Catholics have the duty to look at the vaccine mandates properly. For instance, those looking for a religious exemption in the Catholic Church need to realize that both the current pope and the pope emeritus have not only been vaccinated but also received boosters.
Trying to figure out what is the problem with the fight for and against vaccine mandates, I learned that many believe requiring vaccination is being used as a method to diminish our freedoms by progressive legislators mostly connected to the Democratic Party. So, they say, the proper response is to refuse the vaccine even if it costs loss of employment.
I am coming from a Catholic perspective and one that many may not fully understand. I must also say here that I am not a doctor so I will not tell anyone to be vaccinated or to refuse the vaccination. I am not qualified to make that statement. I am qualified to speak on the spiritual response to the vaccine.
Vaccine Mandates in the Roman Empire
We have to keep in mind, as much as we enjoy much freedom in the United States, the Church at two-thousand years old has many faithful who never experienced such freedom in its history or even today. If there was such a thing as a vaccine in the Roman Empire and people said they choose not to receive it, I cannot see that would go well for them. After all many were persecuted and executed for simply not recognizing the divinity of the emperor.
The Book of Revelation, much quoted during our time, was written during the first century of the Church and many believed it reflects that era. The mark of the beast — six, six, six, scripture scholars tell us is code for the Emperor Nero. So naturally, any act of standing up against the vaccine, if it existed in that time, would be fatal just as standing up against the emperor would be.
Unfortunately, vaccine mandate supporters do not appreciate the optics and so when people learn they will be fired, forbidden travel, and even forbidden to go to stores for refusing the inoculation others point to the Book of Revelation and say: “See, we told you so.” Pointing to passages of similar penalties those who refuse the mark of the beast. This sets off alarm bells among many.
Several years ago, one tech company came up with the idea of putting a UPC seal on people’s skin to make it easier to make transactions. I do not know if it was a joke or it was real but clearly, the inventors were not in touch with the fear many have of just that idea being a sign of the end-times.
Of course, none of this means that the vaccine is the mark of the beast or a sign of the end times. Fear, however, can be a terrible thing in all its forms.
The Bible teaches against fear
The Bible teaches against fear three hundred sixty-five times and Jesus calls us to go out into the world and preach the Gospel. So how do we take all that information and make our own decision of the vaccine mandate?
How do we separate the truth from falsehoods? We have to do our own research to verify or disprove what we learn about the mandates. One source I appreciate is Dr. Mike Hansen on YouTube.
Is the mandate a legitimate public policy for the benefit of our society or is it a method to undermine the freedoms of the citizens of this country? Is it being used to spread immunity or to fundamentally transform our nation? These and other arguments are part of the debate for and against the vaccine.
I teach all the time to follow the mask mandates but not because the governor orders them; do it because our faith teaches us to follow the law as a witness to the Gospel. Granted we do not have to follow unjust laws, however, the question of whether these laws are unjust has not been formally determined.
Our ultimate authority is whom? It is Jesus Christ. While people wave the banner of Christ in their determination not to submit to the mask mandates, I disagree that is the proper response.
If some choose to receive the vaccine, which I did, they may not necessarily do this because it is the law but because they chose to offer their action in service to Christ. It certainly would appear that they are submitting to a government authority, but they are making a choice to receive the vaccine on their terms. They are offering this in allegiance to God, not to any political entity including the Vatican.
The authorities, whomever they may be, cannot take your freedom away — if that is their cause — in this case, you are not submitting to their authority, you are submitting to Christ’s
I learned this principle from someone who did suffer loss of freedom from the government and was forced into slavery in a labor camp in Communist Russia. In the book, He Leadeth Me by Fr. Walter Czisek, SJ, the author describes his time serving in the Soviet GULAGs after spending five years in solitary confinement. It was part of the persecution against Catholics and other religions. He was sentenced to fifteen years of hard labor in Siberia after being tortured and forced to give a false confession that he was a spy for the Vatican.
There in Siberia, he was a slave of the state forced to build houses under the Soviet’s project to populate that region. While many prisoners did poor quality work in their protest against their imprisonment and the government that put them there, Czisek decided he would give his best manual work as a carpenter and not do it for the state but do it for Christ. He decided that since he was there, it had to be at least allowed by God, running with this, he decided to respond by serving God in his slavery.
He did not fight the state, he offered his work to Christ.
The Sermon on the Mount on laws we do not like
This is an attitude that I teach. I explain that if you disagree with the mask mandates, you can either fight them which usually has little if any success — unless you take the case to court or you can obey them in the spirit of Sermon of the Mount. (cf the Engaging the Powers series from Walter Wink, Fortress Press). In doing so, do not obey the governor’s mandates, offer your obedience in service to Christ. Now it is you choosing to obey the law in service to Christ instead of obeying the law by force. It may seem to be the same thing but spiritually it is not. Wink would suggest putting creative messages on your masks.
He takes his ideas from the Sermon of the Mount where Jesus explains how to act against laws with which you disagree:
Whoever compels you to go one mile, go with him two. (Matthew 5:41 World English Bible, Public Domain)
Wink called for creative responses to issues that we may oppose. He explained that if the law allowed a Roman soldier to put a civilian into service for one mile, the minute the one carrying the load continues beyond the one mile the power structure is changed. The soldier would have to demand the bag back and the civilian could easily respond with a smile.
What about the vaccine mandates? Again, it is your choice after consultation with your doctor. Maybe it is the nation’s way of breaking you down and taking away your freedom as some say. There are ways to fight that and refusing the vaccine may be one way but that does not mean it is the most effective or even wise. Obviously, you would need documented evidence that this was exactly the reason for the mandates. Of course, taking the case to court is a route many groups are executing. Nevertheless, some front-line workers must choose between keeping people safe and refusing the vaccine. If they refuse the vaccine they may not be there when needed to keep people safe.
Those who take the vaccine as a part of their job but seek to offer it up to God make a choice to obey on their terms, not on the government’s. They are seeking their freedom in Christ and allowing him to define it.
They are fighting a different battle and that battle is the more important. It is not our temporal freedoms that are at stake but our true freedoms rooted in the spiritual. Those freedoms are always under attack and have been throughout history. They have little to do with government mandates.
St. Paul reminded us that our battle is a spiritual fight so if we feel this is a battle against our freedoms then it can only be fought spiritually. We need to be people of prayer, we need to live our faith and offer our current situation to Christ.
If we use this situation to witness to Christ by taking it as a spiritual battle that must be fought spiritually then we will channel the true source of freedom. If we battle this on our own then we will be part of the growing division in this country.
Many of the saints complained that the source of true evil in the world is Catholics not living their faith. The true battle is spiritual within selves and our own communities to draw us to be stronger in prayer, liturgy, and then service to the people. We can do so in a spirit of seeking true peace and freedom inspired by divine wisdom and nothing less.
RJ Carr’s latest book Encounter Christ in Your Humanity can be found at CatholicAudioMedia.com/