Prayers for those sick with Covid; Fr. Romanoski; Vaccine; Sunday Mass obligation
Please keep all sick members of our community in your prayers. A few are struggling with bad cases of covid. Please keep especially Andrew Wojak in your prayers.
Fr. Chris Mahowald FSSP, who was the assistant at Christ the King, Sarastoa, last year, and recently transferred with Fr. Dorsa to Scranton, PA, contracted covid and has been hospitalized for over a week and is still very delicate. The next few days will determine much.
Surely you have all heard of the very esteemed American Cardinal- Raymond Burke, who is also very delicate but now improving. Many prayers are asked on his behalf. One can read updates on his health here.
Fr. Romanoski also tested positive for covid, after experiencing symptoms on Sunday night (August 15). He will thus be quarantined for 10 days coupled with a negative test. Thankfully, in his case, a prescription for Azithromycin (Zpak) and Ivermectin, coupled with Vitamin D3, greatly relieved him of worsening symptoms within 24 hours. He is grateful for any prayers, and is not in need of any other assistance, medical advice, or 700 packets of Vitamin C. Though in isolation, he continues to work on administrative tasks and is virtually available for regular communications.
Fr. Adams and Seminarian Schwab, continue to test negative, as they have previously had covid and will continue to serve our community with public masses provided they do not test positive.
As some have inquired about the liceity of taking some of the experimental vaccines against covid, we remind you that the Church has already pronounced on the topic-that it is morally permitted when there is a proportionate reason, as any cooperation in evil of testing the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine against a cloned cell line which may have come from an aborted child, is not intrinsic to the product and is neither a direct or proximate cooperation but remote and thus permitted for a proportionate reason. A summary of our catholic principles, the latest and repeated judgement of the Vatican since 2005, and internal link to another article on how it applies to many other moral choices of remote cooperation that we make every day can be found here. It is the same degree of remote, non direct, non intrinsic- cooperation as in buying most pharmaceutical products like Aspirin or Tylenol, for ex. An independent study by our own Priestly Fraternity and other traditional communities have all reached the same conclusions. That said, we should fight as citizens for the production of medicine not even remotely related to any immoral actions. For an up to date list of different vaccines and their ethical profiles, including templates to write to pharmaceutical companies to request them to produce vaccines excluding even the testing on the HEK293 cloned cell line visit here.
Though permitted for a proportionate reason, nevertheless, reasons based on catholic principles to not be mandated to receive an experimental vaccination, which can include a right to not cooperate even remotely in an evil can be found here, for example.
All that said, your priests only can assure you of moral theology, not medical advice. Please consult a medical expert for that. Taking care of your health and precautions for the health of others is obviously part of our moral responsibility of justice and charity.
So please be safe, use prudence in taking your own precautions, always thinking first of the common good. Though the general dispensation from Sunday Mass is no longer in effect, it does still apply for those who are sick or at risk. In general, traditional moral theology teaches that a moderately serious cause dispenses one from the Sunday obligation to attend Mass. Therefore if you suspect you may have a contagious illness, for ex., do not try to tough it out and go to public mass, as it would not oblige due to the justice you owe your neighbor in not putting their health at risk.
Please contact us if you have any further questions.
Our Lady, Health of the Sick: Pray for us!