either for the reasons of eugenics or for any other reason. St. Thomas teaches this when inquiring whether human judges for the sake of preventing future evils can inflict punishment, he admits that the power indeed exists as regards certain other forms of evil, but justly and properly denies it as regards the maiming of the body. "No one who is guiltless may be punished by a human tribunal either by flogging to death, or mutilation, or by beating."

*Strictly speaking, it is not blood but flesh - after all, it is most commonly human embryonic kidney cells. And strictly speaking, more precise than "dipped in" would be "instilled in", or even more precisely "be used to artificially infect". Not that these distinctions matter.

[Geremia]

the principle of double effect, which can only justify an act if the only objection to the act is evil elements in its multiple proximate final causes?

Are you saying the principle of double effect only applies when the evil to be tolerated is proximate?

[tacf]

I had in my mind just that the bad effect must not be the means by which one achieves the good effect. Good ends do not justify evil means. It appears to me now my original statement was an incorrect way of saying this - the good effect may be a proximate or remote final cause, and the evil effect may be a proximate or remote final cause, but the evil effect can not be a more proximate final cause by which the good effect is then caused.