No Thanks

Lately I've had a ton of questions about abortion, Covid vaccines, and the common good. Have you? This is for you, then.

When we started @PillarCatholic, we wanted space for the kind of deep dive stuff we simply hadn't had time for. This is what we meant. https://t.co/ZUlw5hVDAu

— Ed. Condon (@canonlawyered) February 22, 2021

Professional Catholics Should Really Lay Off Promoting the COVID-19 Vaccine

even if it is in the name of defending its licit use. There are bigger problems which they of course are ignoring.

How to Vaccinate Like a Catholic: A Guide Through the Prickly COVID-19 Issues | Church Life Journal | University of Notre Dame This is an extraordinarily helpful article. ⁦@ChurchLifeND⁩ ⁦@ndsapper⁩ https://t.co/C23Ms1tsoJ

— John Cavadini (@JohnCavadini) December 28, 2020

Latin Progs Love It When the Shoe is on the Other Foot

Let this put an end to bishops who were opposing vaccines and endangering lives. Roma locuta, causa finita. https://t.co/fr1gD7dj9i

— James Martin, SJ (@JamesMartinSJ) December 21, 2020

Not quite. The CDF note requires us to continue to reject and condemn the practice of abortion and is use in vaccine development. This is still a moral evil, and we are right to oppose the evil, even if our remote cooperation makes its use morally acceptable. https://t.co/uYoBRjn1Vf

— Fr. Pius Pietrzyk OP (@PiusOP) December 21, 2020

Related:

A note from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which was approved by Pope Francis, gives the green light during the pandemic to the use of vaccines produced with cell lines derived from two fetuses aborted in the 1960s.https://t.co/LV5mw7u4xT

— Catholic Sat (@CatholicSat) December 21, 2020

By @eliseannallen, Vatican green-lights COVID vaccines, finds no ‘cooperation’ in abortion for users https://t.co/tmoKAWIo15

— Crux (@Crux) December 21, 2020

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has today issued a Note on the morality of using some anti-Covid-19 vaccines: https://t.co/5O7PQkljPa

— Fr James Bradley (@FrJamesBradley) December 21, 2020

Fr. Harrison Ayre on the COVID-19 Vaccines

If you're looking for a short article on the ethics of vaccines but works hard to present the Church's teaching without getting too in the weeds with her subtle distinctions, I offer you this small article I wrote for @OSVNews https://t.co/swq23XrIMc

— Fr. Harrison Ayre (@FrHarrison) November 25, 2020

I Don't Care if the USCCB Gives This Unofficial Opinion Either

News: The US Conference of Catholic Bishops @USCCB distributed an internal memo today saying that the @pfizer and @moderna_tx vaccines are morally permissible for Catholics, days after at least two bishops claimed they were not. My story: https://t.co/xoQAitybZY

— Michael J. O'Loughlin (@MikeOLoughlin) November 24, 2020

Another Believe It or Not

I'd find it more credible if a Dominican was making the claim and not a LC or someone in the Vatican tweeting.

Well, one less thing to worry about: "Neither the Pfizer nor the Moderna vaccine poses any significant moral concern. Any moral issues with both are so remote and minor that they should prevent nobody from getting either of them." l @FrMatthewLC https://t.co/lO9oN1NR1X

— Jay W. Richards (@DrJayRichards) November 23, 2020

Using the guidelines released by the @PontAcadLife in 2005 and 2017 on the origin of vaccines, @TheCHAUSA ethicists, in collaboration with other Catholic bioethicists, find nothing morally prohibitive with the vaccines developed by @pfizer and @BioNTech_Group and @moderna_tx.

— Pontifical Academy Life (@PontAcadLife) November 22, 2020

Daytime Hunters

What makes us human: physical suitability for persistence daytime hunting (lack of fur, sweat glands, jogging on two feet, working in teams). This amazing film depicts perhaps the last of the persistence daytime hunters: "Human Mammal, Human Hunter" https://t.co/zKTZLFJo7g pic.twitter.com/SxBpbXKZet

— Dr. Ann (@AnnChildersMD) October 19, 2020

An episode from the Accad and Koka Report on brain death:

Ep. 151 Brain Death: Challenges and Responses https://t.co/lmAgTgxrfL

— The Accad & Koka Report (@Accad_Koka) October 22, 2020

Carter Snead's New Book

What It Means to Be Human

Argh early-morning typos. https://t.co/1hK46oTv5H

— Sohrab Ahmari (@SohrabAhmari) October 13, 2020

Snead wrote this for the NY Post: To heal America’s wounds, we need to recall that we belong to one another

His book on bioethics is probably good. But he is unprepared for identity politics. He implicitly recognizes that there are natural affinities:

We need an anthropology that recognizes that we come into the world as living bodies, embedded in families, communities, and histories that, as philosopher Michael Sandel says, we “neither summon nor command.”

And if conflicts should arise between different identity groups? Calls such as this for friendship, or even civility, will not suffice. When one is a professional intellectual, authentic community is generally lacking, so academics write of things they have not experienced.

A better anthropology and, therefore, a better politics must facilitate the creation of what the philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre calls “networks of uncalculated giving and graceful receiving,” in which we make the goods of others our own. To create and sustain such networks, we must practice the virtues of just generosity, hospitality, misericordia (accompaniment of others in their suffering), gratitude, humility, openness to the unbidden, tolerance of imperfection, solidarity, respect for dignity and honesty.

In other words, we must embrace the virtues of authentic friendship. We must remember our embodiment and what it means. And then, God willing, we will remember that we belong to one another.

They may think they have some sort of community with (some of) their colleagues, but how many of their colleagues would pass the zombie apocalypse thought experiment/test and qualify as true friends? Even if they do have (male) friends who pass that test, how many such friends do they have? Probably not even enough to fill a rifle platoon. And yet they think they are qualified to talk about community, "bcuz credential." They may think they have some sort of community with (some of) their colleagues, but how many of their colleagues would pass the zombie apocalypse thought experiment/test and qualify as true friends? The same criticism could be levelled at those associated with the American Solidarity Party. I don't expect much from professional (D) and (R) pols. But if the ASP wants to advertise itself as being different, there better be some actual basis for it, other than some sort of identity as Christian Democrats or adherence to Roman Catholic Social Teaching. Prove yourselves the trad. and natural way, not with mass politics.

It's Not About Health Care

What Professor Christakis says is so true. Paul McHugh is indeed "a giant of American psychiatry, and a deeply caring and fearless man." It is always edifying, and to me a source of joy, to hear one brilliant and truly dedicated scholar paying just tribute to another. https://t.co/SimYoRhukY

— Robert P. George (@McCormickProf) May 24, 2020

The McHugh Factor: The Ideology of Transgenderism Will Brook No Dissent by Matthew J. Franck

Wesley Smith's Podcast Series for Ancient Faith Radio

Wesley Smith introduces his podcast, as well as the concept of human exceptionalism.http://bit.ly/1JLwAyG

Posted by Ancient Faith Radio on Tuesday, July 7, 2015

Health Risks Associated with Contraceptive Pharmaceuticals

What Every Woman Should Know About the Pill

The article does not deal with the morality of their use, but women should at least be aware of the possible negative consequences of using the pill to their health.

Recommended alternatives include withdrawal, but includes methods that are part of NFP.

Couple to Couple League

The Morality of Dr. Yamanaka's Research

Why are Catholics Praising the Nobel Prize Stem Cell Technology? (via Fr. Z)

Dr. Shinya Yamanaka

Great news about the Nobel Prize
Vindication for Opponents of Embryo-Destructive Research
Stem Cell Scientists Gurdon and Yamanaka Win Nobel Prize in Medicine


Gladstone Institutes

Do we care what Mayor Ed Lee and the City of San Francisco think? Everyone wants to claim a winner as one of their own.

Steve Sailer, Japanese win another Nobel



More videos after the jump:

American Papist: "Badethics": Obama Plans to Replace Bush’s Bioethics Panel

The President's Council on Bioethics -- so who will be appointed to the "new and improved" version? And if concensus is what is important, will the appointments be stacked in certain directions? What a joke. At least there was discussion on the Bush council, that ended up being published in the proceedings. Can the same be said for anything the Obama council produces (other than perhaps some minor quibbling)?

The Great Beyond: President's bioethics council disbanded
Obama Plans to Replace Bush's Bioethics Panel‎
Members of President's Bioethics Council Voice Objections