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CARMEL, Indiana, April 9, 2021 (LifeSiteNews) — A Catholic pro-life activist group is hosting a peaceful prayer rally on Sunday to protest the distribution of abortion-tainted experimental COVID-19 vaccines by a free clinic housed on the campus of Our Lady of Mount Carmel Catholic Church (OLMC) in Carmel, Indiana. 

Corpus Christi for Unity and Peace (CCUP), an organization born last summer defending a faithful local priest who was being cancelled by Black Lives Matter, is objecting to the Trinity Free Clinic’s (TFC) participation in distributing one of the two most morally objectionable experimental COVID-19 vaccines available. 

“The Johnson & Johnson COVID vaccine used aborted fetal cells in its development, in its production and in its testing,” said Vicki Yamasaki, who serves as chairwoman of the CCUP board of directors

While alternatives “are widely available in Hamilton County,” the clinic “opted for the Johnson & Johnson, and they got the direction from Bishop (Timothy) Doherty of (the Diocese of) Lafayette,” Yamasaki told LifeSiteNews. “This flies in the face of every pro-life advocate.”

For these reasons, CCUP has organized a “Peaceful Prayer Rally Against Trinity Free Clinic’s Use of (the) Johnson & Johnson Vaccine,” on Sunday from 1 to 2 p.m. near the site of the TFC “pop-up vaccination clinic” event.

According to Children of God For Life, the Johnson & Johnson experimental vaccine was developed “using PER C6 Ad5 technology, derived from an aborted baby’s retinal tissue.”

During a 2001 hearing of the Food and Drug Administration, a physician revealed how he harvested the fetal cells of this child.

“So I isolated retina from a fetus, from a healthy fetus as far as could be seen, of 18 weeks old,” Alex van der Eb said. “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(.)”

He then admitted that “PER C6 was made just for pharmaceutical manufacturing of adenovirus vectors … I realize that this sounds a bit commercial, but PER C6 were made for that particular purpose.”

TFC executive director Mel Wischmeyer told LifeSiteNews that though their clinic is “an independent 501c3” organization, “we operate under Catholic directives. So we don’t (for example) prescribe birth control, we certainly do everything we can to stay in line with Catholic teaching.”

In discerning this moral question with regard to offering the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, Wischmeyer said, “When we found out we were going to be a vaccine site, we reached out to (OLMC pastor) Fr. Richard (Doerr) and the bishop and we did receive a blessing from both.”

“And the bishop forwarded the documents that came from the Vatican that encourage all Catholics to get vaccinated. It says if you have a choice, choose the Moderna or Pfizer vaccine. But if only Johnson & Johnson is available — or whatever type of vaccine is available — by all means get vaccinated because that’s for the greater good,” she said.

Does the Church have competence to judge that valid circumstances are present for receiving or administering an abortion-tainted ‘vaccine’?

Last December, the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) issued a statement affirming the judgment the Church has espoused for many years in regard to morally tainted vaccines.

The CDF argued that “when ethically irreproachable Covid-19 vaccines are not available … it is morally acceptable to receive Covid-19 vaccines that have used cell lines from aborted fetuses in their research and production process” (emphasis in original).

The CDF doctrinal note goes on to articulate another important criterion for the use of such tainted vaccines affirming that while there is normally a “moral duty to avoid such passive material cooperation” with abortion in this way, this “is not obligatory if there is a grave danger.”

The document continues, stating that such a grave danger currently exists in “the pandemic spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes Covid-19,” though the CDF does not present a justification for where the Church derives the competence to make this latter determination.

Others with due competence have come to an opposite conclusion, stating that vaccines are not needed at all for this pandemic, which they state is effectively “over.” Several thousand doctors in Belgium also affirmed that “(if) 95 percent of people experience Covid-19 virtually symptom-free, the risk of exposure to an untested vaccine is irresponsible.” And more than 55,000 affirm that due to the relatively mild danger of COVID-19 to the vast majority of the population, “those who are at minimal risk” should be permitted “to live their lives normally (and) build up (herd) immunity to the virus.” 

As COVID-19 remains less of a threat than influenza for those under 70, and very safe, effective and inexpensive treatments are available, many doctors strongly advise against the reception of these experimental biological agents (“vaccines”), concluding that they are “not safer” than the coronavirus itself. 

Indeed, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s released data today from its VAERS system showing “56,869 reports of adverse events following COVID vaccines, including 2,342 deaths and 7,971 serious injuries between Dec. 14, 2020 and April 1, 2021.”

Of course, with this database, causation is not necessarily confirmed, nor can one presume all such events are reported. However, one study in 2010 found that “fewer than 1 percent of vaccine injuries” are reported to VAERS, suggesting the actual numbers of deaths and injuries may be significantly higher.

Phil Lawler, author and editor of Catholic World News, observed, “The Vatican’s doctrinal congregation says that it will not judge the safety or efficacy of vaccines, because those are medical rather than moral judgments. However, the statement says that the Covid epidemic constitutes a ‘grave danger,’ and thus justifies the use of vaccines developed by immoral methods. Wait a minute. Isn’t that a medical rather than a moral judgment?”

In response, theologian, author, and composer Dr. Peter Kwasniewski commented, “The Vatican’s reasoning about the permissibility of a morally tainted vaccine rests entirely on a prudential judgment that we are in a major pandemic that requires the suspension of economy, mental health, optimal education, and a host of other social goods. That judgment is no more than a popular political stance that conflicts with the actual data. The catastrophic effects we see around us are enough to show that too high a price has been paid for ‘security’ or ‘safety.’ We are straining the gnats and swallowing the camels.”

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