New guidance on issuing COVID-19 vaccine religious exemptions for federal employees insufficiently treats the matter of conscience, one Catholic bioethicist told CNA.
Federal employees are now required to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 by Nov. 22, 2021. Guidance for federal agencies from the Office of Personnel Management, released on Monday, Oct. 4, states that employees requesting a religious exemption to the mandate “must first establish that [their] refusal to be vaccinated is based upon a sincere belief that is religious in nature.”
A template for religious exemptions includes a seven-part form for employees to fill out, asking a series of questions about employees’ religious-based objection to receiving a COVID-19 vaccine.
However, religious exemptions should be “liberally available” for employees, said Fr. Tadeusz Pacholczyk, Ph.D., the director of education at The National Catholic Bioethics Center, in an interview with CNA. Otherwise, the vaccine mandates “can easily become intrusive, blunt instruments that end up violating personal liberties,” he said.
Many of the questions about religious exemptions in the federal guidance are “largely irrelevant to assessing whether someone has conscience concerns about being vaccinated,” he said.
The template provides questions for federal agencies, such as why an employee is opposed to receiving a COVID-19 vaccine. Other questions include the length of time an employee held their religious beliefs that support their objection, their adult vaccine history, other medicines they have avoided due to religious beliefs, and why receiving a COVID-19 vaccine would “substantially burden” their religious practice.
Pacholczyk said that questions about a “substantial burden” on one’s faith or how long they have objected to COVID-19 vaccines are “not, per se, of importance.”
Instead, the important point is “whether someone manifests a current conviction of conscience that they do not wish to be vaccinated,” he said.
“Simply conveying this personal point of resolve, whether in written or even oral form, and even in the absence of revealing the reasons, ought to provide the needed basis for the granting of a conscience exemption.”
Pacholczyk told CNA that it would be an error to presume that “one size always fits all” when it comes to vaccinations.
“Decisions about medical interventions properly belong in the hands of the individual patient, who can make an assessment that corresponds to his or her on-the-ground situation much more fully and meaningfully than any federal agency can do,” he said. “The principle of subsidiarity reminds us that one should not withdraw those decisions or choices that rightly belong to individuals or smaller groups and assign them to a higher authority except unless strictly necessary.”
People who refuse the COVID-19 vaccine, or any vaccine, however, should comply with other mitigation efforts to prevent the spread of disease, he said.
“Those who decline vaccinations, of course, may reasonably be expected, and even obligated, to choose other effective precautions to help limit the spread of pathogens when pandemics arise,” he said.
According to the federal guidance on COVID-19 vaccine religious exemptions, “A refusal to be vaccinated does not qualify for an exception if it is based upon personal preference, concerns about the possible effects of the vaccine, or political opinions.”
“The purpose of this form is to determine whether you may be eligible for an exception,” says the religious exemption template. “To be eligible for a possible exception, you must first establish that your refusal to be vaccinated is based upon a sincere belief that is religious in nature.”
The guidance adds that the government “is committed to respecting the important legal protections for religious liberty.”
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Washington D.C., Feb 1, 2021 / 09:45 am (CNA).- U.S. bishops on Monday praised the Biden administration for its “actions to promote racial equity” in housing and criminal justice reform.
Washington D.C., Feb 4, 2021 / 10:00 am (CNA).- President Joe Biden condemned political extremism and urged Americans to “lift one another up” in remarks at the virtual National Prayer Breakfast on Thursday.
Amanda Achtman’s last photo with her grandfather, Joseph Achtman. / Credit: Photo courtesy of Amanda Achtman
CNA Staff, Nov 5, 2023 / 06:00 am (CNA).
When the Canadian government began discussing the legalization of euthanasia for those whose deaths were “reasonably foreseeable,” 32-year-old Amanda Achtman said something in her began to stir. Her grandfather was in his mid-90s at the time and fit the description.
“There were a couple of times, toward the end of his life, that he faced some truly challenging weeks and said he wanted to die,” Achtman recalled. “But thank God no physician could legally concede to a person’s suicidal ideation in such vulnerable moments. To all of our surprise — including his — his condition and his outlook improved considerably before his death at age 96.”
Achtman said she and her grandfather were able to have a memorable final visit that “forged her character and became one of the greatest gifts he ever gave me.”
The experience of walking with her grandfather in his last days led Achtman to work that she believes is a calling. On Aug. 1, she launched a multifaceted cultural project called Dying to Meet You, which seeks to “humanize our conversations and experiences around suffering, death, meaning, and hope.” This mission is accomplished through a mix of interviews, short films, community events, and conversations.
Amanda Achtman speaks during the Evening Program at St. Mary’s Cathedral during “The Church as an Expert in Humanity” event in Calgary Sept. 23, 2023. Credit: Edward Chan/Community Productions
“This cultural project is my primary mission, and I am grateful to be able to dedicate the majority of my energy to it,” Achtman told CNA.
Early years
Achtman was born and raised in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. She grew up in a Jewish-Catholic family with, she said, “a strong attachment to these two traditions that constitute the tenor of my complete personality.”
Her Polish-Jewish grandfather, with whom she had a very close relationship as a young adult, had become an atheist because of the Holocaust and was always challenging her to face up to the big questions of mortality and morality.
“One of the ways I did this was by traveling on the March of Remembrance and Hope Holocaust study trip to Germany and Poland when I was 18,” Achtman said. “My experiences listening to the stories of Holocaust survivors and Righteous Among the Nations have undeniably forged my moral imagination and instilled in me a profound sense of personal responsibility.”
Shortly after her grandfather’s death, Achtman discovered a new English-language master’s program being offered in John Paul II philosophical studies at the Catholic University of Lublin in Poland.
“Immediately, I felt as though God were saying to me, ‘Leave your country and go to the land that I will show you — it’s Poland.’ At the time, the main things I knew about Poland were that the Holocaust had largely been perpetrated there and that Sts. John Paul II, Maximilian Kolbe, and Faustina were from there,” Achtman explained. “I wanted to be steeped in a country of saints, heroes, and martyrs in order to contemplate seriously what my life is actually about and how I could spend it generously in the service of preventing dehumanization and faithfully defending the sanctity of life in my own context.”
On Sept. 23, 2023, Amanda Achtman organized a daylong open-house-style event called “The Church as an Expert in Humanity” in Calgary, Alberta. Participants added ideas for how we, the Church, can prevent euthanasia and encourage hope. Credit: Edward Chan/Community Productions
The rise of euthanasia in Canada
In 2016, the Canadian government legalized euthanasia nationwide. The criterion to be killed in a hospital was informed consent on the part of an adult who was deemed to have a “grievous and irremediable condition.”
“The death request needed to be made in writing before two independent witnesses after a mandatory time of reflection. And, consent could be withdrawn any time before the lethal injection,” Achtman explained.
Then, in 2021, the Canadian government began to remove those safeguards. “The legislative change involved requiring only one witness, allowing the possible waiving of the need for final consent, and the removal, in many cases, of any reflection period,” Achtman told CNA.
“Furthermore, a new ‘track’ was invented for ‘persons whose natural death is not reasonably foreseeable.’ This meant that Canadians with disabilities became at greater risk of premature death through euthanasia. Once death-by-physician became seen as a human right, there was practically no limit as to who should ‘qualify.’ As long as killing is seen as a legitimate means to eliminate suffering, there is no limit to who could be at risk.”
Euthanasia — now called medical assistance in dying (MAiD) in Canada — is set to further expand on March 17, 2024, to those whose sole underlying condition is “mental illness.” Last year, Dr. Louis Roy of the Quebec College of Physicians and Surgeons testified before a special joint committee that his organization thinks euthanasia should be expanded to infants with “severe malformations” and “grave and severe syndromes.”
Renewing the culture
Achtman followed the debates around end-of-life issues in Canada and wanted to figure out a way to restore “a right response to the reality of suffering and death in our lives.”
“The fact is, our mortality is part of what makes life precious, our relationships worth cherishing, and our lives worth giving out of love. That’s why we need to bring cultural renewal to death and dying, restoring our understanding of its meaning to the human condition.”
At the Sept. 23, 2023, open-house event called “The Church as an Expert in Humanity,” there were table displays of ministries in the diocese who are doing the best work on suffering, death, grief, and caregiving. Credit: Edward Chan/Community Productions
On Jan. 1, 2021, Achtman made a new year’s resolution to blog about death every single day for an entire year in a way that was “hope-filled and edifying.”
It ended up being very fruitful to Achtman personally, but she said “it also touched a surprising number of people, inspiring them to take concrete actions in their own lives that I could not have anticipated.”
The experience, Achtman said, made her realize that it’s possible to contribute to cultural renewal through things like coffee shop visits, informal interviews, posting on social media, being a guest on podcasts and webinars, organizing community events, and making videos.
“Basically, there are countless practical and ordinary ways that we can humanize the culture — wherever we are and whatever we do the rest of the time.”
The Dying to Meet You project
When it comes to the mission of Dying to Meet You, Achtman told CNA that “God has put on my heart two key objectives: the prevention of euthanasia and the encouragement of hope” and added that “the aim of this cultural project is to improve our cultural conversation and engagement around suffering, death, meaning, and hope through a mix of interviews, writing, videos, and events.”
Achtman said the project is an experiment in the themes Pope Francis speaks about often — encounter, accompaniment, going to the peripheries, and contributing to a more fraternal spirit.
“There is a strong basis for opposition to euthanasia across almost all religions and cultures, traditionally speaking,” Achtman said. “Partly from my own upbringing in a Jewish-Catholic family, I am passionate about how the cultural richness of such a plurality of traditions in Canada can bolster and enrich our value of all human life.”
To that end, one of the projects Achtman has in the works is a short film on end of life from an Indigenous perspective to be released mid-November.
“It’s not so much that we have a culture of death as we now seem to have death without culture,” said Achtman, who hopes her efforts will help change that.
An inspiring hometown event
This past Sept. 23, Achtman organized a daylong open-house-style event called “The Church as an Expert in Humanity” in her home city of Calgary, which took place at Calgary’s Cathedral, the Cathedral Hall, and the Catholic Pastoral Centre. The morning featured a ministry hall of exhibits with 18 table displays of ministries throughout the diocese doing the best work on suffering, death, grief, and caregiving. In the afternoon, there were three-panel presentations.
The morning of “The Church as an Expert in Humanity” in St. Mary’s Cathedral Hall in Calgary, Alberta, featured a ministry hall of exhibits with table displays of ministries in the diocese doing the best work on suffering, death, grief, and caregiving. Credit: Edward Chan/Community Productions
The first involved Catholics of diverse cultural backgrounds speaking about hospitality and accompaniment in their respective traditions. It included a Filipino diaconal candidate, a Ukrainian laywoman working with refugees, an elderly Indigenous woman who is a community leader, and an Iraqi Catholic priest.
The second was called “Tell Me About the Hour of Death,” where participants heard from two doctors, a priest, and a longtime pastoral care worker.
The third panel focused on papal documents pertaining to death, hope, and eternal life. A Polish Dominican sister who has worked extensively with the elderly spoke about John Paul II’s “Letter to the Elderly.”
Later, an evening program was held in Calgary’s Catholic Cathedral and included seven short testimonies by different speakers that “were narratively framed as echoes of the Seven Last Words of Christ.” Among the speakers were a privately sponsored Middle Eastern Christian refugee, a L’Arche core member who has a disability, and a young father whose daughter only lived for 38 minutes. Afterward, Calgary’s Bishop William McGrattan gave some catechesis on the Anima Christi prayer, with a special emphasis on the line “In your wounds, hide me.”
“The day was extremely uplifting and instilled the local Church with confidence that the Church indeed is an expert in humanity, capable of meeting Christ in all who suffer with a gaze of love and the steadfast insistence, ‘I will not abandon you,’” Achtman told CNA.
Calgary’s Bishop William McGrattan listens to the seven testimonies echoing the seven last words of Christ during the evening program. Credit: Edward Chan/Community Productions
Our lives are not wholly our own
Many believe euthanasia is compassionate care for those who suffer. Shouldn’t we be able to do what we want with our own lives? And can suffering have any meaning for someone who doesn’t believe in God?
Achtman said these questions remind her of something Mother Teresa said: “If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other,” as well as the John Donne quote “Each man’s death diminishes me, for I am involved in mankind.”
“Our lives are not wholly our own and how we live and die affects the communities to which we belong,” Achtman said. “That is not a religious argument but an empirical observation about human life. If someone lacks ties and is without family and social support, then that is the crisis to which the adequate response is presence and assistance — not abandonment or hastened death. As one of my heroes, Father Alfred Delp, put it, a suffering person makes an ongoing appeal to your inner nobility, to your sacrificial strength and capacity to love. Don’t miss the opportunity.”
Amanda Achtman pictured with Christine, an 88-year-old woman who got a tattoo that says “Don’t euthanize me,” which is featured in a short four-minute documentary. Credit; Photo courtesy of Amanda Achtman
The mission continues
Achtman also organized a “Mass of a Lifetime,” a special Sunday Mass for residents of a local retirement home, on Oct. 15.
Attendees at the Mass of a Lifetime event, a special Sunday Mass for residents of a local retirement home held on Oct. 15, 2023, in Calgary, Alberta. Credit: Amanda Achtman
“I was inspired by a quotation of Dietrich von Hildebrand, who said: ‘Wherever anything makes Christ known, there nothing can be beautiful enough,’” Achtman said. “Applying that spirit to this Mass, we made it as elaborate as possible to show the seniors that they are worth the effort.”
Achtman also recently produced a four-minute short film about an 88-year-old woman named Christine who got a tattoo that says “Don’t euthanize me.” It can be viewed here:
Throughout 2023-2024, Achtman told CNA, she is basing herself in four different Canadian cities for three months each “in order to empower diverse faith and cultural communities in the task of preventing euthanasia and encouraging hope.” She started in her hometown of Calgary and is off to Vancouver this month.
In addition to her work with the Dying to Meet You project, Achtman does ethics education and cultural engagement with Canadian Physicians for Life and works to promote the personalist tradition with the Hildebrand Project.
Those more familiar with the science are requested to comment on any of the following…
FIRST, personal risk taking? It would seem that a genuine religious (AND reasoned!) exemption petition could include the obligation to not risk compromising one’s overall natural immunity, by subjecting oneself to a “protective” injection that only works for a while against COVID. This while impairing the natural immune system (?), leaving one more vulnerable to a range of other future possible infections.
The Fifth Commandment possible comes into play here, such that not all “possible effects of the vaccine” are illegitimate as religious concerns. Each person is part of the religious “common good.”
The genetically engineered Moderna and Pfizer seem vulnerable to this criticism and, therefore, might not be equivalent alternatives to Johnson & Johnson (see below). They are not real vaccines, in that while they offer temporary protection, they do not stimulate, but possible suppress, the natural immune system. (The definition of “vaccine has been altered to now refer to “protection” rather than to stimulating the immune system.)
SECOND, past personal records? In the questionnaire, is the comparison to other kinds of vaccines which one might not have opposed in the past an irrelevant aside from the different nature of these two COVID antidotes?
THIRD, material cooperation? Johnson and Johnson is a real vaccine in that it does stimulate the natural immune system, and also apparently (?) offers longer-term results (while also causing some blood clot consequences with some reported fatalities). But, unlike Moderna and Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson is directly (not indirectly in product testing) derived from aborted fetal cells. While the case is made that the remoteness of such manufacture, in this case also, renders moot any “formal cooperation” by each patient in the original abortion(s), what about another moral category of “material cooperation”-—as possibly judged by the individual conscience?
FOURTH, the big picture? Does it fall to some consciences, now, to not cooperate in the broad and long-term trajectory of pharmaceuticals which continue to harvest aborted fetal cells for current products, and future research and application?
These are my street-level and very non-expert notions. Any more accurate, or different, or additional thoughts from those better informed or more qualified are invited!
If it would be unthinkable to use products derived from the murder of a concentration camp victim, it should be unthinkable to use products derived from the victim of an abortion. The victims are equally human in both cases. One needn’t even be particularly “religious” to grasp that. Just a humane person of good will.
Those more familiar with the science are requested to comment on any of the following…
FIRST, personal risk taking? It would seem that a genuine religious (AND reasoned!) exemption petition could include the obligation to not risk compromising one’s overall natural immunity, by subjecting oneself to a “protective” injection that only works for a while against COVID. This while impairing the natural immune system (?), leaving one more vulnerable to a range of other future possible infections.
The Fifth Commandment possible comes into play here, such that not all “possible effects of the vaccine” are illegitimate as religious concerns. Each person is part of the religious “common good.”
The genetically engineered Moderna and Pfizer seem vulnerable to this criticism and, therefore, might not be equivalent alternatives to Johnson & Johnson (see below). They are not real vaccines, in that while they offer temporary protection, they do not stimulate, but possible suppress, the natural immune system. (The definition of “vaccine has been altered to now refer to “protection” rather than to stimulating the immune system.)
SECOND, past personal records? In the questionnaire, is the comparison to other kinds of vaccines which one might not have opposed in the past an irrelevant aside from the different nature of these two COVID antidotes?
THIRD, material cooperation? Johnson and Johnson is a real vaccine in that it does stimulate the natural immune system, and also apparently (?) offers longer-term results (while also causing some blood clot consequences with some reported fatalities). But, unlike Moderna and Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson is directly (not indirectly in product testing) derived from aborted fetal cells. While the case is made that the remoteness of such manufacture, in this case also, renders moot any “formal cooperation” by each patient in the original abortion(s), what about another moral category of “material cooperation”-—as possibly judged by the individual conscience?
FOURTH, the big picture? Does it fall to some consciences, now, to not cooperate in the broad and long-term trajectory of pharmaceuticals which continue to harvest aborted fetal cells for current products, and future research and application?
These are my street-level and very non-expert notions. Any more accurate, or different, or additional thoughts from those better informed or more qualified are invited!
Where is this form?
If it would be unthinkable to use products derived from the murder of a concentration camp victim, it should be unthinkable to use products derived from the victim of an abortion. The victims are equally human in both cases. One needn’t even be particularly “religious” to grasp that. Just a humane person of good will.