february 2006 $4.45 “Instaurare omnia in Christo” A Journal of Roman Catholic Tradition the vaccination question What's right? What's wrong? What to do. Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre & The Society of Saint Pius X Open Letter to Confused Catholics Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre A popular study of the crisis in the Church written for all to understand. Covers the Mass, Sacraments, Priesthood, the New Catechisms, Ecumenism, etc., and demonstrates the new spirit in the Church which has caused doubt and confusion among the faithful. Has served as a beacon for thousands; certain to become a classic. 163pp, softcover, STK# 5045Q $11.95 I Accuse the Council! ­Against the Heresies They Have Uncrowned Him A major player at Vatican II, Archbishop Lefebvre made these 12 official statements at the Council exposing the danger of its documents. He warned that the faithful would become confused, doubting the necessity of the Church, the sacraments, the conversion of non-Catholics, and the necessity of authority. Covers collegiality, the priesthood, marriage, religious liberty, and ecumenism. Originally given as conferences to seminarians in Ecône, Archbishop Lefebvre exposes liberalism and modern philosophical errors in the Church and society from the viewpoint of 11 encyclicals by 6 popes of the last 150 years. Forms a commentary on some of the most important encyclicals of the last 2 centuries. In the simple style of his other popular work, Open Letter to Confused Catholics. The Summa of Archbishop Lefebvre. Covers the origins of liberalism, the subversion of orthodoxy by Vatican II, the decline of the missionary spirit by dialogue, the bad fruits of post-Conciliar reforms, and his vision of restoration. Includes Card. Ottaviani’s On the Relations Between Church and State and On Religious Tolerance, replaced at Vatican II by Dignitatis Humanae. Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre 89pp, softcover, STK# 3072Q $9.95 Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre 351pp, softcover, STK# 6710Q $14.95 Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre 264pp, softcover, STK# 5240Q $14.95 Archbishop Lefebvre and the Vatican Rev. Fr. François Laisney Spiritual Journey Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre Archbishop Lefebvre’s last book. Describes a sanctity, simple yet profound, based on the writings of St. Thomas Aquinas. “Souls find in the Summa not only the light of the faith, but also the source of sanctity.” Originally for priests and seminarians, it is now a popular favorite. In satisfying the intellect rather than the emotions, we’re encouraged to make “a total and unreserved offering of ourselves to God by our Lord Jesus Christ Crucified.” 73pp, softcover, STK# 4079Q $7.95 Most Asked Questions About the Society of Saint Pius X Who was Abp. Lefebvre? What is the Society of Saint Pius X? Weren’t they excommunicated? What are Catholics to think of Vatican II, the 1983 Code of Canon Law, the new Catechism, the Indult Mass, the Fraternity of St. Peter, the New Mass, sedevacantists and John Paul II? Includes a history of the first 25 years of the SSPX. 130pp, softcover, 53 photos, STK# 6712Q $9.95 In this book you will find a complete set of the documents exchanged between Rome and Archbishop Lefebvre in the time leading up to and immediately following his episcopal consecrations of June 30, 1988 which were done without the approval of Pope John Paul II. ● Correspondence between Archbishop Lefebvre and Pope John Paul II and Cardinal Ratzinger ● The Visit of Cardinal Gagnon ● The Protocol of Accord ● Apostolic Letter Ecclesia Dei ● Consecration Sermon of Archbishop Lefebvre ● Declaration of Bishop Antonio de Castro Mayer ● Reports from the Media ● The 1983 Code of Canon Law ● Canonical Considerations Regarding Episcopal Consecrations ● Declaration of Dom Gerard ● Creation of the Society of St. Peter ● The Strategy of “Rehabilitation” Unveiled by Cardinal Decourtray. Just as a court of law will insist upon the authentic documents to get at the truth, so in this historic clash between two radically opposed views of the Catholic Church and the Catholic Faith, there is no substitute for reading the original texts of what both sides had to say. To these texts all that has been added is a narrative by Fr. François Laisney, a Society of Saint Pius X priest, to connect them in their sequence and to set them in their context, with a few footnotes to uncover the issues at stake from the standpoint of the Society of Saint Pius X. 244pp, softcover, STK# 6719Q $14.95 “Instaurare omnia in Christo—To restore all things in Christ.” Motto of Pope St. Pius X The ngelus A JOURNAL OF ROMAN CATHOLIC TRADITION 2915 Forest Avenue “To publish Catholic journals and place them in the hands of honest men is not enough. It is necessary to spread them as far as possible that they may be read by all, and especially by those whom Christian charity demands we should tear away from the poisonous sources of evil literature.” —Pope St. Pius X February 2006 Volume XXIX, Number 2 • Kansas City, Missouri 64109 English-language Editor and Publisher for the International Society of Saint Pius X PUBLISHER Fr. John Fullerton EDITOR Fr. Kenneth Novak ASSISTANT EDITOR Mr. James Vogel DESIGN AND LAYOUT The Vaccination Question The Vaccination Question . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Timothy Collins, M.D. “Moral Reflections on Vaccines Prepared from Cells Derived from Aborted Human Fetuses” . . . . . . 14 Pontifical Academy for Life Mr. Simon Townshend PROOFREADING Miss Anne Stinnett DOMINICAN FRIARS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 La-Haye-aux-Bonshommes, Avrillé, France TRANSCRIPTIONS Miss Miriam Werick OPERATIONS AND MARKETING Mr. Christopher McCann CIRCULATION MANAGER Mr. Jason Greene CONTROLLER Victor Tan SECRETARIES Miss Anne Stinnett Miss Lindsey Carroll Mr. Jered Gibbs SHIPPING AND HANDLING Mr. Jon Rydholm The Angelus (ISSN 10735003) is published monthly under the patronage of St. Pius X and Mary, Queen of Angels. Publication offices are located at 2915 Forest Avenue, Kansas City, Missouri, 64109, (816) 753-3150, FAX (816) 753-3557. Periodicals Postage Rates paid at Kansas City, Missouri. Copyright © 2006 by Angelus Press, Inc. All rights reserved. Manuscripts are welcome. They must be double-spaced and deal with the Roman Catholic Church, its history, doctrine, or present crisis. Unsolicited manuscripts will be used at the discretion of the Editorial Staff. Unused manuscripts cannot be returned unless sent with a self-addressed, stamped envelope. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to: The Angelus, Angelus Press, 2915 Forest Avenue, Kansas City, MO 64109-1529. EDUCATION AND YOUR FAMILY ATMOSPHERE . . . . . . 30 Fr. Bernard-Marie de Chivré, O.P. Persons; Principles PART V . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 It’s Not About It’s About Origin, Nature, Ends, and Types of Society Amintore Fanfani ON OUR COVER: Photographs of stained human FETAL lung fibroblast cells of the MRC-5 cell line. The MRC-5 cell line was developed from lung tissue taken from a 14-week fetus aborted (September, 1966) for psychiatric reasons from a 27-yearold physically healthy woman. The MRC-5 fetal cell line is the platform for nine popular human vaccines. MRC stands for “Medical Research Council,” a research center funded by British taxpayers. See “The Vaccination Question” and “Moral Reflections on Vaccines Prepared from Cells Derived from Aborted Human Fetuses.” To develop the weakened viral strain, there must be a medium or “cell culture” to grow it in. The virus invades the culture cells, feeds off the cell, matures, and multiplies. The cell cultures are a single type of cell that multiplies itself in a predictable fashion and can be sustained in a laboratory setting for years, even decades. These long-lasting cell cultures are called “cell lines.” The original cells that start these cell lines have been taken from a wide variety of sources, from monkey embryo and kidney cells, to chicken and rabbit embryos, and tragically, from aborted human babies. The vaccines themselves do not contain fetal cells, but it is presumed that there is “residual” biological matter from the fetal cells in the vaccine. The photographs were created using fluorescence microscopy, a technique which is rapidly becoming a standard tool in the fields of genetics, embryology, and cell biology. Photographs used with the permission of the copyright holders, Michael W. Davidson, Mortimer Abramowitz, Olympus America Inc., and Florida State University. THE ANGELUS SUBSCRIPTION RATES US, Canada, & Mexico Other Foreign Countries All payments must be in US funds only. 1 YEAR 2 YEARS $34.95 $52.45 $62.90 $94.50 2 The Vaccination Q letter from the editor Catholics are not aware of some of the moral dilemmas posed by the use of vaccines. Many Catholics are not even aware that the most common vaccines were developed from the cell lines derived from babies aborted specifically for this purpose. For instance, the RA273 rubella vaccine required at least 47 separate abortions. Thankfully, the Vatican recently clarified the Church’s position on this issue, which has been debated for years. The entire document, issued by the Pontifical Academy for Life, is published here (see p.14ff). In this introductory article, Catholic pathologist Dr. Timothy Collins points out that vaccinations in principle are certainly for the common good of a population. However, a dilemma arises when three situations converge: 1) genuine need, 2) mandatory vaccinations for schools or travel, and 3) the fact that these vaccines are made from aborted fetuses. What is a Catholic to do? In America, at least, it is recognized that members of certain religions can claim conscientious objection status. Catholics, however, are generally not recognized as conscientious objectors because of a lack of clarity regarding the official Church position. The recent Vatican document (June 9, 2005) is a welcome breath of fresh air from Rome. Rome has clearly enunciated the principles: 1) the production of vaccines derived from aborted fetuses is condemned, 2) at least for now, under certain conditions, Catholics may use fetal cell line vaccines only when it is impossible to use vaccines derived from non-fetal cell lines, 3) the availability of and production of non-fetal cell line vaccines must be persistently and resolutely petitioned for by Catholics, 4) Catholics have the duty to make known their objections to appropriate government agencies (i.e., in the US, the Department of Health & Human Services, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Food and Drug Administration, for which The Angelus has published contact information on p.30) as well as to the drug manufacturers themselves (contact information provided on p.30). This Angelus is not meant to give anyone an easy conscience regarding medical choices. Slicing out baby parts or sucking out baby brains in the development of human vaccines–in some cases while the aborted baby was still alive– is sick. Rome has weighed-in late in the game and so Catholics have been forced to play a desperate game of catch-up. The directives of the Pontifical Academy for Life must be followed as a moral obligation. Failing the prayerful and powerful leverage the Pontifical Academy asks Catholics to apply, we face a proliferation of human technology manufacturing platforms, the catastrophe of moral coercion injected into every aspect of medical treatment, and the specter of “rule by insurance companies.” THE ANGELUS • February 2006 www.angeluspress.org n Question 3 T i m o t h y P . C o l l i n s , M . D . C atholics ought to be aware of the moral problems associated with specific vaccines, as well as some looming problems regarding trends in vaccine manufacture. This is not an obscure topic, and it is of relevance to every Catholic, not just parents. Given all of the opinions floating around regarding vaccinations, I would like to make a couple of clarifications up front. First, I accept the usefulness of mass vaccinations in general. After sanitation measures such as flush toilets and monitored water supplies, mass vaccination campaigns targeted at specific serious infectious diseases of high endemnicity (prevalence) have done more to improve overall population health and well-being than any other single measure.1 Secondly, I accept, in principle, the authority of a government to impose regulations regarding mass vaccination. Vaccination programs rely, in part, on the so-called “herd effect” in order to be efficacious, meaning that, in order to decrease a disease within the population, a large percentage of the population (90% is a nice working number) needs to be immunized against the disease. The herd effect functions in addition to the individual protection the vaccinated person obtains against the illness. Notice that, in theory, 10% (more or less) of a population can remain unimmunized and remain free from the disease; this is because the disease in a highly vaccinated population is kept at such a low level that the rare unvaccinated individual rarely (or never) encounters it. Thus, in a highly vaccinated population, the rare individual who is unvaccinated is literally reaping the benefits of the 90% who did undergo vaccination. Also note that if the unimmunized proportion of the population should increase–say, to 20% or more, then the disease can reappear. Most of the diseases we immunize against are still out there. They’re invisible to us because we live in a highly vaccinated population, but they’re still out there, waiting for the opportunity to come back in. If a disease is serious enough to warrant a significant public health risk as well as being a risk for an individual–and most of the illnesses we vaccinate against fall into this category–then it is, I believe, a proper role of government to regulate regarding mass vaccinations as 1 This is not to say that all vaccines currently in use should be used. There is controversy within the medical community regarding some specific vaccines such as varicella (chickenpox). We will touch on this a bit later in the paper. However, in my view these are technical–i.e., medical and public health–problems, rather than moral problems. www.angeluspress.org THE ANGELUS • February 2006 4 part of the state’s general interest in the health and well-being of its population.2 Although there may be some controversy regarding whether this or that specific vaccination should be required, in general these are technical questions best resolved by the epidemiologists and infectious disease researchers. The exception comes when a government requires an immoral vaccine, a topic we will examine later. Finally, this is not a paper about vaccine safety. Vaccine safety is a tremendously important topic, and if questions regarding a vaccine or a component of a vaccine come up, they should be rigorously investigated. But my point is this: in general, the vaccination is far, far safer than the disease it is preventing. All public health requirements involve such a trade off: individual inconvenience (and, possibly, individual risk, however slight) vs. overall population benefit. Which brings us to the dawn of vaccination. A Brief History of Vaccination Edward Jenner (1749-1823) was an English physician who, after serving in Her Majesty’s Army out in the Empire, returned to the country life in Gloucestershire in western England.3 He was a quiet and observant man, and knew the “old wives’ tale” that milkmaids didn’t get smallpox. Now, smallpox is an illness that few of us living on the planet today have any experience with. Throughout history, however, it was one of the greatest scourges known, along with other infectious diseases we never see today in the West like polio (“the scourge of summer”), yellow fever, and malaria. “Leprosy” in Holy Scripture is a generic ancient term for pretty much any serious infectious disease with skin manifestations, including real, verifiable leprosy, but including smallpox as well. Smallpox has been responsible for more military deaths throughout history than cannon, gun, or sword combined, and has been known as a bioterror weapon since the earliest times. The clothes or bedding of the infected person can transmit the disease, and infected linen and even bodies of those who died of smallpox were not infrequently catapulted into the opposing camp; as late as the French and Indian War, the British utilized this ancient technique. Throughout history, smallpox was as common as heart disease or cancer today, and frequently fatal. If you didn’t die of smallpox you were left with disfiguring scars. However, you were immune for life. A form of immunization already existed in Jenner’s time. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, wife of the British Ambassador to Turkey, brought to England Again, I am speaking in generalities. I do not intend to say that the government should be mandating all of the vaccines which are currently mandated. As a point of interest, there are actually no federal laws regarding vaccination; all laws are at the state or local level. 3 Historical background developed from the following sources: “Edward 2 THE ANGELUS • February 2006 www.angeluspress.org in 1721 the “Eastern technique,” where the contents of a smallpox pustule from an infected person were rubbed into the vein of a healthy person. If the person survived the infection resulting from the inoculation, he was immune for life. Though the person could also die from the inoculation, he had much less chance of dying than if he contracted the disease naturally. It was this technique that General George Washington used to inoculate the troops at Valley Forge: although he himself had contracted (and survived) smallpox as a child, he was quite aware of its military significance, in part from his experiences during the French and Indian War. Although he was immune, his wife Martha was not, and she volunteered to stand at the head of the line that freezing winter and receive the first inoculation. Thus mass vaccination of the US Army was born. Cowpox (vaccinia, from the Latin vaca, cow) was a disease that cows got, usually manifesting itself by blisters on their udders and teats; milkmaids not infrequently got the blisters themselves. Cowpox blisters on milkmaid hands were not fatal to the milkmaids, nor did it make them very ill. They had the local blistering skin reaction which healed, and then they were immune to cowpox. Jenner knew the old wives’ tale about milkmaids not getting smallpox, and he also observed firsthand, during a smallpox epidemic in 1788, that milkmaids who had previously had cowpox blisters on their hands didn’t get smallpox. He also knew that cowpox in milkmaids was a mild illness with only the few blisters where the milkmaids had milked the affected cows. So, in 1796 he tested his hypothesis that exposure to cowpox could protect against smallpox. He took some pus from the cowpox blisters of a milkmaid named Sarah, who had gotten them after milking an infected cow named Blossom. He injected the pus into an 8-yearold boy named James Phipps, repeating the injections over the course of several days. He then inoculated young Phipps with smallpox. Phipps did not get sick. This may seem like a radical method to us today, but for young Phipps (and, presumably, his parents) it was a calculated risk. He figured he had a better chance of dying of smallpox than from Jenner’s hypothesis. Initially there was resistance to Jenner’s discovery. However, the clear-cut success in Jenner’s method in preventing smallpox overcame opposition, and by 1840 the British government had banned any method other than Jenner’s vaccinia inoculation in dealing with the disease. The last case of naturally occurring smallpox was in Somalia in 1977, and in 1980 the World Health Organization (an arm of the United Nations) declared smallpox officially eradicated from the planet. Vaccination in the US was discontinued in Jenner and the Discovery of Vaccination.” Patrick Scott, Thomas Cooper Library, University of South Carolina, at www.sc.edu/library/spcoll/ nathist/jenner.html; “Edward Jenner” at History Learning Site, A History of Medicine, at www.historylearningsite.co.uk; and Wikipedia On Line Encyclopedia, “Vaccination” at www.wikipedia.org 5 If you look at the package insert of the MMR® II (Merck)5 vaccine your child was immunized with during his routine pediatric appointment, you will find that it is actually a combination of three vaccines: measles vaccine, mumps vaccine, and rubella (German measles) vaccine. The manufacturer did this so that your child gets three immunizations in one shot. There are other combination vaccines out there besides MMR® II, but we’ll stick with this one for now. Reading the package insert, you find that all three vaccines consist of live, attenuated strains of the viruses in question, for all three illnesses are caused by viruses of the same name: measles virus, mumps virus, and rubella virus. The names of specific viral strains used suggests a colorful history (if you are inclined to medical history): the measles vaccine uses the Enders’ attenuated Edmonston strain, and is grown in chick embryo cell cultures. The mumps vaccine is the Jeryl Lynn (B level) strain, also grown in chick embryo cell cultures. What is a chick embryo cell culture and why is it necessary? Unlike bacteria, which are complete, unicellular organisms which can be grown in “nutrient broths”–soups, essentially, made up to the liking of the bacteria in question–viruses are “incomplete organisms.” They consist of only genetic material, DNA or RNA, encased in a protein coat. Although they have their genetic identity, they lack the cellular machinery to reproduce themselves, the cellular machinery that bacteria and all living cells more complicated than bacteria, up to and including ourselves, possess. So, a virus cannot, in general,6 grow and eventually reproduce itself by simply being “fed” the way a bacteria or a baby can. They need to usurp the machinery of some cell. And that’s exactly what they do: the virus attaches itself to the wall or membrane of a cell (different viruses have preferences for different kinds of cells, just as different bacteria have preferences for different nutrient broths, and my children have preference for peanut butter and jelly to the exclusion of everything else) and literally injects its own genetic material into the cell. That genetic material usurps the cell’s machinery to manufacture copies of itself, and, when the number of virus copies gets large enough, they pop the cell like an overblown balloon and the now liberated virus particles float around to latch on to another cell and start the whole process again. Thus, viruses, unlike bacteria, must be grown in cell cultures. The Enders’ attenuated Edmonston strain of measles virus and the Jeryl Lynn (B level) strain of mumps virus like chick embryo cell cultures, which are essentially self-replicating lines of cells grown in petri dishes, and which were originally derived from chick embryos. Reading further in the MMR® II package insert, you find that the rubella attenuated viral strain is a strain called “RA 27/3,” and it is grown in a cell culture called “WI-38 human diploid lung fibroblasts.” If you look at the package insert for the varicella (chickenpox) vaccine your child received, you find that this product also used the “WI-38 human diploid cell culture” as well as another human diploid cell culture, “MRC-5,” to grow the virus used in the vaccine. The moral issue is as follows: the WI-38 and MRC-5 human diploid cell lines used for viral culture in the rubella and varicella vaccines, as well as the RA 27/3 rubella viral strain which is the virus cultured for the rubella vaccine, are derived from babies aborted decades ago. A detailed and annotated history of the abortions related to the development of these lines is available in Debra L. Vinnedge’s document, “Aborted Fetal Cell Lines and the Catholic Family,” available at the Children of God for Life website.7 Briefly, in the early 1960’s, attempts were being made to develop human cell lines for, among other things, vaccine viral culture media. Researchers at the Wistar Institute in Philadelphia, Merck Research Institute, and the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, collaborated in the project. The researchers were specifically looking for parents with no The only remaining reservoirs of smallpox virus are at the CDC and in the Institute for Virology in the former Soviet Union. All of the smallpox once present in the former Soviet Union can no longer be accounted for, which, in part, underlies the fears concerning smallpox as a terror weapon. Since smallpox immunizations were discontinued worldwide decades ago, and since vaccination-produced immunity wanes, the world is, for practical purposes, unimmunized, and even more susceptible to a devastating smallpox outbreak than back in Jenner’s day, when that part of the population that survived into adulthood frequently had natural immunity. While deployed as a medical officer aboard a US Navy warship in the Persian Gulf during Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom, I was intimately involved with the deployment and program development for shipboard smallpox and anthrax vaccination of the Marines and sailors aboard the ships of Amphibious Squadron 2, my parent unit. This was the first time smallpox vaccinations had been administered since 1990, and the crews of entire ships had never been immunized. There were significant technical and logistical problems associated with this and we had to develop numerous techniques to address the issues. Nevertheless, we administered over 17,000 doses of these two vaccines with no significant problems. Yes, I was vaccinated as well. 5 Package insert, MMR® II, Merck & Co., 1999. This insert, as well as most of the inserts for vaccines used in the United States, are available in PDF format at: Institute for Vaccine Safety, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, 615 N. Wolfe St. Room W504 1, Baltimore, MD 21205; www.vaccinesafety.edu. 6 There are exceptions to this, but I’m painting with a broad brush, not giving a talk in microbiology. 7 Debra L. Vinnedge, “Aborted Fetal Cell Lines and the Catholic Family: A Moral and Historical Perspective,” Children of God for Life (Dec. 2004) www.cogforlife.org. 1971, except in the military, where it continued until 1990.4 Edward Jenner gave his discovery to the world for free. He did not patent it, never made any money on it, and lived the rest of his life before going to his judgment as a quiet country doctor. The Question of Vaccinating Children 4 www.angeluspress.org THE ANGELUS • February 2006 Developers of WI-38 6 The Wistar Institute is an independent nonprofit biomedical research institution dedicated to discovering the causes and cures for major diseases. Founded in 1892 as the first institution of its kind in the nation, the Wistar Institute today is a National Cancer Institute-designated Cancer Center focused on basic and translational research conducted with the University of Pennsylvania. Discoveries at Wistar have led to the development of vaccines for such diseases as rabies and rubella, the identification of genes associated with breast, lung, and prostate cancer, and the development of monoclonal antibodies [Antibodies are specialized defense proteins that help white blood cells fight off viruses and bacteria by binding to foreign invaders and signaling the immune cells to attack.–Ed.] young Koprowski Information and quotes below taken from: http://www. jesus-is-savior.com/ Evils%20in%20America/ Abortion%20is%20Murder/ aborted_fetus_vaccines. htm www.cogforlife.com Hilary Koprowski, M.D. Leonard Hayflick, Ph.D. Dr. Sven Gard Director of the Wistar Institute from 1957 to 1991. Under Koprowski’s leadership, Wistar scientists developed the aborted fetal cell line rubella vaccine from the WI-38 strain. Professor of Anatomy at the Univ. of California School of Medicine. Dr. Hayflick developed the aborted fetal cell strain WI-38, the most widely used human cell vaccine manufacturing platform. In 1961, while in the employment of the Wistar Institute, he started working with aborted fetal cell lines (WI-I through WI-25). Cell strains were derived from the lung, skin, muscle, kidney, heart, thyroid, thymus and liver of 19 separate abortions. A Swedish virologist and past president of the Swedish Academy of Sciences. He conducted research into polio vaccines. Dr. Stanley Plotkin, who helped develop the aborted fetal cell line rubella vaccine using W1-38, stated: Preying on the fear that 20-25% of pregnant women infected with rubella pass it to their unborn children, possibly causing defects, doctors encouraged pregnant women to have their unborn children abor ted during the 1964 epidemic. The first 26 aborted babies were unaffected.The live rubella virus was found in the 27th aborted baby. Explant cultures were made of the dissected organs of a particular fetus aborted because of rubella, the 27th in our series of fetuses aborted. This fetus was from a 25-year-old mother exposed to rubella 8 days after her last menstrual period. Sixteen days later she developed rubella.The fetus was surgically aborted 17 days after maternal illness and dissected immediately. Explants from several organs were cultured and successful cell growth was achieved from lung, skin, and kidney. It was then grown on WI-38. The new vaccine was tested on orphans in Philadelphia. It was the intent of the abortionist and the researcher to destroy these babies specifically for vaccine manufacturing. But fiTHE rst, ANGELUS the abortions had to be pre-arranged • February 2006 www.angeluspress.org so the researchers were available to immediately preserve the tissues. The isolation of characterization of human diploid cell strains from fetal tissue make this type of cell available as a substrate for the production of live virus vaccines. Other than the economic advantages, such strains in contrast to heteropoloid cells lines exhibit those characteristics usually reserved for normal or primary cells and therefore make the consideration of their use in the production of human virus vaccines a distinct possibility. One of my duties as a young student in the laboratory in Stockholm was to dissect human fetuses from legal abortions and send organs to the Wistar Institute. Such material was the source of many important studies of cell lines of the Institute, such as Leonard Hayflick’s study of WI-38. In order to sustain 96% of the cells, the live tissue would need to be preserved within five minutes of the abortion. This fetus was chosen by Dr. Sven Gard, specifically for this purpose [of a vaccine culture]....Both parents are known, and unfortunately, for the story, they are married to each other, still alive and well, and living in Stockholm, presumably. The abortion was done because they felt they had too many children. There were no familial diseases in the history of either parents, and no history of cancer specifically in the families. Healthy human fetuses from 7-21 weeks from legal abortions were used. This is in Sweden. The conceptional age was estimated from crown rump length and so on. Fetal liver and kidney were rapidly removed and weighed. Now at 21 weeks, what they were doing,...was what are called prostaglandin abortions. They would inject a substance into the womb. The woman would then go into mini-labor and pass her baby. Fifty percent of the time, the baby would be born alive, but that didn’t stop them. They would just simply open up the abdomen of the baby with no anesthesia, and take out the liver and kidneys. i / der/ s. 7 medical problems, as they wanted their cell lines to be untainted by genetic illnesses. Thus, the ideal prospective fetus was the one to be aborted for “social” reasons, usually given as “too many children.” It took the researchers 37 attempts, representing 20 Swedish abortions, to develop a cell line which grew. The line which did finally grow, the 38th attempt, was designated Wistar Institute 38: WI-38 (see sidebar on p.6). In addition to a viable cell culture line, the researchers also needed a strain of the rubella virus which had been shown to successfully cross the placenta and infect an unborn child. And now, we need a slight digression into the reason for rubella vaccination. Rubella is a mild illness in children. Like measles and chickenpox, the child who gets German measles usually has a short, mild illness and then recovers, and also has lifelong immunity against re-infection. However, rubella is highly contagious, and can be devastating to a fetus in utero. The reason rubella is a public health issue is because if a pregnant mother who is unimmunized (either by vaccination or by natural immunity) is exposed to a child with rubella, the mother will get the disease. In turn, the virus can cross the placenta and infect the child. Congenital rubella syndrome (CRS), the constellation of defects associated with congenital rubella infection, can be mild, but can also be devastatingly severe. CRS of some level of severity results from up to 85% of maternal infections which occur in the first trimester, but the frequency of CRS drops dramatically by the eighth week. If the mother is infected after the 20th week, the incidence of CRS is zero.8 The reason, then, to vaccinate the child is not primarily to protect the child, although this is a useful secondary effect. The reason is to prevent the transmission of the disease from an infected child through a pregnant mother to her unborn child. You vaccinate your child against rubella to protect someone else’s unborn child. Since not all rubella virus infections result in CRS, a strain which had been shown to successfully cross the placenta and infect an unborn child was necessary for the vaccine. For many years the medical establishment recommended abortion if an unimmunized, pregnant mother was exposed to rubella for fear of CRS (this is no longer the case), and during a rubella outbreak in Pennsylvania in 1964, pregnant mothers who had no rubella immunity underwent abortions. Organs from 26 of these aborted babies underwent culture looking for the virus. Only with the 27th was the virus grown successfully; this strain was then successfully cultured Maxcy-Rosenau-Last, Public Health and Preventive Medicine, 14th ed., ed. by R.B. Wallace (Appleton & Lange, 1998). See “Rubella,” pp.95ff. 9 This section is developed from the transcriptions of the US FDA Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee Meeting, Wednesday, May 16, 2001, pp.77ff., www.fda.gov/ohrms/dockets/ac/01/transcripts/3750t1_01.pdf. In addition to pp,77ff, see also pp.91-95. 8 in WI-38, and designated RA 27/3 for Rubella Abortus number 27, 3rd tissue explant. Thus it is the RA 27/3 rubella viral strain, grown in WI-38 human diploid cell culture, which is the basis of the current vaccine in use in the United States today. Vinnedge estimates that some 47 elective abortions were involved in the development of this product: 19 from the failed WI cell lines, one for WI-38 itself, and 27 to find the viral strain. Several years later the Medical Research Council of England used similar techniques to develop the MRC-5 human cell line. In addition to rubella and varicella, other vaccines in use which depend on human cell lines are hepatitis A (MRC-5) and rabies (MRC-5.) The polio vaccine currently in use in the US uses multiple strains of poliovirus grown in monkey kidney cultures; however, there is another polio vaccine using MRC-5 cultures which is licensed, but not yet distributed, in the US. The smallpox vaccine (currently in use only in selected members of the armed forces) uses the traditional New York Board of Health vaccinia strain, which was prepared in calf lymph and stored as a freeze-dried product decades ago. However, a second generation smallpox vaccine using both MRC-5 and a new human cell line, PER C6, is under development. It is to this new cell line, PER C6, that we will now turn our attention. Human Technology Manufacturing Platforms In 1985, an abortion was performed in France on an 18-week female fetus. The unborn child’s parents were healthy, and there was no family history of medical problems; the abortion was performed solely because “the woman wanted to get rid of the fetus.”9 The woman and her unborn child met the criteria that the researchers from the University of Leiden were seeking: no medical problems. This is because they were looking for sources of material to develop cell lines specifically for pharmaceutical manufacturing of vaccines and other biotherapeutics. The abortion was performed, cells were procured from the aborted child’s retina, frozen, and ten years later thawed for development as the PER C6 line. The researcher from University of Leiden who oversaw the project noted in his discussion of the line’s development, [a]nd then the pharmaceutical industry standard. I realize this sounds a bit commercial, but PER C6 were (sic) made for that particular purpose. Also, as far as I know, more than 50 different companies have taken license for PER C6.10 10 Ibid, p.95 (my emphasis). The researcher narrating this portion of the transcript is Dr. Alex van der Eb of the University of Leiden, The Netherlands. Dr. van der Eb also disclosed at the “Disclosure” section of the transcript that he has received consulting fees from Crucell NV (the company sponsoring the development of the PER C6 line) for “scientific advice” on human cell lines. www.angeluspress.org THE ANGELUS • February 2006 8 Excerpts taken from: Picture unavailable http://www.jesus-is-savior. com/Evils%20in%20America/ Abortion%20is%20Murder/ aborted_fetus_vaccines.htm Dr. Alex van der Eb (of Crucell NV) and his testimony (May 16, 2001) before the US Food and Drug Administration on his experimentation to develop the new 293 and PER C6 aborted fetal cell lines from which at least four new vaccines will be derived including the forthcoming avian influenza vaccine. One year later we had resection enzyme available to make pure DNA, but the first and also the 293 cell was made with sheared adenovirus 5 DNA, then simply scored for transformed colonies as we did with the rodent cultures. So the kidney material, the fetal kidney material was as follows.The kidney of the fetus with an unknown family history, was obtained in 1972 probably. The precise date is not known anymore. The fetus, as far as I can remember, was completely normal. Nothing was wrong. The reasons for the abortion were unknown to me. I probably knew it at that time, but it got lost, all this information. The kidneys of the fetus were then isolated and the kidney cells were isolated in the so-called still air cabinet....So as we did also for the rat kidney cells, the surrounding membranes were removed as completely as possible, and the kidneys were then minced with scissors, trypsinized, and the cells that were recovered after removing the trypsin were cultured in medium containing bovine serum, calf serum. That is what we know. And this calf serum was obtained not from a commercial source. We either got it from somebody else, from another lab, or we made it ourselves from blood, calf blood. Rodent, monkey, and other human cell cultures took place in the same general area at that time. So there was one cell culture room, and there all of the experiments, all the cell culture work was being done. There were also experiments with viruses, but that was in a separate virus-cultured unit, and we used in addition to adenovirus 5 whole viruses, also the oncogenic adenovirus 12, as well as SV40 and possibly also already herpes virus, but maybe herpes virus was not yet used at that time. So the method was DNA from wild type adenovirus 5, was isolated from virions. So we had to prepare the DNA by first growing and purifying the virions, and the DNA was then fragmented by shearing in this case through a 22-gauge needle up to about eight million daltons [another name for an “atomic mass unit” used in microbiology and biochemistry to state the masses of organic molecules.–Ed.] There was no cloning strategy at that time, and the DNA fragments were transfected as I already indicated with salmon sperm DNA with the calcium technique. The results were rather disappointing. In the first experiment of quite a number of dishes there was not a single transformed colony. So we repeated it. Again, no transformed colony. However, after many other experiments, we found finally one transformed colony which was visible in the cultures, and that colony appeared The PER C6 cell line has been expanded onto a commercial scale by the Dutch biotechnology company Crucell NV as one of the company’s two “broadly applicable human technology platforms”11 for developing pharmaceuticals. PER C6, according to Crucell NV, will be used as a manufacturing system on which a wide range of biopharmaceuticals can be developed and manufactured, such as vaccines, antibodies, therapeutic proteins and gene therapy products.12 “Crucell’s PER C6 Cell-Line Used in Merck’s HIV-1 Vaccines Research Program,” United Business Media PR Newswire (April 3, 2001) www.prnewswire.com (my emphasis). 12 Ibid., see section “About Crucell” (my emphasis). 11 THE ANGELUS • February 2006 www.angeluspress.org 33 days after transfection was seen, 33 days after transfection. This colony, this single colony was picked and established and became the 293 cell.... So I isolated retina from a fetus, from a healthy fetus as far as could be seen, of 18 weeks old. There was nothing special with a family history or the pregnancy was completely normal up to the 18 weeks, and it turned out to be a socially indicated abortus–abortus provocatus, and that was simply because the woman wanted to get rid of the fetus. The father was not known not to the hospital anymore, what was written down was unknown father, and that was, in fact, the reason why the abortion was requested. There was permission, et cetera, and that was, however, in 1985, ten years before this. This shows that the cells were isolated in October 1985, Leiden University in my lab. At that time already 1985, I should say the cells were frozen, stored in liquid nitrogen, and in 1995 one of these was thawed for the generation of the PER C6 cells..... PER C6 was made just for pharmaceutical manufacturing of adenovirus vectors.... And then pharmaceutical industry standards....I realize that this sounds a bit commercial, but PER C6 was made for that particular purpose. PER C6 human cell line will soon be used in the production of the US influenza vaccine as it was shown to be an efficient system for propagating both influenza A and influenza B in 2001.13 On April 1, 2005, Sanofi-Aventis Group [the third largest pharmaceutical conglomerate in the world–Ed.] announced that it had been awarded a $97 million contract by the US Health and Human Services Department “...to speed production process for new cell culture influenza vaccines in the 13 M.G. Pau et al., “The Human Cell Line PER C6 Provides a New Manufacturing System for the Production of Influenza Vaccines,” Vaccine, 19(17-19), March 21, 2001, 2716-21. s d .. y d. y o y t t al n e s, s r e n, of e al y t t n 9 How Close Is Close: The Notion of “Cooperation” US.” Of interest, the same press release noted, in the “about cell-culture technology” section, that the two main advantages of human cell culture over the conventional influenza viral culture medium of chicken eggs is that 1) the cell culture technique decreases the start up time for a new viral culture from four weeks to three, and 2) it eliminates the need for all those eggs. Unstated, but equally true, is that PER C6 is licensed. Chicken eggs are not. And there’s a lot of doses of influenza vaccine waiting to be manufactured. Another biotechnology company, Vaxin, based in Birmingham, Alabama, announced a license agreement with Crucell NV on September 13, 2004, to use the PER C6 cell line to develop vaccines against influenza, anthrax, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), and other unspecified diseases.15 The Aeras Global TB Vaccine Foundation of Bethesda, Maryland, contracted with Crucell NV for $2.9 million to develop a new tuberculosis vaccine using PER C6 to replace the old BCG TB vaccine (not used in the United States).16 The PER C6 cell line is being used in the development of Merck’s HIV-1 vaccine.17 The PER C6 cell line is being used to develop Sanofi-Pasteur’s avian influenza vaccine, and will enter clinical trials in Norway in the spring of 2006.18 It is possible that a government could require universal inoculation with an avian influenza vaccine. At this point, it is reasonable to ask what the Church’s position is concerning all of the above. To date, the only Vatican statement on the subject is a study from the Pontifical Academy for Life, an arm of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, dated June 9, 2005, entitled, “Moral Reflections on Vaccines Prepared from Cells Derived from Human Foetuses.”19 It was attached to a cover letter addressed to the Executive Director of Children of God for Life, Mrs. Debra Vinnedge. The purpose of the study was “to clarify the liceity of vaccinating children with vaccines prepared using cell lines derived from aborted human foetuses.”20 In addition, the study “regarded in particular” Mrs. Vinnedge’s question concerning “the right of parents of these children to oppose such a vaccination when made at school, mandated by law.”21 Before rendering an answer to Mrs. Vinnedge’s questions, the document first developed the notion of levels of “cooperation” with evil. For those who, like me, are theologically naive, we’ll review them, too. 14 “Sanofi-Pasteur Awarded $97 Million HHS Contract to Accelerate Cellculture Pandemic Influenza Vaccine Development,” Sanofi- Aventis “Press Room” Year 2005, www.en.Sanofi--aventis.com. 15 “Crucell NV and Vaxin Announce PER C6 Licensing Agreement” (Sept. 13 2004) Birmingham, www.vaxin.com. 16 “Aeras Partners with Crucell NV to Develop TB Vaccine,” Press Release (March 24, 2004), University of Leiden, The Netherlands, www.aeras. org News and Events. 17 United Business Media, op. cit. 18 “High-Volume Avian Influenza Vaccine a Step Closer,” in PharmaTech14 The first fundamental distinction is between formal and material cooperation. In formal cooperation, one shares the intent of committing the evil. In other words, one agrees with the evil act. Thus, whether the person was the abortionist who actually aborted the baby 40 years ago whose cells became WI-38, or simply a contemporary parent whose child is to be immunized against rubella but also agrees with the abortion, such formal cooperation is never licit. In material cooperation, one shares the act, but not the intent. In other words, one is somehow associated with the act, but disagrees with the intent. Both formal and material cooperation have different levels of “closeness” (as illustrated briefly above) but we’ll confine the rest of this discussion to material cooperation. Material cooperation may be either immediate or mediate. In immediate cooperation, one cooperates directly in the act. In mediate cooperation, one doesn’t participate directly, but performs some indirect function, such as providing instruments or products which support the occurrence of the act. Cooperation can also be divided into proximate (either spatially, temporally, or conceptually) or remote. ● Immediate material cooperation is always proximate. It has to be proximate, because one is directly participating in the act. When the evil is a grave matter, such as participation in abortion, immediate material cooperation is always illicit.22 Thus, in the abortions performed decades ago in developing the WI-38 and RA 27/3 lines, one would conclude that the participation of the Wistar and Merck researchers who collaborated with the Swedish abortionists at the Karolinska Institute to procure the tissue were immoral because they were proximate, regardless of whether they “personally agreed” with the abortions or not. Further, the document specifically and repeatedly draws attention to those involved in “the preparation, distribution, and marketing of vaccines produced as a result of the use of biological material whose origin is connected with cells coming from foetuses voluntarily aborted,” noting that such activity is, “as a matter of principle, morally illicit.”23 If the activity of the Merck and Wistar researchers was illicit–and I do not see how it could not have been–it is even more true of the activities of the researchers at the University of Leiden who developed PER C6, Crucell NV [the company developing and marketing this human technology manufacturing platform (see sidebar on p.8)–Ed.], as nologist.com (Oct. 14, 2005). “Moral Reflections on Vaccines Prepared from Cells Derived from Human Aborted Human Fetuses,” Letter dated June 9, 2005. The entire text is available at multiple sites, including the National Catholic Bioethics Center “News and Events” section (ncbcenter.org) and Children of God for Life website, op. cit. [See pp.14ff in this Angelus–Ed.] 20 Ibid., cover letter to Debra Vinnedge, §1 (see p.15). 21 Ibid. 22 Ibid., p.5. 23 Ibid. 19 www.angeluspress.org THE ANGELUS • February 2006 10 ABORTED Fetal Cell Line and NON-FETAL Cell Line DISEASE ABORTED Fetal Cell Line Vaccines Vaccine Name Manufacturer FETAL Cell Line CHICKENPOX Varivax® Merck WI-38 & MRC-5 HEPATITIS A VAQTA® Merck MRC-5 HAVRIX® GlaxoSmithKline (hereafter GSK) MRC-5 HEPATITIS A & B Twinrix® GSK MRC-5 MEASLES/MUMPS/RUBELLA MMR® II Merck RA273; WI-38 MEASLES/RUBELLA MR-VAX® Merck RA273; WI-38 MUMPS/RUBELLA Biavax® II Merck RA273; WI-38 Meruvax® II Merck RA273; WI-38 MEASLES/MUMPS/RUBELLA AND CHICKENPOX ProQuad® Merck RA273; WI-38 & MRC-5 POLIO Poliovax® Sanofi Pasteur MRC-5 RABIES Imovax® Sanofi Pasteur MRC-5 SHINGLES Zostavax® Merck WI-38 & MRC-5 RUBELLA EBOLA (new) INFLUENZA (new) HIV (new) SMALLPOX (new) THE ANGELUS • February 2006 www.angeluspress.org SEPSIS (new) To be announced Crucell NV/National (still awaiting trial) Institute of Health PER C6 To be announced MedImmune (still awaiting trial) PER C6 To be announced PER C6 Merck Acambix 1000® Orovax/Acambis (still awaiting trial) MRC-5 Xigris HEK 293 Eli Lilly Line Vaccines ne Alternatives 11 NON-FETAL Cell Line Vacciness Vaccine Name Manufacturer NON-FETAL Cell Line None Aimmungen® Kaketsuken (Japan and Europe) African Green Monkey kidney (VERO cell line) Engerix® (Hepatitis-B only) GlaxoSmithKline (hereafter GSK) Yeast Comvax® (Hepatitis-B only) Merck Yeast Merck Chicken embryo NOTble a availU in S ● All current flu vaccines use nonaborted fetal cell lines. Note, however, that the anticipated new vaccines manufactured by MedImmune will use fetal cell lines (see chart under “Aborted Fetal Cell Line Vaccines”). ● Immune-Globulin IntraMuscluar shots will provide temporary immunity (3-5 months) for Hepatitis-A and Rubella. IGIM is a series of antibodies taken from donor blood designed to boost the immune system against specific diseases. No aborted fetal cell lines are used. ● A combined Measles/Mumps vaccine [i.e., one not including the Rubella vaccine element–Ed.] derived from a non-aborted fetal cell line used to be available as recently as six years ago, but it has been discontinued. The Measles/Mumps vaccine is always accompanied now by the Rubella element which is derived from fetal cell lines (i.e., RA273, WI-38). ● Any other vaccine not listed here does not use aborted fetal cell lines. ● Chart taken from Children of God for Life (www.cogforlife.org) updated January 9, 2006. Improved for clarity by Fr. Kenneth Novak. None Attenuvax® (Measles) Mumpsvax® (Mumps) Merck Chicken embryo Kitasato Institute (Japan) Rabbit kidney IPOL® Sanofi Pasteur (France) VERO (monkey kidney) RabAvert® Chiron Chicken embryo Takahashi® None NOTble a availU in S None None FluVirin®; FluMist® Flu Shield®; Fluarix® Fluzone® FluBlok™ Chiron; MedImmune Wyeth; GSK Sanofi Pasteur Protein Science Chicken embryo Chicken embryo Chicken embryo Caterpillar Acambis/Baxter VERO (monkey kidney) Chicken embryo None ACAM2000® MVA3000® None www.angeluspress.org THE ANGELUS • February 2006 12 well as those 50 or more companies licensing this “platform.” It would also seem to be true of the US Department of Health and Human Services which has, as noted above, provided at least $97 million of US taxpayer money to support, specifically, the PER C6based influenza vaccine program being developed by Crucell NV and Merck. ● Mediate material cooperation may be proximate or remote. Since the nature of the cooperation is not direct but indirect, it may be somewhat distant in terms of time, space, or circumstance. A further distinction is drawn between active (positive) cooperation with evil, and negative (passive) cooperation. The distinction here is between doing something involved with the act versus sitting back and allowing it to happen when one has a definite moral duty to impede the evil in question. Passive cooperation, like active cooperation, can be formal or material, immediate or mediate, proximate or remote. So how does all this apply to the vaccine question? The Vatican paper identified three categories of people in this matter: 1) those who make the vaccines, 2) those who market and distribute them, and 3) those who use them. We’ve already touched on the first two categories; these activities the document condemned as morally illicit “as a matter of principle.” The reason for this is because “...preparation, distribution, and marketing... could contribute in encouraging the performance of other voluntary abortions, with the purpose of the production of such vaccines.”24 It is, of course, precisely this that we see happening with the PER C6 endeavor. The paper notes that within the production–distribution–marketing chain, there are varying levels of responsibility, but the cooperation is “more intense” on the part of those authorities, for example the Department of Health and Human Services, that accept the use of the vaccines. The document then takes up the issue of those who use the vaccines. The parents who use the vaccines, as well as the physicians who administer them, assuming they are not in formal cooperation with the abortion (i.e., they don’t agree with it), “carry out a form of very remote mediate material cooperation...in the performance of the original act of abortion.”25 The document continues, ... [I[n this situation, the aspect of passive cooperation is that which stands out most. It is up to the faithful...to oppose, even by making an objection of conscience, the ever more widespread attacks against life....From this point of view, the use of vaccines whose production is connected with procured abortion constitutes at least a mediate remote passive material cooperation to the abortion, and an immediate passive material cooperation with regard to their marketing.26 “Therefore,” the paper continues, “...fathers of families...should oppose by all means...the vaccines 24 25 Ibid. Ibid. (emphasis in the original). THE ANGELUS • February 2006 www.angeluspress.org which do not yet have morally acceptable alternatives.” Note is made here of the use of the word “yet.” Although not specifically stated, the authors seem to believe that the use of human cell lines is dying out, and that these vaccines will soon be replaced with something less “morally tainted” [i.e., non-fetal cell lines–Ed.] We will touch on this further down below. Regarding those vaccines which have no alternatives, the paper notes that “it is right to abstain from using these vaccines if it can be done without causing children, and indirectly the population as a whole, to undergo significant risks to their health.” If there are significant risks, the paper continues, they may be used on a “temporary basis.” “The moral reason is that the duty to avoid passive material cooperation is not obligatory if there is grave inconvenience.”27 In conclusion, the Vatican paper condemns the production, marketing, and distribution of the vaccines. It also condemns those public policy officials who implement their use. It supports those parents who make “an objection of conscience,” up to and including abstention from use (“...it is right to abstain from using these vaccines”) assuming it can be done without “significant risk.” However, it doesn’t condemn those parents who vaccinate, given the level of moral coercion which exists. Moral Coercion and Significant Risk The Vatican paper attempts to address the dilemma parents face. Parents have a sure and certain moral obligation to promote the health and wellbeing of their children, and vaccination, in general, is part of that parental responsibility. However, the vaccines which utilize these human cell lines derived from aborted babies are immoral. Their manufacture and distribution is morally illicit “as a matter of principle.” Using the vaccines represents cooperation with the evil of the original abortion, even if in a remote and passive way. Thus the recommendation that parents make “an objection of conscience,” up to, and including, abstention from use. Except, the paper says, when “significant risk” exists in refusing to use them. This is not an insignificant caveat. Although there are no federal laws concerning vaccination, all states require proof of immunization against the “usual childhood diseases”–which include rubella and varicella (i.e., chickenpox)–prior to entry into public or private school, day care, and, increasingly, organizations such as the YMCA or Boy Scouts. Most states have conscientious-objector clauses allowing parents to opt out, though the Catholic Church has not heretofore been recognized by most authorities as one of the organizations allowing refusal on the basis 26 27 Ibid. (emphasis in the original). Ibid., p.6 (emphasis in the original). 13 of conscience. Thus, without a doubt, there is legal coercion of Catholic parents, and this was the issue which prompted the Children of God for Life letter to the Vatican: Catholic parents were being told they couldn’t opt out because the Catholic Church didn’t support their refusal. Unfortunately, the Vatican letter may be a little too nuanced to settle this issue, as the opposing (and occasionally acrimonious) interpretations of the letter in the Catholic press have shown. Some interpret it as official Vatican support of parental refusal, others interpret it as official Vatican denial of parental right of refusal. The crucial phrase seems to be, “significant risk.” “Significant risk” is not easily defined. Consider chickenpox. Chickenpox is a mild illness in which natural infection confers lifelong immunity (which the vaccination does not do), and for these reasons, as well as other reasons, at least one developed nation (England) has opted against populationwide chickenpox vaccination. Thus, if even medical and public health professionals can’t agree, it’s not too much of a stretch to argue that there’s no significant risk to your child if you don’t immunize him. Rubella, on the other hand, is a bit more complicated. Remember, the primary reason for rubella vaccination is not to protect your child, but to protect someone else’s unborn child. In the United States today, the endemic level of rubella is quite low, and it is arguable that there is little risk to anyone else if your child is unimmunized. However, if the fraction of the US population not immunized against rubella were to increase, then rubella (and congenital rubella syndrome) will reappear. Further, rubella remains quite common in other parts of the world, and an unimmunized American child traveling overseas could certainly contract the illness, and spread it to an unimmunized mother. Thus, withholding a rubella vaccination from your child is a bit more complicated in terms of potential risk. Finally, consider polio, a devastating disease. Like rubella, polio currently is not present in the US in measurable degree. Again, like rubella, this is due to the high levels of vaccine-mediated immunity within the population. The current polio vaccine poses no moral problems, as no human cell lines are involved in its manufacture. However, as noted previously, a new vaccine utilizing the MRC-5 human cell line has already been licensed by the FDA, and is awaiting distribution. If the pattern established with the rubella and other vaccines is followed, the new vaccine will replace, not supplement, the current vaccine and then, like rubella and varicella, there will be no choice for the parent besides either vaccinating with the immoral vaccine, or not vaccinating against this devastating disease. Polio DOES carry significant risk for one’s child, and this is MORAL COERCION. [And what about the spreading avian influenza?–Ed.] A second dilemma with the Vatican document is that it may not adequately address the reality which exists. As noted above, the letter uses phrases such as “vaccines for which there are not yet acceptable alternatives,” and “temporary basis,” suggesting that the authors may believe this to be a situation which is transitory and self-correcting, as well as being confined to a relatively small group of parents and no one else. Though not stated in the letter, one gets the impression that the authors might believe that the vaccine manufacturers were unaware of the origin of these cell lines, but now that they know, they will take steps to correct things. Nothing could be further from the truth. If, dear reader, you take nothing else away from this article, please take this: we are at the dawn, not the sunset, of human technology manufacturing platforms. The day is upon us where this sort of moral problem will be injected into virtually every aspect of medicine. In considering this looming moral catastrophe, the following is worth considering: the use of human cell lines derived from aborted babies to manufacture vaccines (or anything else) is not conceptually different from the use of cell lines derived from the embryonic stem cells. The only difference is a practical one: medical therapies from cell lines from aborted babies are already in widespread use; those from embryonic stem cells are still hypothetical. But in both cases you have an unborn child being disassembled for useful parts. The Church appears to be heading in the direction that any use of products from embryonic stem cells is immoral because their origin is immoral. I am unable to discern a difference between products derived from aborted babies and products from embryonic stem cells. But I also know, on a personal level, the moral coercion regarding vaccines. I am a parent. I fully understand that the parents’ clear and certain responsibility is to provide for the welfare of their children. I do not criticize those parents who have struggled with this issue, and decided to vaccinate their children. I take this problem very seriously. The simple fact is that this is not a problem which a handful of parents can solve, and it is unjust for the Catholic Church to put the weight of responsibility on them. This is something the Vatican and the bishops should weigh in on, clearly, repeatedly, and unambiguously. The only thing that can oppose this gathering cloud of evil is international, Vatican-led opposition. Very soon, the problem will no longer be confined to a handful of parents agonizing over whether they cooperate with evil when they vaccinate their children against chickenpox. It will be a moral dilemma which entangles virtually everyone. The Church will have to address it in the manner it deserves, sooner rather than later. Timothy P. Collins, M.D., is a Catholic pathologist from Chesapeake, Virginia. He is a graduate of Georgetown University School of Medicine and is Board Certified in Anatomic and Clinical Pathology, as well as being a Fellow of the College of American Pathologists. He attends the Latin Mass at St. Benedict’s in Chesapeake, Virginia, with his wife, Kathy, and four children. www.angeluspress.org THE ANGELUS • February 2006 14 14 “Moral Reflections on Va Cells Derived from Abo introduction From The Publisher Emeritus Many Catholics have been troubled by the awareness that some of the vaccines most commonly used to prevent infectious diseases have been developed with the use of human tissue instead of animal tissue. The moral problem has arisen since this human tissue is fetal cell tissue that is derived, after a series of many generations, from the cells of an aborted fetus. A dilemma of conscience has grown from the fact that the drug companies have refused to make available in many countries (such as the US) vaccines developed in milieu other than fetal cell tissue. Some, of lax conscience, have said that it does not matter, since the fetus was aborted 40 years ago. Others, more consistent with themselves, have refused such vaccines even when obligated by law to have or administer them, and maintain that it is always immoral to accept them, even when there is no other vaccine available. It is a surprising relief and unusual joy to find this quandary resolved authoritatively for Catholics by the Holy See. The document which is published in its entirety here (see pp.16, 27-30), issued by the Pontifical Academy for Life, is admirable and refreshing to see. It summarizes very precisely the scientific facts, identifying which vaccines have been developed using human cell lines developed from aborted fetuses. It subsequently makes all the necessary distinctions concerning cooperation in evil, and applies them to the precise case of these vaccines. It then draws the necessary conclusions, namely that there is a grave obligation (i.e., under pain of sin) to use alternative vaccines whenever possible, and also a duty to voice one’s objections whenever this is not possible. It further forbids as gravely sinful any active promotion of these vaccines by those in the medical and pharmaceutical professions. However, it does allow the possibility of using such vaccines in the case of necessity for the health of one’s children when no other alternative exists, such being a very remote and material cooperation in the evil of abortion. It is sad, however, that the same firmness is not applied to questions of the Faith, namely those doctrinal and moral questions that depend upon divine revelation. This little inkling of how the Pope ought to govern the Church through the Curia is to be respected and appreciated by Catholics. Likewise ought we to do all in our power that its letter and spirit be observed.–FR. PETER SCOTT note from the editor Accompanying the letter at right was the document “Moral Reflections on Vaccines Produced from Cells Derived from Aborted Human Fetuses” reprinted here (starting on p.16). The text and footnotes are intact from the original. The Angelus has added the information on p.30 from other sources: a summary of what the document means for Catholics, the NON-FETAL cell line vaccines which Catholics must insist their doctors order for them, and the contact information for the appropriate US government agencies and the offending drug companies to lobby for the availability and development of only ethical vaccines. THE ANGELUS • February 2006 www.angeluspress.org 15 15 Vaccines Prepared from borted Human Fetuses” PONTIFICIA ACADEMIA PRO VITA __________ Il Presidente Prot.n.P/3431 Mrs. Debra L.Vinnedge Executive Director, Children of God for Life 943 Deville Drive East Largo, Florida 33771 Stati Uniti Vatican City, June 9 2005 Dear Mrs. Debra L.Vinnedge, On June 4, 2003, you wrote to His Eminence Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, with a copy of this letter forwarded to me, asking to the Sacred Congregation of the Doctrine of Faith a clarification about the liceity of vaccinating children with vaccines prepared using cell lines derived from aborted human fetuses. Your question regarded in particular the right of the parents of these children to oppose such a vaccination when made at school, mandated by law. As there were no formal guidelines by the magisterium concerning that topic, you said that Catholic parents were often challenged by State Courts, Health Officials and School Administrators when they filled religious exemptions for their children to this type of vaccination. This Pontifical Academy for Life, carrying out the commission entrusted to us by the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith, in answer to your request, has proceeded to a careful examination of the question of these “tainted” vaccines, and has produced as a result a study (in Italian) that has been realized with the help of a group of experts. This study has been approved as such by the Congregation and we send you, there enclosed, an English translation of a synthesis of this study. This synthesis can be brought to the knowledge of the interested officials and organisms. A documented paper on the topic will be published in the journal “Medicina e Morale”, edited by the Centra di Bioetica della Universita Cattolica in Rome. The study, its synthesis, and the translation of this material took some time. We apologize for the delay. With my best regards, Sincerely yours, +E. Sgreccia 00193 Roma - Via della Conciliazione, 1 - Tel. 06 698.82423 - 06 698.81693 - Fax 06 698.82014 www.angeluspress.org THE ANGELUS • February 2006 16 T he matter in question regards the lawfulness of production, distribution, and use of certain vaccines whose production is connected with acts of procured abortion. It concerns vaccines containing live viruses which have been prepared from human cell lines of foetal origin, using tissues from aborted human fetuses as a source of such cells. The best known, and perhaps the most important due to its vast distribution and its use on an almost universal level, is the vaccine against Rubella (German measles). Rubella and Its Vaccine Rubella (German measles)1 is a viral illness caused by a Togavirus of the genus Rubivirus and is characterized by a rash. It consists of an infection which is common in infancy and has no clinical manifestations in one case out of two, is self-limiting and usually benign. Nonetheless, the German measles virus is one of the most pathological infective agents for the embryo and fetus. When a woman catches the infection during pregnancy, especially during the first trimester, the risk of foetal infection is very high (approximately 95%). The virus replicates itself in the placenta and infects the fetus, causing the constellation of abnormalities denoted by the name of Congenital Rubella Syndrome. For example, the severe epidemic of German measles which affected a huge part of the United States in 1964 thus caused 20,000 cases of congenital rubella2, resulting in 11,250 abortions (spontaneous or surgical), 2,100 neonatal deaths, 11,600 cases of deafness, 3,580 cases of blindness, 1,800 cases of mental retardation. It was this epidemic that pushed for the development and introduction on the market of an effective vaccine against rubella, thus permitting an effective prophylaxis against this infection. The severity of congenital rubella and the handicaps which it causes justify systematic vaccination against such a sickness. It is very difficult, perhaps even impossible, to avoid the infection of a pregnant woman, even if the rubella infection of a person in contact with this woman is diagnosed from the first day of the eruption of the rash. Therefore, one tries to prevent transmission by suppressing the reservoir of infection among children who have not been vaccinated, by means of early immunization of all children (universal vaccination). Universal vaccination has resulted in a J.E. Banatvala, D.W.G. Brown, “Rubella,” The Lancet, April 3, 2004, 363, No.9415, 1127-37. 2 “Rubella,” Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, 13, (1964), 93. S.A. Plotkin, “Virologic Assistance in the Management of German Measles in Pregnancy,” JAMA, 190, October 26, 1964, 265-68. 3 L. Hayflick, “The Limited In Vitro Lifetime of Human Diploid Cell Strains,” Experimental Cell Research, 37, No.3 (March 1965), 614-36. G. Sven, S. Plotkin, K. McCarthy, “Gamma Globulin Prophylaxis; Inactivated Rubella Virus; Production and Biological Control of Live Attenuated Rubella Virus Vaccines,” American Journal of Diseases of Children, 118, No.2 (August 1969), 372-81. 4 S. A. Plotkin, D. Cornfeld, T.H. Ingalls, “Studies of Immunization with Living Rubella Virus, Trials in Children with a Strain Coming from an Aborted Fetus,” American Journal of Diseases in Children, 110, No.4 (October 1965), 381-89. 1 considerable fall in the incidence of congenital rubella, with a general incidence reduced to less than 5 cases per 100,000 live births. Nevertheless, this progress remains fragile. In the United States, for example, after an overwhelming reduction in the number of cases of congenital rubella to only a few cases annually, i.e., less than 0.1 per 100,000 live births, a new epidemic wave came on in 1991, with an incidence that rose to 0.8/100,000. Such waves of resurgence of German measles were also seen in 1997 and in the year 2000. These periodic episodes of resurgence make it evident that there is a persistent circulation of the virus among young adults, which is the consequence of insufficient vaccination coverage. The latter situation allows a significant proportion of vulnerable subjects to persist, who are a source of periodic epidemics which put women in the fertile age group who have not been immunized at risk. Therefore, the reduction to the point of eliminating congenital rubella is considered a priority in public health care. Vaccines Currently Produced Using Human Cell Lines That Come from Aborted Fetuses To date, there are two human diploid cell lines which were originally prepared from tissues of aborted fetuses (in 1964 and 1970) and are used for the preparation of vaccines based on live attenuated virus: the first one is the WI-38 line (Wistar Institute 38), with human diploid lung fibroblasts coming from a female fetus that was aborted because the family felt they had too many children (Sven Gard, et al., 1969). It was prepared and developed by Leonard Hayflick in 1964 (Leonard Hayflick, 1965; Sven Gard, et al., 1969)3 and bears the ATCC number CCL-75. WI-38 has been used for the preparation of the historical vaccine RA 27/3 against rubella (S.A. Plotkin et al., 1965).4 The second human cell line is MRC-5 (Medical Research Council 5) (human, lung, embryonic) (ATCC number CCL171), with human lung fibroblasts coming from a 14week male fetus aborted for “psychiatric reasons” from a 27-year-old woman in the UK. MRC-5 was prepared and developed by J.P. Jacobs in 1966 ( J.P. Jacobs et al., 1970)5. Other human cell lines have been developed for pharmaceutical needs, but are not involved in the vaccines actually available.6 (continued on p.27) J.P. Jacobs, C.M. Jones, J.P. Bailie, “Characteristics of a Human Diploid Cell Designated MRC-5,” Nature, 277, July 11, 1970, 168-170. 6 Two other human cell lines, that are permanent, HEK 293 aborted fetal cell line, from primary human embryonic kidney cells transformed by sheared adenovirus type 5 (the fetal kidney material was obtained from an aborted fetus, in 1972 probably), and PER.C6, a fetal cell line created using retinal tissue from an 18-week gestation aborted baby, have been developed for the pharmaceutical manufacturing of adenovirus vectors (for gene therapy). They have not been involved in the making of any of the attenuated live virus vaccines presently in use because of their capacity to develop tumorigenic cells in the recipient. However, some vaccines, still at the developmental stage, against Ebola virus (Crucell NV, and the Vaccine Research Center of the National Institute of Health’s Allergy and Infectious Diseases, NIAID), HIV (Merck), influenza (MedImmune, Sanofi Pasteur), Japanese encephalitis (Crucell NV and Rhein Biotech N.V.) are prepared using PER C6® cell line (Crucell NV, Leiden, The Netherlands). 5 Traditional Religious Orders 17 DOMINICAN F RIARS LA-HAYE-AUX-BONSHOMMES AVRILLÉ, FRANCE Palm Sunday T he monastic life is a big mystery for most people, if they even know it still exists. I remember when I first found out myself, in my second year of “university”; I couldn’t believe it. “What is it like, I wonder?” they ask themselves; and, no doubt, sometimes also: “What do they DO all day?!” This article has been written as an attempt to respond to some of these questions and shed some light on the mystery. A mystery, though, it will remain always, because the religious life truly is a mystery, precisely because the Christian life itself, the life of grace, is a mystery. “Your life is hidden with Christ in God,” says St, Paul. Every single person who is baptized receives this mysterious life of grace within himself–the religious is simply someone who, by his very state in life, is dedicated solely to its fullest possible development, to its perfection. In this sense the religious life is a vocation that is much more general and open to all than the more specific vocation to the priesthood, which requires certain particular aptitudes. Absolutely anyone is susceptible of receiving a religious vocation if God, in His goodness, chooses to give it him. 18 Avrillé This is why during the great Ages of Faith Europe was literally covered with hundreds of monasteries which, far from being “marginalized,” were the very foundation of the Christian civilization that came to be formed there. Amidst the ruins of that civilization, a little shoot has sprung up, a community of traditional Dominicans who have taken over a former monastery in Anjou, France, dating from the 12th century, and have filled it with new life. The purpose of what follows here is to acquaint the reader with that life by describing an average day in the life of a novice at Anjou. We hope that what you read here will encourage you to support us in our endeavor. Unlike the grand monastic orders, the Dominicans have always been a mendicant order (from the Latin mendicare, to beg)–and so we beg for your help in order to continue what we have begun. The first time I heard “it” was very early (it was still dark even though it was in June) in the morning after I arrived. At the end of a marathon 36-hour trip from Ridgefield, Connecticut–including the veritable gauntlet of a New York-Paris charter flight–I showed up at the convent door just as Compline was beginning. The Father Prior ushered me into to church for the Office, and afterwards, too tired to eat, I went straight to bed. Then in what seemed like the middle of the night, I heard, far off, what sounded like a cow-bell being rung in the corridors. The sound passed like a signal bell in the night when you’re sleeping in a train, and I fell into oblivion again. The same thing happened again some time later, and this time there was some light outside already–but I drifted off again, vaguely wondering which office the bell was being rung for. But this morning as I hear it, I know exactly what “it” means. Up! It is 4:50am and time to move. St. Vincent Ferrer says: “At the first sound of the bell shake off all sloth and jump out of the bed as if it were on fire.” Then, first things first, “a prayer of offering.” “Oh! Divine Heart of Jesus; I offer you through the Immaculate Heart of Mary...” After this, gymnastique, ten minutes of exercises, starting with “as many push-ups as you have years,” which for me adds up to quite a few. Once this ordeal is over, wash, dress THE ANGELUS • February 2006 www.angeluspress.org Solemn High Mass Chanting the Divine Office and by 5:20am start the one half hour of Lectio Divina of Sacred Scripture. The “wash” part takes a bit of getting used to, since there is no “private sink”–that wouldn’t be exactly monastic–but just a basin and pitcher. It is surprisingly difficult at first and no doubt more than one would-be postulant has dashed his hopes of becoming a Dominican on this little reef, but after a week it seems completely normal. Monastery Cloister 19 Catholic Church. This manifestation which appeared immediately after the death of Our Lord Himself, of these persons wanting to consecrate themselves totally to Him...manifests precisely the sanctity of Our Lord Jesus Christ....The Church cannot do without the religious orders! The Church cannot do without the testimony of her sanctity. The Church would no longer be holy if there were not souls who consecrated themselves to God definitively. If there were no more...religious orders, the Church would no longer manifest her sanctity. But this is an essential note of the Church. And it is the most convincing one; for simple souls the note of sanctity is more important than all the others, the most apparent, and the most compelling. Simple souls are convinced by this sanctity which is manifested in the souls who consecrate themselves to God. e In 1981 when His Grace, Archbishop Lefebvre received the perpetual vows of Fr. Innocent-Marie here at the convent, he justified the establishment of this community of Dominicans outside the strict canonical rules by saying: I believe that one can truly say that the Catholic Church, without its religious orders, without these pronouncements of vows, would no longer be the After Lectio Divina there is another half hour before Lauds, which is usually utilized for one’s morning meditation, although one is free to do it at some other time if one wishes. This morning I take as my subject an article in the Summa of St. Thomas which asks the question “Whether Christ was able to merit for others.” This is something that I have always wondered about–why is it that one can say Christ’s merits are applied to us? For the saints and even for Our Lady this is not possible–they can pray for us, obviously, and obtain graces for us more or less in proportion to their merits, but one can never say of them that their merits are “applied” to us. St. Thomas, as he so often does, has a simple answer with a stunning depth that not only answers the question but throws a sudden light on everything: “I answer that, as was said above. In Christ, grace was not present merely as in a certain singular man, but as in the head of the whole Church, to which all are united as members to a head, out of which is constituted mystically one person (mystice una persona). And thus it is that the merit of Christ extends itself to the others insofar as they are His members; just as also in a single man, the action of the head pertains in a certain way to all of his members...” (III, Q.19, Art.4). This is why, then, His merits can be truly said to be applied to us, because once we are “incorporated” into Him by baptism www.angeluspress.org THE ANGELUS • February 2006 20 we form mystically one person with Him, and thus His acts become truly “ours.” Obviously this cannot be said of any of the saints, not even Our Lady, for one is not baptized into Peter of Paul, but rather they, together with all of us, are baptized into Christ and become members of Him. No wonder then St. Paul speaks so often of this mystery of being “in Christ,” “in Whom we have redemption, the remission of our sins” (Col. 1:14), which means to say that we have redemption precisely because we are “in Him” and thus the merits of His actions, in particular the punishment He endured during the Passion, can be applied to us. Or, as he says in another place, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 8:1). At 6:20am the Brother walks down the hall once more ringing the bell, signaling the beginning of Lauds. The sound of doors opening and steps descending accompany the last knells of the bell as I join the others in proceeding to the church. The staircase dates from the 18th century, which is conspicuous here rather for being recent than for being ancient, for the convent itself dates back to the 12th century. As you enter the church itself, the full impact of this is made manifest because it is the section that has remained most unchanged since that time. When you look at the 800-year-old 5-foot thick walls of solid stone you can understand why, too; even the ravages of the French Revolution couldn’t tear down something like that. The architecture inside is very simple and beautiful. Three huge windows slot the semicircle of the sanctuary at the east end, with the altar and the tabernacle in the center. Choir stalls line each wall up to the Communion rail, and after that there are slender wooden pews for the people who come and fill the church, which is by no means small, every Sunday. The total impression given by the stone and the arched vault above and the whole atmosphere can be summed up in one word, medieval. I remember a remark of Michael Davies about his first impression on his first visit to Ecône: “It was as if the Council had never happened!” Here at Avrillé, in the solid enclosure of these invincible stone vaults with an ancient painting of Our Lady hovering over you on the back wall of the sanctuary, and Christ in glory at the apex of the ceiling above the altar, one feels inclined to say, rather: “It is as if the Reformation had never happened!” Two heavy raps by the Father Prior on the choir stall indicate that Lauds is to begin. A profound bow, (elbows to your knees, legs and back straight) for the space of a Pater Noster, and then we rise, turn toward the altar and the Hebdomadary intones, “In resurrectione tua Domine,” and we respond “Caeli et terra laetentur. Deus in adjutorium meum intende. Domino ad adjuvandum me festina–Come unto my help, O God! O Lord, make haste to help me!” The official prayer of the Church for the day has started, as always, with this cry for help–and not once, but twice in a row to make sure that it is clear. “Come unto my help, O God! O Lord, make haste to help me!” Immediately the situation between ourselves and God is clarified and dramatized–whole tomes of the theology of grace are crystallized in two simple verses that say it all: THE ANGELUS • February 2006 www.angeluspress.org Library Studying “Come unto my help, O God! O Lord, make haste to help me!” For centuries and centuries now it has been like this. The monks who chanted Lauds in this very church in the year 1200 said the same words as we do this morning. And why not? It is the same Church, the same God, the same fallen human nature now as it was then–what has changed? Why should there be any difference? Community Hike 21 the author “Dominus regnavit, exsultet terra.–The Lord has reigned, let the earth exalt.” We on the epistle side sit for the first psalm, interchanging verses with the other choir. “Laetentur insulae multae.–Let the many isles rejoice!” The general theme of Lauds, as its name indicates, is the praise of God. The psalms chosen emphasize this, filling our mouths and souls with words of praise inspired by the Holy Ghost. First thing in the morning things are put in perspective: one lifts one’s mind to God first, before everything else. As St. John Damascene says: “Oratio est ascensus mentis in Deum.–Prayer is the ascent of the mind toward God.” “Quoniam tu Dominus Altissimus super omnem terram; nimis exaltatus es super omnes deos–For Thou art the Lord Most High over all the earth: Thou art exalted exceedingly above all gods.” These exuberant 15 minutes or so of praise while we chant the psalms are like a refreshing shower for the soul as it begins the day cleansing it of its little selfpreoccupations, centering it on Him Who is. “Qui diligitis Dominum odite malum; custodit Dominus animas sanctorum suorum, de manu peccatoris liberabit eos.” A very “un-ecumenical” exhortation this: “You who love the Lord, hate evil”; and encouragement, too: “the Lord protects the souls of His saints and frees them from the hand of the sinner.” God knows, one needs this encouragement especially today. The Dominican vocation is to go out in the midst of the evil, especially doctrinal evil, and fight it head on. To do this you have to be already clear in the conviction that God is with you or you will be beaten before you start. That is why the Office is so important in our Order (it is to be said in its entirety in common) because unless he has been filled with the light and the courage of the Holy Spirit through prayer in advance the Brother Preacher will not be able to fulfill his vocation on “the outside.” And indeed the liturgy in general, the public prayer of the Church, is very important today not just for our Order, but in an absolute sense, because it is an antidote to the terrible individualism which has grown up in the world since the advent of Protestantism. Luther smashed the very idea of objective, exterior, “public” truth by substituting individual private conscience for external public authority, thus paving the way to liberalism and modernism, which are really just flip sides of the same individualist coin. The idea that everyone has the right to personally believe whatever he wants, free from any exterior restraint (liberalism), leads to and implies the idea that “my” faith has its source in myself, and is reality just an expression of my self rather than an external truth that I receive from outside (modernism). The public, exterior, communal nature of the liturgy is diametrically opposed to this sort of navel-gazing: my own private prayer is not the basis but rather is grafted on to the common root of the prayer of the Church herself. Even just psychologically this has a tremendous effect: the physical fact that my prayer is out loud together with others all praying the same thing is already three giant steps out into external reality and out of myself. And since it is a question of the public prayer of the Church, this reality is divine and absolutely solid and sure, a reality you can lean on without fear of delusion, and even plunge yourself into (as in the case of a sung Mass, for example). This plague of individualism is present Catholics, even traditionalist Catholics, who don’t understand its Protestant roots, and even especially in them in their reaction to the post-Vatican II propaganda which insists on “community” in a totally horizontal way, and so camouflages the Catholic truth by caricaturing it (much as Communism does the social doctrine of the Church). The spirit of Catholicism is summed up on this point by the Imitation of Christ when it says: “He who adheres to a private good loses that which is common.” A very profound observation, especially when one remembers St. Thomas’s teaching that God is “the Common Good of the whole universe.” Once Lauds is completed, the Martyrology is read. This wonderful book is a catalog of all the saints of www.angeluspress.org THE ANGELUS • February 2006 22 Harvesting Stonecarving the whole Catholic Church throughout history, and provides a daily exposition of the marvelous fruits of sanctity of the Body of Christ. One is amazed to learn that there is “a saint for every day!” There are many more than just one–some days hundreds, even thousands, are presented for our veneration. The brief notes recorded about them often reveal startlingly vivid tableaux of the different situations in which they offered their sacrifice, and show the contrast between their faith and heroism, and the ignorance and brutality of the pagans in the midst of whom they lived. Examples: In Campania, commemoration of eighty holy martyrs who, when they would not eat meat sacrificed to idols, and adore the head of a goat, were most cruelly slaughtered by the Lombards. Another: In Alexandria, the passion of St. Julian, martyr, who with two of his slaves, was delivered to the judge; of which one denied the Faith, while the other, Eunus by name, persevered with his master in the confession of Christ. Julian and Eunus were ordered to be placed on camels and led around the city, to be torn to pieces with scourges and, finally, while the people looked on, to be burned in a flaming pyre. Then is added: In the same place, St. Besa the soldier who, when he attempted to silence those who were insulting these martyrs, was taken to the judge and, constant in his profession of the Faith, was beheaded. The Office is completed by 6:50am, and is followed by a Mass in the Church. There is another Mass in the Chapter Room after Terce, the next hour of the Office at 11am, and normally the novices go to that Mass unless they are impeded by having to work in the kitchen or serve another Mass of one of the other priests. Also twice during the week (as well as, of course, on Sundays) we have a sung Mass at 11am, and so on those days all the other Masses are said right after Lauds. Normally then, once Lauds is over, the work of the day begins, which includes an hour, or perhaps two, of kitchen work or dish washing, as well as one half hour of Latin (plus a half hour of French for me), and three quarters of an hour of private study of the Catechism of the Council of Trent, plus, finally, a half hour of spiritual reading. On top of this there are two 40-minute conferences every day given by the Father Prior and the Master of Novices, during which are taught the Rule of the Order, and the basic principles of the spiritual life. When you add up all these hours theoretically there is supposed to be time in the day to fit all THE ANGELUS • February 2006 www.angeluspress.org The Bakery these things in, but somehow, often it doesn’t work out that way. One suspects at times that this is done on purpose–at any rate, one soon learns to give up any idea of having some “extra time for oneself.” While I was deciding if I ought to stay here or not, I must admit this problem was a big obstacle at first. I thought of all the things that I need to learn, and do still, and how if I stayed here I would be using a large portion of my time at least at the beginning, just working in the kitchen, sweeping floors, etc. “I haven’t got the time to be doing that now, not at my age. I’ve got to get going.” But one day, while I was working in the kitchen, my eyes fell on L 23 Laundry Room the Crucifix, and it struck me how immobile Our Lord was there, and yet how He was, as it were, flying towards God by doing that, and taking the whole world with Him. He wasn’t “doing” anything, not even speaking very much, but because His will was united to His Father’s, He was serving the world. It’s hard to explain, but I understood something there–that it is not a matter of making our way ourselves, but rather simply using our efforts first “to get on the ship” as it were, and then just to stay there. The ship will get us where we are going by itself. My job this week is to help in the kitchen, starting at 9:15am, which means I can go to Mass after Terce, so after Lauds I spend an hour on Latin and French before going to breakfast. This petit dejeuner is, of course, very petit in comparison to the bacon and eggs, and toast, and jams, and juice I was use to at home. It consists of hot milk or water with coffee or tea or chicory, plus as many slices as you want of a very good whole wheat bread. (No jam or marmalade, unless you are a guest, but there is honey to put in your tea or café au lait if you like.) The hour I have left before going to work in the kitchen, I spent today on my special task, which is taking care of any recordings that have to be made or listened to. It adds up to quite a bit because the brothers who are studying follow some courses from Ecône on tapes, and also on feast days. Instead of a reading at table, we listen to recordings of past sermons and conferences given by Archbishop Lefebvre. We are lucky because in this way we hear more of his talks than the seminarians at Ecône even. Also, we novices do the course of the Acts of the Magisterium on the papal teachings against liberalism and modernism by listening to the course of the Archbishop himself, recorded in 1977-78. At 10:15am, after the hour in the kitchen is over, we novices have a class on the Constitutions of the Order with the Father Prior. We are, in fact (and certain Dominicans have told us as much themselves) the only Dominican community in the world that is still faithful to the Constitutions of the Order because, after the Council, the “official” Dominicans completely “revised” the Rule to such an extent that they changed the essence of the Dominican life. They did this by suppressing almost entirely the monastic principles of the Order, that is, the Divine Office in common, the silence, the fasts and abstinence from meat, the Chapter of faults, in short, all the things that made a Dominican a true contemplative. The essence of a Dominican is to be a preacher, and combine the two things simultaneously: a monastic life and an apostolic life of preaching. St. Dominic insisted that his brothers go out in the world and preach. But, he retained the monastic traditions, and even made them more strict, seeing in them the key to arriving at the contemplation that has to be the basis of any efficacious preaching. Everything in the Dominican life is ordered towards this ideal, including, and especially, the studies, which are not an end in themselves, but a means to arrive at being a true preacher of the divine Word “which implanted in you can save your souls.” The stereotype of a Dominican as a “little man in a room full of books” is completely false. Was St. Vincent Ferrer, the “angel of the Apocalypse” who traversed Europe with his troupe of flagellants, scourging a corrupt Christendom with his menaces of judgment, “a little man”? Did St. Hyacinth, who went from Poland to Sweden and over the Caucusus Mountains all the way to Mongolia and back, converting whole peoples to Christ, spend his days in “a room full of books”? Above all, was St. Dominic, who sold all his books (“annotated by his own hand,” an early chronicler poignantly remarks) during a famine in order to buy bread for the poor an “intellectual”? St. Thomas himself said he learned more at the foot of his crucifix than from any book he ever read. The true “intellectualism” of the Dominicans is based on what God the Father said to St. Catherine of www.angeluspress.org THE ANGELUS • February 2006 24 Siena about St. Dominic: “He exercises the office in the Church of My Divine Word,” which means that he is to be, as the antiphon we sing to him at Compline says, the Lumen Ecclesiae, Doctor Veritatis–the light of the Church, the Doctor of Truth. But this Word is not sterile and abstract–it results in Charity as its natural term. And so the Dominican does not rest in his little room like the rich man in the parable, feasting on divine truths while the poor Lazarus, who is modem man, is dying outside in the dark. He goes out, rather, and seeks him in the hedges and highways, his heart full, as it is said of St. Dominic himself by those who knew him, “of a surprising and almost incredible ambition for the salvation of all men.” The morning class is followed by Terce at 11am, which begins with a humble prayer that the Holy Spirit “deign to pour Himself out in us and overflow in our hearts.” Then Holy Mass is celebrated, according, of course, to the traditional Dominican rite. Having imbibed the spirit of devotion of the Society of St. Pius X for the Holy Mass during their years of study at Ecône, the Fathers here place great importance on it in the spiritual life of all the Brothers and for the community as a whole. This again follows the spirit of St. Dominic who, his first companions report, said Mass with such devotion that “his eyes and whole countenance were bathed in tears.” The Holy Eucharist has always been one of the fundamental devotions of the Order. The whole Church, in fact, owes its magnificent liturgy of the Feast of Corpus Christi to St. Thomas Aquinas. One of the tasks of the novices is to learn by heart all the hymns of this office, plus the sequence of the Mass; also, each time one goes into the Church one says the antiphon O Sacrum Convivium and the prayer Deus qui nobis sub sacramento mirabili, asking for a true veneration of this Blessed Sacrament. Also they take a whole course which examines the texts of the Mass from the beginning to the end. At 12:20pm the bell rings for Sext. “Rector potens, verax Deus, qui temperas rerum vices–Mighty Ruler, Faithful God, Who regulates the changing world.” Yeats’s verse “The centre cannot hold” received its refutation here by this hymn at the center of the day to Him Who is the Center of all, “the still point of the turning world.” He does hold, and one can pour out one’s weakness upon Him and find strength... “Miserere mei Deus, miserere mei, quoniam in te confidit anima mea. Et in umbra alarum tuarum spera donec transeat iniquitas.–Have mercy on me O God, have mercy on me, for in Thee has my soul put its trust. And in the shadow of Thy wings I shall hope until iniquity has passed....” When Sext is over, after a short examination of conscience and the Angelus, we process from the church to the refectory for dinner. It is taken entirely in silence so that, as St. Augustine says in His Rule, which is the basic text of our life, “not only your mouths partake of God but also your ears may hunger for the word of God.” Normally it is a book on the THE ANGELUS • February 2006 www.angeluspress.org history of the Order which is read, but often other things of interest are read as well: for example certain articles of SiSiNoNo, or even other books (for instance we read Iota Unum this year, an exhaustive study of the crisis in the Church) [SiSiNoNo and Iota Unum are both available from Angelus Press. Call for prices and availability–Ed.]. The evening meal is also in silence with a reading from the life of a saint. The Rule is very strict on this; not even the Master General can dispense from silence at table. After dinner until None at 2pm we have our recreation for the day, which is invariably spent on a walk together in the woods of the property. On Sundays and feast days we walk to the “Field of Martyrs” about 10 minutes away, where 2,000 men, women, and children were murdered for their Faith during the Revolution. Thanks to the descendants of these victims, in spite of the Socialist bishop’s attempts to have it demolished, there still stands at the site a beautiful chapel to commemorate them. We pray a decade of the Rosary and sing the beautiful song to Our Lady which the martyrs themselves sang while waiting to be put in the trenches and shot: I put my trust, O Virgin in thy help, Be my defense everywhere and always. And when my last hour comes to fix my destiny. Obtain that I die a most holy death. After None there is a period of free time (during which one can take a nap if one wishes) until 3pm when a brother rings the bell in the corridor again, and the novices and lay brothers go to the church for the Rosary in common. For a Dominican, of 25 course, the Rosary is everything. I’ll never forget a statue I saw once in a Dominican convent in Quebec of Our Lady giving the Rosary to St. Dominic. He was kneeling before her, broken–and the beads she was giving him seemed to pour into this brokenness, revivifying it, and his face was in an ecstasy of gratitude for this. If St. Dominic could not succeed in suppressing an upstart heresy in a corner of France, and had to turn to her for help, what about us, who are faced with “the synthesis of all heresies,” which has taken over the whole Catholic Church? “Rejoice Virgin Mary. Thou alone has destroyed all the heresies in the whole world.” The day is coming when we will sing this antiphon in the fullness of its truth–but not before we all learn the meaning of this: “Thou Alone.” After the Rosary there is work or study again until the class by the Novice Master at 5:15pm on Spirituality. Here we are taught in detail the principles of the spiritual life (using particularly the works of Garrigou-Lagrange, the great Dominican who taught so many years at the Angelicum) as well as all the traditional practices in the Order which we are to use to grow in this life. There is great emphasis put on the fact that it is not a set of rules or a “method” but a “Life,” a divine life based on grace, which is a direct participation in the very life of God Himself. The Dominican Rule, it is true, is austere, requires a certain virility of the will, but this activity of our will is always conceived of in relation to grace which must be the motor also of our own acts of will if they are to be of any value in progressing in the spiritual life. Grace is this motor, the living water which Our Lord promised to the Samaritan woman, that multiplies itself, a drink that becomes a fountain inside you: “the water which I will give to him...will become a fountain of water mounting up to eternal life.” Or, as Our Lord puts it in another place, “The Kingdom of heaven is like a man who takes a seed and throws it on the ground and goes to sleep and gets up night and day, and the seed germinates and grows and he knows not how.” What peace the meditation of this doctrine gives to the soul: all our worried introspection is forgotten in an elan of confidence in God. As Pascal says: “Be comforted: your salvation will not come from yourself.” There is, of course, an effort of will on our part, but this itself, according to St. Paul, must come from Him “who works in you both to will and to do what is pleasing to Him.” Divine grace is the talent of silver which God gives to us, and we must accept this silver into the mainstream of our lives working with it: the last thing to do with it is to marginalize it, putting off to the side as something too extraordinary, too “mystical,” like the servant who “buried the silver of his master in the ground.” I remember Bishop Williamson talking about how Our Lord much prefers the houses where His Sacred Heart is exposed in an old, worn image in the kitchen, to those where it is enthroned with a certain diffident respect in a parlor where no one ever goes. Another aspect of the spiritual formation of novices comes from our Constitutions, which mention specifically: “The novices shall be taught to descend the degrees of humility.” Our intellectual vocation exposes us to the terrible danger of pride, so deep foundations of this virtue of humility must be established at the beginning, lest the knowledge we receive later “inflate” our souls, rendering them full of self instead of full of God. For this end there are always the inevitable little trials that community life supplies in abundance, which are all the more effective in that they are so small, and so can avoid the “distant early warning” systems of our pride. Combined with this there are certain monastic practices as well. One which is specific to the Dominicans is the Venia, an immediate prostration upon the floor which one performs when one commits a fault. Also, twice a week there is the “chapter of faults,” during which the Brothers accuse themselves before the community of the exterior infractions they have committed against the Rule. The devil was once obliged to admit to St. Dominic about the Chapter Room: “I hate that room above all the places in the monastery, because there I lose all that I have gained everywhere else!” Vespers follows immediately after the class. The day is rapidly approaching its end now, as we sing the hymn: Dark chaos is falling, Hear these prayers mingled with tears. The primary duty of a religious is to Pray: he is literally a professional. It is for this that the faithful support him, and so he is bound to put his heart and soul into these words which pray to God for each member of the Mystical Body; “Hear...lest the soul weighted down by its crimes be exiled from the gift of life, and while it think of nothing eternal, bind itself with its sins.” After Vespers is supper, then a half-hour free before Compline at 7:30pm. Tonight I take this time to do the evening meditation. I think back on what I meditated on this morning; St. Thomas talking about how we are mystice una persona with Christ and how that explains why we can say His merits are applied to us. This gives a new realism to the phrase “Mystical Body of Christ.” I remember once battling a Scripture professor in Toronto (St. Peter’s Seminary), who wanted to dismiss it as a mere “image.” He could not have been more wrong; it is a reality. This is why Our Lord could say to St. Paul because of his persecution of the Church, “Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me?” (Acts 9:4). Things make a lot more sense now. It explains too, in fact, the great importance and value of all our suffering in this life. If we are–and we are–truly mystice una persona with Christ, our sufferings really do have value because they are truly His. Just www.angeluspress.org THE ANGELUS • February 2006 26 as His merits are applied to us by our incorporation into His Body, so, if one can be so bold as to put it this way, our “merits” are applied to Him too. And so, as St. Paul says, “We fill up what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ.” The bell sounds for Compline and all the brothers assemble in the Church. This Office has a special solemnity in our Order: it is always sung and the whole community participates, even those who are exempt from other Offices because of studies, etc. Night has fallen and we gather under the wings of our Holy Mother the Church, asking with her and in her for God’s mercy and protection. It begins with a cry of warning; “Fratres, sobrii estote–Brothers, be sober and watch; your adversary the devil is lurking around seeking someone to devour.” In response to this chilling admonition, a profound bow, during which the brothers examine their actions of the day to see what ways they have failed in vigilance and have not resisted the devil; followed by the Confiteor and absolution. “A strange way to control your children,” you might say, “it seems more like trying to scare them to death!” But the Church’s comfort is no mere superficiality: it is real and goes to the depths of the soul. In the face of the oncoming night, and the death that this night represents, before everything else, she has her children face what they are afraid of: the devil and their sins. They are thus prepared to receive then the remedies God wants to give them. As one of the antiphons in Lent puts it: Alas, O Lord, since I have sinned so much, what can I do, where can I find refuge, if not in Thee? The psalms and prayers which follow are redolent with a profound peace full of confidence and thanksgiving: He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will pass the night in the shadow of the Most High. He will say to the Lord; Thou art my help and my refuge...For He has delivered me from the snare of the hunter’s and from the harsh word....His truth will surround thee like a shield; thou shalt not be afraid of the terror of the night. This peace is underlined always by the tone of finality that characterizes the whole office: “In manus tuas, Domine, commendo spiritum meum.–Into Thy hands, O Lord I, commend my spirit.” We must integrate this silver of divine grace into the very heart of our everyday lives, letting it lift us up to a height we could never even have imagined reaching on our own, true, but which we must not be afraid of on that account And if we are bold and faithful, we will see it prosper and multiply by its own power. To conclude the office, and the whole day, we proceed from the choir stalls to the statue of Our Lady at the entrance of the church singing the solemn Salve Regina. Thus the day comes to an end before her whom our Holy Father St. Dominic has taught us to love above all else–and what child goes to THE ANGELUS • February 2006 www.angeluspress.org bed without first exchanging “kisses with Mother”? When we get to the words “Eia ergo” all kneel and the hebdomadary takes holy water and blesses all the brothers, in reminiscence of the famous vision St. Dominic had one night in Rome when he saw Our Lady herself passing through the dormitory blessing the brothers with holy water as they slept. When he asked the Lady who she was, she responded: “I am she whom you invoke each night, and when you say ‘Eia ergo advocata nostra’ I prostrate myself before my Son for the conservation of this Order.” (Exactly the same thing has been related by other holy members of the Order in other revelations–does our little community perhaps owe its existence to this mysterious prostration in heaven of the Immaculate Virgin before her Son for the Order of St. Dominic?) “And then he was suddenly rapt in vision before God,” reports Sister Cecilia, who heard all of this from the lips of St. Dominic himself when he recounted it to the sisters at St. Sixtus in Rome, “as if it had happened to someone else.” The chronicler tells us, but the brothers who accompanied him and had heard it from himself, made signs to the sisters indicating that in reality it had happened to him. And he saw the Lord and the Blessed Virgin seated at his right; and it seemed to him that Our Lady was covered with a mantle the color of sapphire. And the blessed Dominic looking around saw the religious of all the Orders before God, but not finding any of his own he began to weep most bitterly, and standing off at a distance dared not approach Our Lord and His Mother. Our Lady made signs to him with her hand to come. But he still did not dare to approach until the Lord Himself called him. The blessed Dominic then came and prostrated himself before them in tears. The Lord told him to rise, and when he was standing, asked him: “Why are you weeping so bitterly?” He responded: “I am weeping like this because I see here the religious of all Orders, but of mine I don’t see any.’” And the Lord said to him: “Do you want to see your Order?” He replied trembling: “Yes, Lord.” Then the Lord, putting His hand on the shoulder of the Blessed Virgin, said to blessed Dominic: “I have confided your Order to My Mother.” And He said to him again:” “Do you absolutely want to see it?” He replied, “Yes Lord.” Then the Blessed Virgin opened the mantle with which she appeared to be clothed and spread it out before blessed Dominic. The mantle was so large that it seemed to cover all of heaven; and, under it, he saw a great multitude of Brothers. Then blessed Dominic, prostrating himself, gave thanks to God and to Blessed Mary, his Mother, and the vision disappeared. For information: Fraternité Saint-Dominique Couvent de la Haye-aux-Bonshommes F – 49240 AVRILLÉ FRANCE Phone : [33] (2) 41.69.20.06 Fax : [33] (2) 41.34.40.49 27 (continued from p.16) The vaccines that are incriminated today as using human cell lines from aborted fetuses, WI-38 and MRC-5, are the following7: Live Vaccines Against Rubella8 ● the monovalent vaccines against rubella Meruvax®II (Merck, United States), Rudivax® (Sanofi Pasteur, France), and Ervevax® (RA 27/3) (GlaxoSmithKline, Belgium); ● the combined vaccine MR against rubella and measles, commercialized with the name of MRVAX® (Merck, US) and Rudi-Rouvax® (AVP, France); ● the combined vaccine against rubella and mumps marketed under the name of Biavax®II (Merck, US), ● the combined vaccine MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) against rubella, mumps and measles, marketed under the name of MMR® II (Merck, US), R.O.R.®, Trimovax® (Sanofi Pasteur, France), and Priorix® (GlaxoSmithKline, UK). Other Vaccines also Prepared Using Human Cell Lines from Aborted Fetuses ● two vaccines against hepatitis A, one produced by Merck (VAQTA®), the other one produced by GlaxoSmithKline (HAVRIX®), both of them being prepared using MRC-5; ● one vaccine against chickenpox, Varivax®, produced by Merck using WI-38 and MRC-5; ● one vaccine against poliomyelitis, the inactivated polio virus vaccine Poliovax® (Aventis-Pasteur, France) using MRC-5; ● one vaccine against rabies, Imovax®, produced by Aventis Pasteur, harvested from infected human diploid cells, MRC-5 strain; ● one vaccine against smallpox, Acambix 1000®, prepared by Orovax/Acambis using MRC-5, still on trial. 7 Against these various infectious diseases, there are some alternative vaccines that are prepared using animals’ cells or tissues, and are therefore ethically acceptable. Their availability depends on the country in question. Concerning the particular case of the United States, there are no options for the time being in that country for the vaccination against rubella, chickenpox, and hepatitis A, other than the vaccines proposed by Merck prepared using the human cell lines WI-38 and MRC-5. There is a vaccine against smallpox prepared with the VERO cell line (derived from the kidney of an African green monkey), ACAM2000® (Acambis-Baxter) (a second-generation smallpox vaccine, stockpiled, not approved in the US), which offers, therefore, an alternative to the Acambix 1000®. There are alternative vaccines against mumps (Mumpsvax®, Merck), measles (Attenuvax®, Merck), rabies (RabAvert®, Chiron Therapeutics), prepared from chicken embryos. (However, serious allergies have occurred with such vaccines), poliomyelitis (IPOL®, Aventis-Pasteur, prepared with monkey kidney cells) and smallpox (a third-generation smallpox vaccine MVA®, Modified Vaccinia Ankara, Acambis-Baxter). In Europe and in Japan, there are other vaccines available against rubella and hepatitis A produced using non-human cell lines. The Kitasato Institute produces four vaccines against rubella, called Takahashi®, The Position of the Ethical Problem Related to These Vaccines From the point of view of prevention of viral diseases such as German measles, mumps, measles, chickenpox, and hepatitis A, it is clear that the making of effective vaccines against diseases such as these, as well as their use in the fight against these infections, up to the point of eradication, by means of an obligatory vaccination of all the population at risk, undoubtedly represents a “milestone” in the secular fight of man against infective and contagious diseases. However, as the same vaccines are prepared from viruses taken from the tissues of fetuses that had been infected and voluntarily aborted, and the viruses were subsequently attenuated and cultivated from human cell lines which come likewise from procured abortions, they do not cease to pose ethical problems. The need to articulate a moral reflection on the matter in question arises mainly from the connection which exists between the vaccines mentioned above and the procured abortions from which biological material necessary for their preparation was obtained. If someone rejects every form of voluntary abortion of human fetuses, would such a person not contradict himself or herself by allowing the use of these vaccines of live attenuated viruses on their children? Would it not be a matter of true (and illicit) cooperation in evil, even though this evil was carried out 40 years ago? Before proceeding to consider this specific case, we need to recall briefly the principles assumed in classical moral doctrine with regard to the problem of cooperation in evil,9 a problem which arises every time that a moral agent perceives the existence of a link between his own acts and a morally evil action carried out by others. TO-336®, and Matuba®, prepared with cells from rabbit kidney, and one (Matuura®) prepared with cells from a quail embryo. The Chemo-SeroTherapeutic Research Institute Kaketsuken produces one another vaccine against hepatitis A, called Aimmugen®, prepared with cells from monkey kidney. The only remaining problem is with the vaccine Varivax® against chickenpox, for which there is no alternative. 8 The vaccine against rubella using the strain Wistar RA27/3 of live attenuated rubella virus, adapted and propagated in WI-38 human diploid lung fibroblasts is at the center of present controversy regarding the morality of the use of vaccines prepared with the help of human cell lines coming from aborted fetuses. 9 D.M. Prummer, O.P., “De Cooperatione ad Malum,” in Manuale Theologiae Moralis secundum Principia S. Thomae Aquinatis, Tomus I (Friburgi Brisgoviae: Herder & Co., 1923), Pars I, Trat. IX, Caput III, §2, 429-34. K.H. Peschke, “Cooperation in the Sins of Others,” in Christian Ethics: Moral Theology in the Light of Vatican II, Vol.I, General Moral Theology, revised edition (Arden Forest Industrial Estate, Alcester, Warwickshire, B49 6ER: C. Goodliffe Neale Ltd., 1986), 320-24. 28 The Principle of “Licit Cooperation in Evil” The first fundamental distinction to be made is that between formal and material cooperation. Formal cooperation is carried out when the moral agent cooperates with the immoral action of another person, sharing in the latter’s evil intention. On the other hand, when a moral agent cooperates with the immoral action of another person, without sharing his or her evil intention, it is a case of material cooperation. Material cooperation can be further divided into categories of immediate (direct) and mediate (indirect), depending on whether the cooperation is in the execution of the sinful action per se, or whether the agent acts by fulfilling the conditions–either by providing instruments or products–which make it possible to commit the immoral act. Furthermore, forms of proximate cooperation and remote cooperation can be distinguished, in relation to the “distance” (be it in terms of temporal space or material connection) between the act of cooperation and the sinful act committed by someone else. Immediate material cooperation is always proximate, while mediate material cooperation can be either proximate or remote. Formal cooperation is always morally illicit because it represents a form of direct and intentional participation in the sinful action of another person.10 Material cooperation can sometimes be illicit (depending on the conditions of the “double effect” or “indirect voluntary” action), but when immediate material cooperation concerns grave attacks on human life, it is always to be considered illicit, given the precious nature of the value in question.11 A further distinction made in classical morality is that between active (or positive) cooperation in evil and passive (or negative) cooperation in evil, the former referring to the performance of an act of cooperation in a sinful action that is carried out by another person, while the latter refers to the omission of an act of denunciation or impediment of a sinful action carried out by another person, insomuch as there was a moral duty to do that which was omitted.12 Passive cooperation can also be formal or material, immediate or mediate, proximate or remote. Obviously, every type of formal passive cooperation is to be considered illicit, but even passive material cooperation should generally be avoided, although it is admitted (by many authors) that there is not a rigorous obligation to avoid it in a case in which it would be greatly difficult to do so. Application to the use of vaccines prepared from cells coming from embryos or fetuses aborted voluntarily in the specific case under examination, there are three categories of people who are involved in the cooperation in evil, evil which is obviously represented by the action of a voluntary abortion performed by others: a) those who prepare the vaccines using human cell lines coming from voluntary abortions; b) those who participate in the mass marketing of such vaccines; c) those who need to use them for health reasons. Firstly, one must consider morally illicit every form of formal cooperation (sharing the evil intention) in the action of those who have performed a voluntary abortion, which in turn has allowed the retrieval of foetal tissues, required for the preparation of vaccines. Therefore, whoever–regardless of the category to which he belongs–cooperates in some way, sharing its intention, to the performance of a voluntary abortion with the aim of producing the above-mentioned vaccines, participates, in actuality, in the same moral evil as the person who has performed that abortion. Such participation would also take place in the case where someone, sharing the intention of the abortion, refrains from denouncing or criticizing this illicit action, although having the moral duty to do so (passive formal cooperation). In a case where there is no such formal sharing of the immoral intention of the person who has performed the abortion, any form of cooperation would be material, with the following specifications. As regards the preparation, distribution, and marketing of vaccines produced as a result of the use of biological material whose origin is connected with cells coming from fetuses voluntarily aborted, such a process is stated, as a matter of principle, morally illicit, because it could contribute in encouraging the performance of other voluntary abortions, with the purpose of the production of such vaccines. Nevertheless, it should be recognized that, within the chain of production-distribution-marketing, the various cooperating agents can have different moral responsibilities. However, there is another aspect to be considered, and that is the form of passive material cooperation which would be carried out by the producers of these vaccines, if they do not denounce and reject publicly the original immoral act (the voluntary abortion), and if they do not dedicate themselves together to research and promote alternative ways, exempt from moral evil, for the production of vaccines for the same infections. Such passive material cooperation, if it should occur, is equally illicit. As regards those who need to use such vaccines for reasons of health, it must be emphasized that, apart from every form of formal cooperation, in general, doctors or parents who resort to the use of these vaccines for their children, in spite of knowing their origin (voluntary abortion), carry out a form of very remote mediate material cooperation, and thus very mild, in the performance of the original act of abortion, and a mediate material cooperation, with regard to the marketing of cells coming from abortions, and A. Fisher, “Cooperation in Evil,” Catholic Medical Quarterly, 1994, 5-22. D. Tettamanzi, “Cooperazione,” in Dizionario di Bioetica, S. Leone, S. Privitera eds., (Istituto Siciliano di Bioetica, EDB-ISB, 1994), 194-98. L. Melina, “La cooperazione con azioni moralmente cattive contra la vita umana,” in Commentario Interdisciplinare alia “Evangelium Vitae”, E. Sgreccia, Ramon Luca Lucas ed., (Rome: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1997), 467-90. E. Sgreccia, Manuale di Bioetica, Vol.I, reprint of the third edition (Milan: Vita e Pensiero, 1999), 362-63. 11 Cf. John Paul II, Enc. Evangelium Vitae, §74. 12 Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1868. 10 29 immediate, with regard to the marketing of vaccines produced with such cells. The cooperation is therefore more intense on the part of the authorities and national health systems that accept the use of the vaccines. However, in this situation, the aspect of passive cooperation is that which stands out most. It is up to the faithful and citizens of upright conscience (fathers of families, doctors, etc.) to oppose, even by making an objection of conscience, the ever more widespread attacks against life and the “culture of death” which underlies them. From this point of view, the use of vaccines whose production is connected with procured abortion constitutes at least a mediate remote passive material cooperation to the abortion, and an immediate passive material cooperation with regard to their marketing. Furthermore, on a cultural level, the use of such vaccines contributes in the creation of a generalized social consensus to the operation of the pharmaceutical industries which produce them in an immoral way. Therefore, doctors and fathers of families have a duty to take recourse to alternative vaccines13 (if they exist), putting pressure on the political authorities and health systems so that other vaccines without moral problems become available. They should take recourse, if necessary, to the use of conscientious objection14 with regard to the use of vaccines produced by means of cell lines of aborted human foetal origin. Equally, they should oppose by all means (in writing, through the various associations, mass media, etc.) the vaccines which do not yet have morally acceptable alternatives, creating pressure so that alternative vaccines are prepared which are not connected with the abortion of a human fetus, and requesting rigorous legal control of the pharmaceutical industry producers. As regards the diseases against which there are no alternative vaccines which are available and ethically acceptable, it is right to abstain from using these vaccines if it can be done without causing children, and indirectly the population as a whole, to undergo significant risks to their health. However, if the latter are exposed to considerable dangers to their health, vaccines with moral problems pertaining to them may also be used on a temporary basis. The moral reason is that the duty to avoid passive material cooperation is not obligatory if there is grave inconvenience. Moreover, we find, in such a case, a proportional reason, in order to accept the use of these vaccines in the presence of the danger of favouring the spread of the pathological agent, due to the lack of vaccination of children. This is particularly true in the case of vaccination against German measles.15 In any case, there remains a moral duty to continue to fight and to employ every lawful means in order to make life difficult for the pharmaceutical industries which act unscrupulously and unethically. However, the burden of this important battle cannot and must not fall on innocent children and on the health situation of the population–especially with regard to pregnant women. To summarize, it must be confirmed that: there is a grave responsibility to use alternative vaccines and to make a conscientious objection with regard to those which have moral problems; The alternative vaccines in question are those that are prepared by means of cell lines which are not of human origin, for example, the VERO cell line (from monkeys) (D. Vinnedge), the kidney cells of rabbits or monkeys, or the cells of chicken embryos. However, it should be noted that grave forms of allergy have occurred with some of the vaccines prepared in this way. The use of recombinant DNA technology could lead to the development of new vaccines in the near future which will no longer require the use of cultures of human diploid cells for the attenuation of the virus and its growth, for such vaccines will not be prepared from a basis of attenuated virus, but from the genome of the virus and from the antigens thus developed (G. C. Woodrow, W.M. McDonnell, and F.K. Askari). Some experimental studies have already been done using vaccines developed from DNA that has been derived from the genome of the German measles virus. Moreover, some Asiatic researchers are trying to use the Varicella virus as a vector for the insertion of genes which codify the viral antigens of rubella. These studies are still at a preliminary phase and the refinement of vaccine preparations which can be used in clinical practice will require a lengthy period of time and will be at high costs. D. Vinnedge, “The Smallpox Vaccine,” The National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly, 2, No.1 (Spring 2000), 12. See G.C. Woodrow, “An Overview of Biotechnology as Applied to Vaccine Development,” in New Generation Vaccines, G.C. Woodrow and M.M. Levine, eds., (New York & Basel: Marcel Dekker Inc., 1990), 32-37. W.M. McDonnell, F.K. Askari, “Immunization,” JAMA, 278, No.22 (Dec. 10, 1997), 2000-07; see pp.2005-06. 14 Such a duty may lead, as a consequence, to taking recourse to “objection of conscience” when the action recognized as illicit is an act permitted or even encouraged by the laws of the country and poses a threat to human life. The encyclical letter Evangelium Vitae underlined this “obligation to oppose” the laws which permit abortion or euthanasia “by conscientious objection” (§73). 15 This is particularly true in the case of vaccination against German measles, because of the danger of Congenital Rubella Syndrome. This could occur, causing grave congenital malformations in the fetus, when a pregnant woman enters into contact, even if it is brief, with children who have not been immunized and are carriers of the virus. In this case, the parents who did not accept the vaccination of their own children become responsible for the malformations in question, and for the subsequent abortion of fetuses, when they have been discovered to be malformed. l3 ● as regards the vaccines without an alternative, the need to contest so that others may be prepared must be reaffirmed, as should be the lawfulness of using the former in the meantime insomuch as is necessary in order to avoid a serious risk not only for one’s own children but also, and perhaps more specifically, for the health conditions of the population as a whole– especially for pregnant women; ● the lawfulness of the use of these vaccines should not be misinterpreted as a declaration of the lawfulness of their production, marketing, and use, but is to be understood as being a passive material cooperation and, in its mildest and remotest sense, also active, morally justified as an extrema ratio due to the necessity to provide for the good of one’s children and of the people who come in contact with the children (pregnant women); ● such cooperation occurs in a context of moral coercion of the conscience of parents, who are forced to choose to act against their conscience or otherwise to put the health of their children and of the population as a whole at risk. This is an unjust alternative choice, which must be eliminated as soon as possible. What Catholics must do The Catholic response to the Pontifical Academy’s document is to use Non-Fetal cell line vaccines whenever possible. Your doctor can order the untainted versions by calling the 800 numbers listed below. They are all available in single dosages. That Catholics demand this of their doctor is a duty, not an option, according to the Academy document. It is also a Catholic’s duty to motivate drug companies and use whatever leverage possible against them to produce NON-FETAL cell line vaccines where no alternative to aborted fetal cell line vaccines now exist. There are no NON-FETAL vaccine alternatives for chickenpox, measles/mumps/rubella, rubella (alone), shingles, ebola, HIV, and sepsis. Furthermore, the Catholics in any country where NON-FETAL cell line vaccines for hepatitis A and rubella (alone) are not available must insist that their Departments of Health and any governmental agencies appointed to test and approve vaccines to accelerate necessary field testing and quickly make available these NON-FETAL vaccines. (Aimmungen®, a NON-FETAL vaccine against hepatitis A, available only in Japan and Europe, and Takahashi®, a NON-FETAL vaccine against rubella, available only in Japan, should be made available in all countries.) Sources of Non-Fetal cell line vaccines MUMPS ® POLIO MUMPSVAX (uses chicken embryo) Merck: 1-800-422-9675 IPOL® (uses monkey kidney cells) Sanofi-Pasteur: 1-800-822-2463 MEASLES RABIES ® ATTENUVAX (uses chicken embryo) Merck: 1-800-422-9675 RabAvert® (uses chicken embryo) Chiron: 1-800-244-7668 Contact the drug companies The following is a form letter which Catholics should use to contact the manufacturers of vaccines from ABORTED Fetal cell lines: For over 30 years, the US has been quietly producing vaccines from human cell lines derived from abortions. There are six commonly used vaccines: polio, rabies, rubella (MMR® II), chickenpox, hepatitis A, and hepatitis A/B combo (Twinrix®) all of which were propagated from the lung tissue of two aborted babies (but includes processing of over 40 aborted babies). Seven vaccines have no alternative source: rubella/MMR, chickenpox, hepatitis A, shingles, ebola, HIV, and sepsis. There are non-fetal cell line alternatives for both rubella and hepatitis A, but these products are not available in the United States (of which I’m a citizen). Therefore, I petition Merck and GlaxoSmithKline as the manufacturers of MMR® II, Twinrix®, HAVRIX®, VAQTA®, and Varivax®, to produce safe, effective alternatives for the existing vaccines and to use non-fetal cell line alternatives in future products. I further petition the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to process any such application expeditiously. The use of vaccines manufactured from tissues of aborted babies is not only morally and ethically reprehensible, but borders on moral coercion for Catholics. l Merck & Company One Merck Drive P.O. Box 100 Whitehouse Station, NJ 08889-0100 l David Stout, President (Pharmaceuticals) Glaxo SmithKline 1 Franklin Plaza, P.O. Box 7929 Philadelphia, PA 19101 l Hon. Michael O. Leavitt Department of Health & Human Services 200 Independence Avenue, S.W. Room 615-F Washington, D.C. 20201 EMAIL: hhsmail@os.dhhs.gov l Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 1600 Clifton Rd. Atlanta, GA 30333 l US Food and Drug Administration THE ANGELUS • February 2006 www.angeluspress.org 5600 Fishers Lane Rockville, MD 20857-0001 1-888-4636-332 31 Twenty Minutes with Fr. de Chivré taken from a conference and commentary by a Dominican Sister A Sister of the traditional Teaching Dominicans speaks here on the importance of the family atmosphere in raising children to be in the world (with both eyes set on heaven) not of the world. She quotes Fr. Bernard-Marie de Chivré (whose words are distinguished by a smaller typeface) and offers free-range thoughts on: ● the influence of high ideals and of vulgarity ● the call to nobility of the baptized Catholic; the role of language, obedience, games, and the social element ● the parents’ part in deciding upon the family atmosphere ● the importance of the Faith in forming a child’s character ● defining the atmosphere of a Catholic hearth E Education and your Family Atmosphere www.angeluspress.org THE ANGELUS • February 2006 32 O ne of the most beautiful verses ever to flow from [the French poet] Lamartine’s inspiration accents for us the importance of the family atmosphere in education. The poet wrote: Inanimate objects, have you then a soul That would cling to our soul and the power to love? Fr. de Chivré explains each part of this verse: “Objects,” that is, all of the things which a home puts before our eyes; all of the things which a home presents to the first stirrings of the intelligence, to occupy its activity and people its memory: as much their presence in the home as where they are placed and how they are arranged, evoking security, peace, order, cleanliness, or else carelessness and disorder. Already, he is reminding us that nothing is indifferent; everything that our children see, in the home or in the vehicles, has a value and a message which it conveys “peace, order, cleanliness”...or their contrary. “Inanimate,” that is, unmoving, immobilized throughout the years, impressing upon a child’s heart and imagination what they mean or represent. The Integrity of Education “Have you then a soul?” Do you [these inanimate objects] express more than your contours, your volumes and your forms...do you express a soul which is either pleasant or perverse; which evokes virtue and value, or sin and vice? “That would cling to our soul,” our soul of a child, open to everything, brand-new and impressionable; our soul which you will compel to curiosity, to high ambition, to daring, to prayer–or to vulgarity. The interior of a house clings powerfully to the interior of a child....He senses there, without a word and without even realizing it, the spirit of his parents and the resonance that sounds between the objects and the education received. These objects make up the permanent aspect of the family atmosphere–the immobile, stable aspect that creates a framework either favorable or unfavorable to the psychological atmosphere, which in turn animates the home by the use Mom and Dad make of their authority and their affection, and by the common life of brothers and sisters, all the way down to the cook or the nanny. Here in the school, we try to be aware of this truth: everything in the classrooms, the hallways, the cafeteria, this auditorium, everywhere–every object will imprint its effect upon the children. Can we run the risk, then, of ugliness, of disorder, of the vulgarity of mere advertising when we realize that their souls will be deeply marked by what surrounds them? Parents decide upon a small universe as a head of state decides upon the atmosphere of a country–more so even THE ANGELUS • February 2006 www.angeluspress.org than a head of state, for the following reason: To govern a country is to provide a people with the means to attain its temporal end by giving precedence to natural law. Education Both Natural and Supernatural To educate children is to furnish them with the means of obtaining the full exercise of their spiritual life as baptized Catholics; of their natural life as human beings, to be infused with Christian values; and of their future as adults, to be fostered and prepared; the whole illumined by the tenets of the Faith, the demands of human education, and the rigors of instruction. The atmosphere must contain nothing harmful to any one of these three states, whose formative elements interweave and reinforce each other to model: ● a Christian in the child, that is, the believer ● someone well-bred and worthy of his Faith, that is, the civilized man ● human valor attuned to the Faith, that is, the citizen The objects and the walls speak to the child before the parents, and the parents have to be careful not to contradict the language of the objects or they risk upsetting the unity of the atmosphere. The language of conversations, of readings, of warnings, of reprimands, of encouragements, of corrections awaited or feared–all affecting the atmosphere and shaping it into a climate, breathable day in and day out, ensuring the health and balance of the imaginative, impressionable, fresh, inexperienced little child. What does Father mean by the “language of the objects”? He refers to the unspoken message of which a truly beautiful crucifix and a moderate number of well chosen holy images, the clean and orderly furniture, the varied and wholesome book collection, and the homeland’s treasures speak to the child, creating a unified world around him. If, in contradiction to those objects, he hears impious remarks, sees filth and disorder in certain parts of the home–his bedroom, for example; if he is allowed to read frivolous or dangerous books, or is not expected to learn how to be productive and to fructify his talents in view of his future role in society, then the meaning of those objects is contradicted, falsehood and infidelity take root in his soul, and peace and balance are jeopardized. A profound interior conversion and rectification of our standards will allow these exterior manifestations to be truly an expression of the interior life. We must not be afraid of carrying out our choices, which will, in some cases, mean separating from the world in order not to be separated from God. To provide that balance, the atmosphere has to contain the right mixture of ingredients, so that the life of Faith, of virtue, and of learning never abdicate their rights in favor of a fundamental deformation of the child. These ingredients deserve a moment of our attention. The most 33 important of all: the religious translations of the Faith into daily life. Religious comes from religare–to tie to God: not to handcuff, any more than to untie at the child’s every whim, but to tie: to trace the path so clearly and so neatly that the desire to follow it is the child’s first reflex. An intelligent mixture of authority prompting toward the good, of a kind and responsive manner in giving counsel, and of determination tactfully soliciting in function of a child’s temperament, age, and abilities. Pulling from its divine treasure, the Faith in turn prepares our heart and our mind for the most startling twists of fortune by the startling answers and startling attitudes it inspires in us. Fr. de Chivré is reminding us of our Christian nobility. By baptism, that is, by divine choice, we have been set aside from the others, “tied to God,” in order to be the light of the world, the salt of the earth, manifesting the glory and the majesty of our Father in heaven. We are set aside–this is important to realize, even if it is difficult in our day and age to grasp the concept of nobility–we are set aside to be the elite of society, to serve the common good. Our consecration at baptism has uplifted us to become partakers in the nobility of God, and to oblige us–“noblesse oblige”–to be images of the Son of God in this world. Vulgarity, however, is opposed to nobility, for it despises what is elevated and refined in order to seek equality–an equality which drags down to the lowest level. Our modern environment encourages vulgarity; everyone dresses, acts, and speaks on an equally low and cheap level. It is the incarnation of the revolutionary spirit which destroys distinction and hierarchy, the role of the elite in society, and ultimately the transcendence of God. Our baptism enables us to bear witness to the reality of being seized and transformed by grace. Vulgarity is recognized by selfishness, pleasure and comfort-seeking, the sacrifice of grace and virtue in life. Nobility bears the stamp of self-sacrifice, honor, and the pride and freedom of the children of God. Then, The ingredient of obedience in family life regulated in view of the common good. Obedience is not the child’s abdication but a communion, in which a grown-up experience is charged with the task of acclimatizing the inexperience of the child, otherwise just following his own instinct, whim, and selfishness. Leaving the child free to choose in realms that are beyond his understanding is nothing but a proof of puerility [childishness] on the part of the parents and of deforming authoritarianism on the part of the child. This idea is fascinating! Fr. de Chivré is explaining to us the ennobling power of obedience. It is not a passive or belittling attitude; on the contrary, it allows the child to participate in the mature reason and wisdom of his parents and teachers, and to advance sure-footedly towards adulthood by growing accustomed to responsible and respectable decisions and actions. Parents do not have the right to cut obedience out of their child’s life, for nothing deepens the intelligence or strengthens the will like affectionate submission to affectionate paternal and maternal authority. Teaching a child to obey, to submit to principles, to efface himself is preparing him to submit to God’s will in every circumstance in life. Next, the ingredient of play. Much could be said on this subject, graver than we imagine. The child loves to play. It is his way of discovering the universe, experiencing it in the form of free and fascinating initiatives. There is in fact an education by games–teaching the child that the game of initiatives is completed by the initiative of a duty of state–an initiative just as free and just as consenting as a set of tennis. The goal of the game is to teach the child that he possesses a capacity for interest and a power of personal initiative which are formed in entertaining, relaxing activities but which he ought freely to transpose into the realm of his duty, at school and at home, guided by his conscience. BadenPowell was correct, perhaps beyond what he even imagined: the game of life is an ardent reality. Knowing how to aim your tennis ball, knowing how to aim your heart’s affection, knowing how to aim your reasoning where the truth is, and your soul where God awaits it, is playing your set as a human, and playing your set for eternity. There is an unsuspected gravity at the heart of any free initiative, whatever its nature, hence the importance of intelligent games, avoiding the animal excess of unhealthy games. Hence the role parents can play from the outside, proving to the child that he is not merely playing in the material sense of the word, but that he is training his thought and his character under cover of relaxation. Here I would like to add a comment for reflection. Playing games prepares one to aim accurately in life, to reason and to will with conviction and energy. What then must we think of our children passively watching two, three, four sports games in a weekend? Is this formation... or deformation? What do they gain from this time which could have been more fruitfully spent in their own playful, personal initiatives? And if they are not actually gaining, then they are losing and wasting precious time, and developing the vice of wasting their time and talents. It has recently been brought to my attention that some girls are allowed to play basketball with the boys. Is this any way to develop reserve in the girls, and gentlemanly, protective qualities in the boys? Not to mention the preservation of purity and respect in both. Do we wish to be responsible for this deformation in our children? Our role, as parents and educators, is one of a decisive influence which leads them towards virtue, or towards vice. www.angeluspress.org THE ANGELUS • February 2006 34 St. Thomas Aquinas has a theory of pleasure full of common sense and impeccable logic. He tells us: pleasure is what we have most in common with animals; giving it priority of time and money only animalizes us and gives our instincts free rein. On the other hand, he explains the human, moral role of pleasure when it remains in the service of the conscience and right reason, as a form of recreation for our mental forces, exhausted by the constant effort of fidelity to duty of state. The word “recreation” is admirably suited to the raison d’être–the reason for being–of pleasure. It defines it, places it, and limits it strictly to the role of a charming servant in all things subject to reason, leader and guide for living the great causes. A day given only to pleasure is not moral; a life of pure entertainment is not moral; pleasures that destroy the will and darken the reason rather than recreating them are guilty pleasures. Dehumanization by pleasure is the favorite recipe of the enemies of man the way God created him–or dreams of recreating him. For there exists another kind of recreation, of a different order altogether, superior and absolute, to be found in work, sacrifice, and gift of self. This, dear parents, is our sublime task: to foster a spirit which elevates the minds of the children, the sentiments of their hearts, and bears witness to the beauty of the consecration and sacrifice of their lives for a worthy cause. Finally, the social, “worldly” ingredient. The family is a complete social cell, but remains nonetheless a cell in relation to the social body by a certain back-and-forth. This back-and-forth [between the family and the world] serves the child by being a sort of speedometer on his dash. They allow him to measure the Christian and human potential he has acquired within the cell of the family. They give him the chance to give more than lip service to what he has learned, and prove his ability to judge the rectitude or the excess of social relations–the utility or futility of a given relation, as well as any excess in its duration or expression. The child must be taught to go into the world equipped with a moral vision and a Christian will to use without abusing, to appreciate with discernment, to refuse with firmness, to impose himself without pride, and to influence without imposition. Worldliness is the secret, unacknowledged canker of many Christians who are dominated by the world rather than dominating it by the life of the conscience. [That is, a conscience fortified by sound doctrinal principles, then freely and vigorously compelling us to speak and to act in a way that upholds our dignity as children of God.–Ed.] This worldliness consists in judging social relations only according to their external aspect: glitter, title, position, entertainment, superficiality, emptiness, flattery, lies–in a word, the absolute contrary of Jesus, the great adversary of the world wherever it appears, including in those places where it should never be seen. Only an education of the child’s interior life is able to forearm him against life’s appearances. Giving him a habit of truthfulness, the taste for simplicity, the energy of fidelity, the honor of moral value, the sense of the presence of God, of the interior voice, the need for respect, and for a certain voluntary separation from THE ANGELUS • February 2006 www.angeluspress.org the frivolous. All these habits increase your chances of assuring him victory over the world, while yet leaving him in the world, of teaching him to forge his first arms as a Christian, baptized and confirmed. In fact, we can see in history that without this element of honor and moral value, society crumbles. Baptized and confirmed Catholics who lead and uplift others are necessary for the health of society. The School Does Not Replace the Parents Imagining that so many things compose the family atmosphere is enough to overwhelm you with emotion, awe, and enthusiasm, when you weigh the mission of Christian parents. Spontaneously, you feel the imperious need to complete your own frailty with the strength of God; your own ignorance by the doctrine of the Church; your inevitable missteps by the solace of confession; and your unavoidable weariness by the Eucharistic replenishment. Parents: yes, but Christian parents, therefore partaking in the supernatural atmosphere created by grace, to the greater good of the family atmosphere created by the parents. There is to be an admirable unity or uniformity of thought between God and the parents; between the parents and the children; between the children and home life. Climatological atmosphere is never random, but the result of hidden currents whose nearly imperceptible laws meteorologists are always trying to decipher. Parents need to be reminded that they alone decide on the nature of the atmosphere; that no one has the right to intrude beyond the limits determined by the parents. It is their responsibility to accept and put to good use any official or officious help offered from the outside, be it civil or religious, according to the natural and supernatural soundness they mean to give that atmosphere. They alone who have taken on the responsibility of procreation inherit the responsibility of education. No other can or should lend a hand except as collaborators chosen, accepted, or approved by the procreators. No positive law may ever go against this law of nature. As a comment, we wish to insist upon the fact that the school merely completes the choice of the parents. We collaborate with you in educating your children, but we could never replace you, nor make up for what is not done or is missing in the home. For example, your child’s learning skills must be exercised by you, the parents. If you do not take the time to quiz them when needed, to study the weekly grade booklet with them, to show by your interest that their studies are your primary concern as well, then who is to blame when the school sends them home due to incomplete work or unsatisfactory grades? When going over the grade booklet, preferably Friday night or Saturday morning, you should help your child determine which subject needs to receive more attention and 35 application. If they are spending too much time on their homework (two or three hours for an elementary grade child is too much), then they must be restricted to a certain time frame; otherwise we end up increasing their dreaminess or laziness. We are happy to assist you in teaching your children, so long as we see concrete proof that this education is what you truly desire and work for in the home as well. This includes removing all obstacles to their fruitful studies: television, internet, excessive extracurricular activities–these distract and prevent them from focusing, while poisoning your children with the errors of the world. Can you truly say that you wish for them to become citizens of heaven when you do not prevent them from being corrupted by the immorality of the world? It is then a solace to parents to be shown they can determine the family atmosphere by making use of the warm inspirations of the Faith. I say “warm” intentionally, since they foster and bring to life a host of meritorious options and courageous decisions; they shine from the unfailing source of a mysterious Omnipotence who sees to it that Mom and Dad are never alone in their undertakings and decisions. Their actions will still be only human, but will come to express a human desire reinforced by a supernatural intention, by the grace of their sacrament of marriage. The result will be an atmosphere which is humano-divine, suffused with peace, with no astonishment in the face of sacrifice, no resentment in its practice, and joyfully rewarded by its providential results. Ultimately, peace and joy are always the defining features of a Christian atmosphere in a Christian home. Concerning the humano-divine atmosphere, please allow me to mention that we are concerned by the lack of sacred reserve in some young girls (3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th graders) in regard to their mothers’ pregnancies and birthing process. Explicit details have been found in elementary grade compositions–details which they need not know until their upper high school years. We must be careful. How will they have the sense that bringing forth life is sacred and mysterious–a work of God– when it is reduced to scientific facts and treated as public information? The time will come, as they grow older, as the Faith instills in them the awe of God’s work, when explanations will be appropriate, but always approached from the viewpoint of God as the source of life and of love. Truth and the Decay of Language As the currents of the Faith breathe life into the family atmosphere, the child slowly becomes a character. That is to say, he is an exception and a rarity in our servile, assembly-line world. Indeed, to live in continuity with the continuity of the Faith, to breathe in continuity the example, the quality, the value, the virtue, or the sanctity necessarily contained in the certitude and conviction tasted and lived of the Gospel doctrine, is to galvanize the irresolute fragility of adolescents by the appetite and the energy these convictions arouse. It is to forge character. Too many suppose that human and spiritual perfection mean being ready to accept anything and anyone; something Christ never consented to do. The law of charity is always to discern what will be charitable, that is to say: inseparable from the Truth. St. Thomas Aquinas reminds us that God is inexhaustible Love only because He is unshakable Truth. Compromising the Truth is compromising Love. An atmosphere in which the Truth that you think you possess does not inspire the love you think you have, distantly but truly resembles Hell, where the absence of love, refused to God, the First Truth, feeds that cursed atmosphere called Hate. The love of self at the expense of Truth sometimes leads all the way to hatred of others, by a pretension to possess a Truth only partially understood. Such is the paradox present in many human atmospheres and the criteria allowing us to judge the spiritual value of our own attitudes. At the school, we are sometimes surprised by the harsh language or shouting among the children. Selfishness, two or three people talking at once without listening to one another, refusal or great difficulty to say “I’m sorry” or “thank you,” or to apologize to parents or teachers for talking back, or for avoidable failures in one’s assignments–all of these situations should increase our efforts to form habits of charity, self-sacrifice, humble acceptation of a deserved punishment, out of respect for the truth which, alone, can inspire nobility in loving it and heroism in defending it. It seems that Charlemagne, in the ninth century, also had to face the decay of the language, and thus sought to emphasize the civilizing effect of proper speech. He wrote: Just as the observance of the rule imparts order and grace to honesty and morals, so also zeal in teaching and learning may do the same for sentences, so that those who desire to please God by living rightly, should not neglect to please Him also by speaking correctly. For it is written: “For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned” (Mt. 12:37). For when in years past letters were often written to us from several monasteries in which it was stated that the brethren who dwelt there offered up on our behalf sacred and pious prayers, we recognized in most of these letters both incorrect thought and uncouth expressions: because what pious devotion dictated faithfully to the mind, the tongue, uneducated on account of the neglect of study, was not able to express in a letter without error. (De Litteris Colendis) Thus, the teachers in his times tried to convey to their students the concrete meaning of the words they used, and Alcuin, a renowned professor, praised Charlemagne’s noble efforts to “bring about www.angeluspress.org THE ANGELUS • February 2006 36 a rebirth of civilized standards in every kind of knowledge” by teaching students “to phrase their sentences correctly.” Parents can never be too conscious of the need to build their educative efforts upon the truth of doctrine, upon the truth of God’s commandments and the commandments of the Church, upon the truth of the Gospel taken full force and not watered down. They will reap the benefits of a family atmosphere cleansed of bitterness or antipathy. It is by detesting error and falsehood in themselves that we reject them in us without taint of hatred for those they infect. It is no small thing to shape the judgment of children to be passionate for the Truth so as never to be hostile or cold for those who have deviated from the truth by ignorance or illusion. Your active formation of your children, your educative efforts enable them to master their passions, to establish the reign of Christ in their own lives so as to extend it to their future homes and to society. If we refuse to form our children to nobility, the world will degrade them to its vulgarity. Nobility civilizes a nation so that it may be sanctified. The Barbarians, for example, were refined and Christianized, before the building up of Christendom. The Catholic Home Defined You see, then, that defining the atmosphere of a Catholic hearth [a poetic metaphor for family life referring to the floor of a fireplace or the paved area in front of it–Ed.] is a delicate task: The atmosphere of a convent?–Certainly not. The convent is a service, a community charged with bearing witness to what touches God directly. ● The atmosphere of a sacristy?–Heaven forbid. The sacristy is magnificent as an antechamber of the official and immediate worship rendered to the God of love. ● The atmosphere of a hotel?–Not for all the world. A hotel is for passing through; the home is permanence. ● The atmosphere of a YMCA?–For pity’s sake, leave that to the poor kids who have been deformed precisely by the absence or insufficiency of home life. ● The atmosphere of the hearth, that is to say, of flame and fire, solidly attached to its source of nourishment which is the baptized human couple; a father’s heart, a mother’s heart, permanently burning in ready devotion to the first stirrings of the soul, of the conscience, of reason, of the heart, and of the sensibility of these little lives. Sparks kindled by two loves and responsible for making them glow by the educative atmosphere of an inextinguishable hearth. ● Finally, the home is not a shop open to any passerby, whose only atmosphere is the immediate profit people come to find there. Avoid giving your hearth a utilitarian atmosphere, where the children flock when they need Dad’s money, and forget when Mom and Dad are in tears. The home is like a church where dwells the Real Presence. Not just anyone can enter there; not THE ANGELUS • February 2006 www.angeluspress.org just anything can be said there; the discordant jingles of vulgarity have no place within. The hearth is like a tabernacle; one enters in order to be seized by a need for respect, invaded by a sensation of very specific grandeur; in order to know oneself sheltered from intellectual and moral decompositions, and welcomed by all the reasons to have confidence, to pour out one’s thoughts, and to receive explanations. Indeed, too much coming and going is not conducive to stability, nor to affection, that is, the undivided attention of parents to their children’s education. Your children should sense that your priority is the attention to and formation of all the children in the home. Then, Fr. de Chivré concludes: I think of our old Catholic homes of France, squat and humble, hidden at the end of a lane behind an avenue of trees; as soon as you pushed open the door on its rusty hinges, an invisible soul set to singing, awakening mysterious inhabitants, as though to tell us: “We continue to maintain the atmosphere; breathe it in without fear–we are still here.” The old beams that once groaned under the boisterous rhythm of children’s games still seem to bend under the weight of memories and family customs. The walls bear the same crucifix upon which we gazed as children; they remind us that our parents did not deceive us as they prepared us for the adventure of life, prelude to the eternal adventure. At 40 or 60 we can testify to the wisdom of the atmosphere created by Dad and Mom, and we wonder how and why today’s elite make light of such memories. We realize that, thanks to this atmosphere, in spite of so many failures, through so many struggles and adventures, we could and have remained a man, a character, a Catholic, and, with hope, an elect. Parents who do not see any farther than money, popularity, selfish feelings, and success, are truly to be pitied...there is no self-conquest, no conquest of others, nor of evil, nor of life, nor of death, brought about by the chattering nonsense and frivolity with which many have unwittingly peopled prisons and houses of correction. One summer evening in 1941, in a pine forest around an estate, at six o’clock, I heard a very pure voice that thought it was all alone, singing out its Salve Regina. A little French girl, on her knees at the foot of a pine tree, shrine to a statue of the Madonna, was praying for the great adventure France was living at that moment, and whose drama and gravity she understood from the family atmosphere. For us, then, to choose between chattering nonsense and the song of souls. Translated exclusively into English for Angelus Press. Fr. Bernard-Marie de Chivré, O.P. (say: Sheave-ray´) was ordained in 1930. He was an ardent Thomist, student of Scripture, retreat master, and friend of Archbishop Lefebvre. He died in 1984. In 2005, the Dominican Teaching Sisters of the Holy Name of Jesus of Fanjeaux celebrated the 30th anniversary of their founding. Today they number 150 Sisters with seven schools, six in France and one at Post Falls, Idaho, where this conference was given. Persons; Principles It’s Not About It’s About 37 A CATECHISM OF CATHOLIC SOCIAL TEACHING Part THE V FAMILY HEADING TWO: SOCIETY (1908-99) Former Prime Minister of Italy and a professor of Economic History at the Catholic University of Milan, Italy. With another installment, The Angelus continues the serialization of the book Catechism of Catholic Social Teaching by Amintore Fanfani (translated by Fr. Henry J. Yannone, The Newman Press, 1960), which will run monthly until its conclusion. He was the author of articles and books on economics, including Catholicism, Protestantism, and Capitalism, available from Angelus Press for $14.95. A m i n t o r e F a n f a n i CHAPTER 4. The Family Society is the family? 40) What The family is a small but real society, born out of the love of a man and a woman, for the procreation and the rearing of children. Willed and ordained by God, it has its own authority and its own rights, though it reaches its natural perfection only as part of civil society. Leo XIII: The family...is a true society, governed by a power within itself, that is to say, by the father. Wherefore, provided the limits be not transgressed which are prescribed by the very purposes for which it exists, the family has, at least, equal rights with the State in the choice and pursuit of those things which are needful to its preservation and its just liberty. We say at least equal rights; for since the domestic household is anterior both in idea and in fact to the gathering of men into a commonwealth, the former must necessarily have rights and duties which are prior to those of the latter and which rest more immediately on nature. (Rerum Novarum, §10) Leo XIII: The foundation of this society rests first of all on the indissoluble union of man and wife, according to the necessity of natural law, and is completed in the mutual rights and duties of parents and children. (Quod Apostolici Muneris) Pius XI: The family is an imperfect society, since it has not in itself all the means for its own development.... [It] finds its own suitable temporal perfection precisely in civil society. (Divini Illius Magistri) eternal laws govern the family? 41)What Natural law, given by God, and divine positive law revealed by Jesus Christ, govern completely the constitution and the essential life of the family society and no human convention, not even of the consorts themselves, can change them. 38 Pius XI: Matrimony was not instituted or restored by man, but by God. Not by man were the laws made to strengthen and confirm and elevate it, but by God, the Author of nature, and by Christ our Lord, by whom nature was redeemed. (Casti Connubii, §5) Pius XI: [The divine laws which regulate marriage] cannot be subject to any human decrees or to any contrary pact even of the spouses themselves....For each individual marriage...arises only from the free consent of each of the spouses....This freedom, however, regards only the question whether the contracting parties really wish to enter upon matrimony or to marry this particular person. The nature itself of matrimony is entirely independent of the free will of man, so that once a person has contracted matrimony he is thereby subject to its divinely made laws and its essential properties. (Casti Connubii, §§5-6) is the family constituted among Catholics? 42) How Among Catholics the family is constituted by means of matrimony, namely, “the sacrament which unites a man and a woman indissolubly and gives them the grace to live in a saintly manner and to educate their children in a Christian way.” The contract cannot be separated from the sacrament. Leo XIII: Marriage, however, is a sacrament, because it is a holy sign which gives grace, showing forth an image of the mystical nuptials of Christ with the Church. But the form and image of these nuptials is shown precisely by the very bond of that most close union in which man and woman are bound together in one; which bond is nothing else but the marriage itself. (Arcanum, §12) Leo XIII: Certain it is that in Christian marriage the contract is inseparable from the sacrament; and that for this reason, the contract cannot be true and legitimate without being a sacrament as well. For Christ our Lord added to marriage the dignity of a sacrament; but marriage is the contract itself, whenever that contract is lawfully concluded...and that nothing can be further from the truth than to say that the sacrament is a certain added ornament, or outward endowment, which can be separated and torn away from the contract at the caprice of man. (Arcanum, §12) What are the of matrimony? 43) ends Offspring, conjugal fidelity, and the sacrament constitute the principal blessings of matrimony. Secondary ends are mutual aid, mutual love, and the quieting of concupiscence. Pius XI: “These,” says St. Augustine, “are all the blessings of matrimony on account of which matrimony itself is a blessing; offspring, conjugal faith and the sacrament.” (Casti Connubii, p.128, §11) Leo XIII: Not only, in strict truth, was marriage instituted for the propagation of the human race, but also that the lives of husbands and wives might be made better and happier... THE ANGELUS • February 2006 www.angeluspress.org by their lightening each others’ burdens through mutual help; by constant and faithful love; by having all their possessions in common; and by the heavenly grace which flows from the sacrament. Marriage also can do much for the good of families; for, so long as it is conformable to nature and in accordance with the counsels of God, it has power to strengthen union of heart in the parents; to secure the holy education of children; to attemper the authority of the father by the example of the divine authority; to render children obedient to their parents....From such marriages as these the State may rightly expect a race of citizens animated by a good spirit and filled with reverence and love for God, recognizing it as their duty to obey those who rule justly and lawfully, to love all, and to injure no one. (Arcanum, §14) Pius XI: For in matrimony as well as in the use of the matrimonial rights there are also secondary ends, such as mutual aid, the cultivating of mutual love, and the quieting of concupiscence which husband and wife are not forbidden to consider so long as these are subordinated to the primary end and so long as the intrinsic nature of the act is preserved. (Casti Connubii, §60) Pius XI: Since, therefore, the conjugal act is destined primarily by nature for the begetting of children, those who in exercising it deliberately frustrate its natural power and purpose sin against nature and commit a deed which is shameful and intrinsically vicious. (Casti Connubii, p.143, §55) Pius XI: The Catholic Church...raises her voice...any use whatsoever of matrimony exercised in such a way that the act is deliberately frustrated in its natural power to generate life is an offense against the law of God and of nature, and those who indulge in such are branded with the guilt of a grave sin. (Casti Connubii, p.144, §57) Christians a matrimony not a sacramental union? 44) Iswhichthereisamong A non-sacramental union of a Christian man and woman, even if it conforms to civil laws, cannot be considered to be more than a mere rite introduced by civil law. Leo XIII: Now, those who deny that marriage is holy, and who relegate it, stripped of all sacredness, to the class of common things, uproot thereby the foundations of nature. They not only resist the designs of Providence, but, so far as they can, they destroy the order that God has ordained. (Arcanum, p.36, §13) Leo XIII: If there be any union of a man and woman among the faithful of Christ which is not a sacrament, such union has not the force and nature of a proper marriage; and, although contracted in accordance with the laws of the State, it cannot be more than a rite or custom introduced by the civil law. (Arcanum, §25) 39 45) What are the properties of matrimony? Unity and indissolubility are the properties of Christian matrimony. Pius XI: Conjugal faith...demands in the first place the complete unity of matrimony....There is no doubt that the law of the Gospel fully restored that original and perfect unity, and abrogated all dispensations. Casti Connubii, §20) Pius XI: But this accumulation of benefits is completed and, as it were, crowned by that blessing of Christian marriage which in the words of St. Augustine we have called the sacrament, by which is denoted both the indissolubility of the bond and the raising and hallowing of the contract by Christ Himself, whereby He made it an efficacious sign of grace. (Casti Connubii, §31) Pius XI: And if this stability seems to be open to exception, however rare the exception may be, as in the case of certain natural marriages between unbelievers, or among Christians in the case of those marriages which though valid have not been consummated, that exception does not depend on the will of men nor on that of any merely human power, but on divine law, of which the only guardian and interpreter is the Church of Christ. However, not even this power can ever affect for any cause whatsoever a Christian marriage which is valid and has been consummated. (Casti Connubii, §35) Leo XIII: Jesus Christ bore witness to the Jews and to His Apostles that marriage, from its institution, should exist between two only, namely, between one man and one woman; that of two they are made, so to say, one flesh; and that the marriage bond is by the will of God so closely and strongly made fast that no man may dissolve it or rend it asunder. “For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and they two shall be in one flesh. Therefore now they are not two, but one flesh. What, therefore, God hath joined together, let no man put asunder” (Mt. 19: 5-6). (Arcanum, §4) whom is the discipline matrimony reserved? 46) Toconcerning Since matrimony is by its own nature a sacred thing and a sacrament by the will of Christ, its discipline belongs to the Church, who freely and constantly has exercised it down through the centuries. Leo XIII: [This pope sustains that matrimonial discipline is reserved to the Church:] 1) Since marriage, then, is holy by its own power, in its own nature, and of itself, it ought not to be regulated and administered by the will of civil rulers, but by the divine authority of the Church, which alone in sacred matters professes the office of teaching. 2) But to decree and ordain concerning the sacrament is, by the will of Christ Himself, the duty of the Church alone. 3) Lastly must be borne in mind the great weight and crucial test of history, by which it is plainly proved that the legislative and judicial authority of which we are speaking has been freely and constantly used by the Church, even in times when some foolishly suppose the head of the State either to have consented, to it or connived at it. (Arcanum, §11) 47) Who regulates the civil effects of matrimony? Since there are civil effects that flow from matrimony and since matrimony has relationships with human elements belonging to the civil order of things, such effects and relationships are legitimately regulated by the State. Leo XIII: [The Church] is not unaware and never calls in doubt, that the sacrament of marriage, since it was instituted for the preservation and increase of the human race, has a necessary relation to various circumstances of life, which, though connected with marriage, belong to the civil order, and about which the State rightly makes strict enquiry and justly promulgates decrees. (Arcanum, §21) Leo XIII: The civil law can deal with and decide those matters alone which in the civil order spring from marriage. (Arcanum, §25) fallacies exist today with regard to marriage? 48) What Erroneously it is said that matrimony is a human invention to be governed only by civil regulations, which can dissolve marriages just as they sanction them. Others add that it is not a duty of the State to protect conjugal fidelity and that it must facilitate the social, economic, and physiological emancipation of the woman. Others hold that it should be permissible for parents to suppress offspring yet unborn, according to their whim. Others hold that for the protection of the race civil authority can forbid defective people from entering marriage even to the point of making them sterile, despite their unwillingness. Pius XI: Error §1: ...that matrimony is repeatedly declared to be not instituted by the Author of nature nor raised by Christ the Lord to the dignity of a true sacrament, but invented by man. Error §2: Some confidently assert that they have found no evidence for the existence of matrimony in nature or in her laws, but regard it merely as the means of producing life and of gratifying in one way or another a vehement impulse. Error §3: On the other hand, others recognize that certain beginnings or, as it were, seeds of true wedlock are found....At the same time they maintain that in all beyond this germinal idea matrimony, through various concurrent causes, is invented solely by the mind of man, established solely by his will. (Casti Connubii, §50) Pius XI: They put forward in the first place that matrimony belongs entirely to the profane and purely civil sphere, that it is not to be committed to the religious www.angeluspress.org THE ANGELUS • February 2006 40 society, the Church of Christ, but to civil society alone. They then add that the marriage contract is to be freed from any indissoluble bond, and that separation and divorce are not only to be tolerated but sanctioned by the law. (§80) The first point is contained in their contention that the civil act itself should stand for the marriage contract (civil matrimony, as it is called), while the religious act is to be considered a mere addition. (§81) Moreover they want it to be no cause for reproach that marriages be contracted by Catholics with non-Catholics without any reference to religion or recourse to the ecclesiastical authorities. The second point, which is but a consequence of the first, is to be found in their excuse for complete divorce and in their praise and encouragement of those civil laws which favor the loosening of the bond itself. (Casti Connubii, §§80-81) Pius XI: They look upon whatever penal laws are passed by the State for the preserving of conjugal faith as void or to be abolished. Such unworthy and idle opinions are condemned by that noble instinct which is found in every chaste husband and wife, and even by the light of the testimony of nature alone–a testimony that is sanctioned and confirmed by the command of God: “Thou shalt not commit adultery” (Ex. 20:14), and the words of Christ: “Anyone who even looks with lust at a woman has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Mt. 5:28).... The same false teachers ...do not scruple to do away with the honorable and trusting obedience which the woman owes to the man. Many of them even go further and assert...that the rights of husband and wife are equal; wherefore, they boldly proclaim, the emancipation of women has been or ought to be effected....It must be social, economic, physiological....This equality of rights... must indeed be recognized in those rights which belong to the dignity of the human soul and which are proper to the marriage contract and inseparably bound up with wedlock. (Casti Connubii, §§73-76) Pius XI:: But another very grave crime is to be noted... which regards the taking of the life of the offspring hidden in the mother’s womb. Some wish it to be allowed and left to the will of the father or the mother; others say it is unlawful unless there are weighty reasons which they call by the name of medical, social, or eugenic “indication.” Because this matter falls under the penal laws of the State by which the destruction of the offspring begotten but unborn is forbidden, these people demand that the “indication,” which in one form or another they defend, be recognized as such by the public law and in no way penalized. There are those, moreover, who ask that the public authorities provide aid for these deathdealing operations....As to the “medical and therapeutic indication,” nevertheless, what could ever be a sufficient reason for excusing in any way the direct murder of the innocent?...Whether inflicted upon the mother or upon the child, it is against the precept of God and the law of nature: “Thou shalt not kill.”...What is asserted in favor of the social and eugenic “indication” may and must be accepted, provided lawful and upright methods are employed within the proper limits; but to wish to put forward reasons based upon them for the killing of the innocent is unthinkable and contrary to the divine precept promulgated in the words of the Apostle: “Evil THE ANGELUS • February 2006 www.angeluspress.org is not to be done that good may come of it” (Rom. 3:8). (Casti Connubii, §§63-64, 66) Pius XI: For there are some who, oversolicitous for the cause of “eugenics”...put “eugenics” before aims of a higher order. By public authority they wish to forbid marriage to all those who, even though naturally fit for marriage, are regarded, in accordance with the norms and conjectures of their investigations, as persons who through hereditary transmission would bring forth defective offspring. And, more, they wish to legislate to deprive these of that natural faculty by medical action, despite their unwillingness. And this they propose to do, not as an infliction of grave punishment under the authority of the State for a crime committed, nor to prevent future crimes by guilty persons; but against every right and good they wish the civil authority to arrogate to itself a power over a faculty which it never had and never can legitimately possess. Those who act in this way are at fault in losing sight of the fact that the family is more sacred than the State and that men are begotten not for the earth and for time, but for heaven and eternity. Although often these individuals are to be dissuaded from entering into matrimony, certainly it is wrong to brand men with the stigma of crime because they contract marriage, on the ground that, despite the fact that they are in every respect capable of matrimony, they will give birth only to defective children, even though they use all care and diligence. (Casti Connubii, §§68-69) Pius XI: [The errors on matrimony are] plainly seen from the consequences which its advocates deduce from it, namely, that the laws, institutions, and customs by which wedlock is governed, since they take their origin solely from the will of man, are subject entirely to him, hence can and must be founded, changed, and abrogated according to human caprice and the shifting circumstances of human affairs; that the generative power which is grounded in nature itself is more sacred and has wider range than matrimony–hence it may be exercised both outside as well as within the confines of wedlock, even though the purpose of matrimony be set aside, as though to suggest that the licence of a base fornicating woman should enjoy the same rights as the chaste motherhood of a lawfully wedded wife. Armed with these principles, some men go so far as to concoct new species of unions, suited, as they say, to the present temper of men and the times, which various new forms of matrimony they presume to label “temporary,” “experimental,” and “companionate.” These offer all the indulgence of matrimony and its rights without, however, the indissoluble bond, and without offspring, unless later the parties alter their cohabitation into a matrimony in the full sense of the law. Indeed there are some who desire and insist that these practices be legalized by the law, or, at least, excused by their general acceptance among the people. They do not seem even to suspect that these proposals partake of nothing of the modern “culture” in which they glory so much, but are simply hateful abominations which beyond all question reduce our truly cultured nations to the barbarous standards of savage peoples. (Casti Connubii, §§51-53) The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass The Church’s Year Rev. Fr. Leonard Goffine The Heart of the Mass Learn to bring something to Mass—Understanding. Dissects the Mass into its component parts, prayer by prayer with Latin & parallel English. Explanations from the Fathers & Doctors, revelations to Saints, teachings of the Church, history and mystic commentary. Tells you what the celebrant and ministers are doing, the symbolism of their gestures, and the spiritual significance of articles used for celebrating Mass. 166pp, softcover, STK# 6711Q $12.95 The perfect book for family reading. Part I: texts and commentaries for the Epistles, Gospels, and most other Mass prayers (e.g., Introit, Collect, Gradual, etc.) for every Sunday and Holy Day of the liturgical year. Part II: The Saints—Epistles and Gospels. Focuses on teaching doctrine and morals through the liturgy. Question & Answer format. Almsgiving  Manner of Following Mass at Home  Bible and Tradition  Blessings  Process of Canonization  Excommunication  Detraction  Education of Children  Consolation in Sickness  Love of Enemies  Indulgences  Holy Orders  Why Christ Spoke in Parables  The Rosary  Processions  Relics  Holy Water  Temptation  The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass  Ceremonies  Regarding the Spirit of the Liturgical Seasons  Miracles  Sacraments  Origins of Church Feasts  Drunkenness  Good Intention  more Hows? Whys? and What-fors? The Church’s Year follows the calendar in effect at the time it was first published (1880), yet all of it is applicable with the use of the 1962 Missal. Totally retypeset. Keepsake edition. “It will bring blessings on any house in which it is kept and used” (Wm. Henry Elder, Archbishop of Cincinnati, 1884). The Mass Fr. Adrian Fortescue A classic study of the history of the Roman liturgy. Part 1: the origin (various theories) and development of the Mass in general; the Eucharist in the first three Centuries. The Parent Rites and their Descendants; the Origin of the Roman Rite; the Mass since St. Gregory the Great. Part 2 covers the Mass as we know it, adding notes to each prayer and ceremony. Bibliography for further study. 438pp, softcover, STK# 5721Q $19.95 814pp, 6” x 9”, gold-embossed leatherette cover, STK# 6720Q $32.95 The Ottaviani Intervention Cardinal Alfredo Ottaviani & Cardinal Antonio Bacci One of the most important documents of the Conciliar era. It contends that the New Mass teems with dangerous errors in doctrine and represents an attack against the Catholic teaching on the Mass defined by the Council of Trent. It is not meant as an exhaustive treatment, but rather was intended to point out those deviations from Catholic doctrine and practice which are most typical of the New Mass. In their oft-quoted letter to Pope Paul VI, Cardinals Ottaviani and Bacci conclude: “...the Novus Ordo Missae... represents, both as a whole and in its details, a striking departure from the Catholic theology of the Mass as it was formulated in Session 22 of the Council of Trent.” 63pp, softcover, STK# 8078. $8.00 Learn How to Serve the Holy Mass How To Serve th wi dio te ausset ca Low Mass & Benediction R e v. W i l l i a m A . O ’ B r i e n Serving at the Altar Helps the server with correct Latin pronunciation and proper actions within the sanctuary. Consistent review of the tape and booklet will help the server remember his sacred duties and make his serving edifying for others and a blessing for himself. 1) 52pg. booklet, 2) a cassette tape Side 1: Responses & Instructions, Side 2: Responses Only, and 3) a laminated serving card. All in a molded plastic case with color jacket. 52pp, Tape, Card, & Case, STK# 6605Q $14.95 How to Serve Low Mass and Benediction Fr. William A. O’Brien Assist at the Sacred Mysteries with precision. Pictures of the sacristy, sanctuary, sacred vessels, and vestments. Teaches the necessary Latin (with pronunciation guide) and the proper movements and responses for serving Low Mass according to the 1962 Roman Missal, Requiem Mass, Mass in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament exposed, Low Mass with 2 servers, and Benediction. 46pp, leatherette cover, STK# 5016. $4.95 Tough Questions– Clear Answers The Problem of the Liturgical Reform The book Bp. Fellay sent to the Pope. Lays out many quotations from the fabricators of the New Mass themselves to show how coherent, but un-Catholic, are the principles behind the Novus Ordo Missae. In three parts: 1) the New Mass breaks the liturgical tradition of the Church; 2) this break proceeds from a new theology; 3) this new theology is condemned by Catholic doctrine. 130pp, softcover, STK# 6740Q $9.95 Religious Liberty Questioned Pope or Church? Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre Cardinal Ratzinger invited Archbishop Lefebvre to submit a dubia (an official statement) concerning his opposition to Vatican II's declaration on religious liberty. This is it. Archbishop Lefebvre and Bishop Tissier de Mallerais explore the question of religious liberty and give a crystal-clear picture of what the Church has always taught, what the Second Vatican Council taught, and how they are contradictory. You, too, will be faced with a choice. And choose we must. 178pp, softcover, STK# 7060Q $12.95 Is Feeneyism Catholic? Rev. Fr. François Laisney Explains Baptism of Desire and the errors of those who deny it. How some confuse the grace of baptism (which is necessary for salvation) with the character of baptism (which is not necessary for salvation) with the consequent denial of the simple truth that all that is really necessary for salvation is to die in the state of grace. Heavily quotes Church documents, Scripture, and the Saints. A defense of Catholicism, not of false ecumenism. 128pp, softcover, STK# 3093Q $9.95 Baptism of Desire: A Patristic Commentary Fr. Jean-Marc Rulleau While visiting the US, Fr. Rulleau, (former Professor of Dogmatic Theology in Ecône, Switzerland) could not help but notice the specifically American problem of the denial of baptism of desire. Rising above all polemics, Fr. Rulleau clearly explains the mind of the Church, based upon the Magisterium and the Fathers. 75pp, softcover, STK# 6722Q $7.95 Dom Paul Nau, OSB & Canon René Berthold These two essays address the degree of infallibility enjoyed by acts of the ordinary magisterium. At the time of Pius XII, when the first essay was written, the authority of the ordinary magisterium was downplayed, especially by the “new theologians”; after Vatican II, it is so exaggerated that some now claim the Pope can contradict and reverse the teaching of his predecessors. 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Sedevacantism follows the prudential attitude of Archbishop 2915 Forest Avenue, Lefebvre by avoiding vain and Kansas City, Missouri 64109 futile polemics, while at the same time, refusing to shift the problem so far into the theoretical realm that no practical conclusions can 1-800-966-7337 be drawn. 80pp, softcover, STK# 8011Q $8.95 angelus Press 1-800-96ORDER www.angeluspress.org Please visit our website to see our entire selection of books and music.