Written by Fr Ambrose Astor
Original publication in https://www.truedevotions.ie/the-common-good
In his third article on “Charity and Vaccines,” Father Ambrose debunked the claim that getting vaccinated was “the loving thing to do”. In this fourth instalment he shows how the concept of the Common Good, which is part of Catholic social doctrine, has been unduly exploited to justify mass vaccination and other extreme measures taken during the so-called pandemic.1
The last three years witnessed unprecedented collaboration of governments around the world to coerce their citizens into accepting behaviours and procedures at odds with the normal ways of social interaction. We were told this was to be “the new normal”. Simultaneously, the notion of “the Common Good” was adopted by many academics2 and healthcare professionals as a justification for lockdowns and mandates that essentially superseded several fundamental human rights. Academic journal articles were advocating for experimental gene therapies to be declared a global “Common Good.”3 A worldwide initiative titled Declare Covid-19 Vaccines a Global Common Good saw numerous heads of state, financial stakeholders and Nobel laureates act as signatories to advocate so that the “prevention and immunisation against Covid-19 and its variants should be recognised as a global Common Good, with equal access, regardless of religious beliefs and socioeconomic status.”4 How does all this fit in with the Common Good as the Catholic Church understands it?
What is the Common Good?
The Common Good is the sum total of social conditions which allow people, either as groups or as individuals, to reach their fulfilment more fully and more easily.5 The more immediate ends that make life possible and are required so that the Common Good may be achieved are food, clothing, shelter, a job, safety from violence, etc. All this is good and necessary, which is why the Catholic Church, following the Lord’s command, has always taken great care to provide such basics to those in need. We all know by experience, however, that more is required to be a happy and fulfilled human being. Among other things: friends, education, public services, any number of organisations that allow human beings to develop their talents and flourish in a way that is rational, for it is by his reason that man is distinguished from other animals.
What role exactly does reason play in determining the Common Good?
Reason guides every human being, even those without faith, to know that there are certain norms they must live by, certain laws they must obey. A man’s conscience tells him there are things he must do and others he must avoid. This universal voice of conscience points to the existence of what Catholic theology refers to as the Natural Law. The Natural Law could be called the universal moral compass that every human being has in his mind and heart and which he knows he must follow in order to live a good life. For example, every individual, no matter whether he has faith or not and what his cultural background is, knows that he should not lie, kill, steal, commit adultery or disrespect his parents. All civilisations throughout history recognise these actions as not being conducive to life in common. The golden rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you, does not require any particular faith. All it requires is the use of reason.
It is now easy to see that the Common Good is based on the Natural Law, and Natural Law is based on reason. It is through the exercise of his God-given reason that man pursues good – both temporal and spiritual. We can also see why the Common Good serves as the basis for civil laws. If these were not based on the Common Good anchored in the Natural Law, such laws would contradict what every human being instinctively knows through reason. The result would be that instead of the Common Good we would have an earthly coexistence determined by a State that would lose its moorings to the Natural Law and thereby to God. Such a State would end up usurping the powers and prerogatives of God, which ultimately leads to the exploitation and abuse of man, and this is precisely what we see happening at the present moment.
But was it not precisely in the interests of reason that governments implemented restrictive measures to prevent the spread of Covid-19 and save lives?
Since the Common Good can only be achieved by the exercise of right reason, the measures taken during the pandemic would have had to be based on truth and result in the preservation of a higher good. If they were irrational and based on falsehoods, they could not be for the Common Good. So, upon what rationality were the pandemic restrictions based?
We know that medical strategies for dealing with infectious diseases have always focused on treating unwell individuals, and this would include early nutraceutical and pharmacological treatment of the disease and isolation at home or hospital room if warranted. This is based on true evidence, it is therefore rational, the measures being beneficial for the sick individual as well as for the greater majority who are well.
However, over the last three years, not only long-standing medical and pandemic preparedness principles,6 but also logical reasoning were suppressed in favour of bureaucratic public health initiatives based on fear, campaigns of misinformation7 and computer algorithms.8 The irrational measures included isolation of the healthy majority, abandonment of the sick with many not being able to see a doctor face to face due to fear from clinicians, and suppression of highly effective early treatments.9 The measures adopted were detrimental to the individual, the minority who were sick and the majority who were well, by ignoring the wider bio-psychosocial needs of human beings such as: the ability to earn a living, social interaction, familial and psychological support and most importantly, spiritual well-being.
Let’s have a closer look now and apply the rational criteria mentioned above to the restrictions seen worldwide over the last three years.
Masks: The use of personal protective equipment (PPE), such as masks and gowns, has been accepted in medical protocols for decades. Their use, however, has been limited to specific situations for short durations, e.g. operating theatre, examining a patient with an infectious disease. These protocols were based on scientific evidence and were reserved to trained healthcare professionals. Each mask was used for interaction with a single patient. Public health initiatives in nearly all western countries abandoned these long-standing principles and introduced indiscriminate mask mandates in both healthcare and public settings, despite the evidence that showed spread was happening through aerosolised particles rather than respiratory droplets.10 Due to this last finding, the public health intervention should have been focused on improvement of ventilation systems and air purifiers in closed spaces. Regardless, these mandates were forcibly applied, particularly in nations such as Canada and Australia, even in absurd situations such as patients who had difficulty breathing and mothers in labour.11
There are over 100 scholarly studies,12 including robust randomised controlled trials13 that demonstrated that masks used outside of the usual healthcare settings demonstrate little to no benefit.14 Furthermore, it was also demonstrated that long-term mask wearing is potentially damaging to health15 due to: the decrease in oxygenation and the increase in inhaled carbon dioxide;16 inhalation of microplastics17 that could lead to conditions similar to asbestosis;18 the increased risk of respiratory tract infections, with the mask acting as a reservoir for pathogenic bacteria and fungi, particularly in immunocompromised patients19 and those with a respiratory disease;20 as well as a documented increase in other diseases such as dermatological or ocular infections.21
Astonishingly, even the medical community which supported the false narrative and was strongly in favour of mask mandates agreed that masks were only pandering to fear mongering and were not based on any logic22 as demonstrated by the following quote from the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine which was promoting the use of masks: “We know that wearing a mask outside healthcare facilities offers little, if any, protection from infection. Focusing on universal masking alone may, paradoxically, lead to more transmission of Covid-19 if it diverts attention from implementing more fundamental infection-control measures. Masks are not only tools, they are also talismans that may help increase healthcare workers’ perceived sense of safety, well-being, and trust in their hospitals. Although such reactions may not be strictly logical, we are all subject to fear and anxiety, especially during times of crisis. One might argue that fear and anxiety are better countered with data and education than with a marginally beneficial mask, particularly in light of the worldwide mask shortage, but it is difficult to get clinicians to hear this message in the heat of the current crisis.”23
In short, the case for mandatory mask wearing did not satisfy any criteria of the Common Good; the mandates were not based on reasonable scientific data; furthermore, there were no positive outcomes, nor was there preservation of any higher goods, medically or socially.
Lockdowns, social distancing and restrictions of movement:
In Western nations over the last three years – particularly in Australia, Canada and Austria – social distancing, household limits and quarantine, curfews and mandatory hotel quarantines without acute illness were widespread and prolonged, and yet were not based on any logic or evidence. Most of these measures by public health bureaucrats were based on false assertions – with no solid evidence from medical journals – that the virus could be spread between two asymptomatic healthy individuals. As early as 2020 it was already demonstrated that spread by asymptomatic individuals was negligible.24 A study in Wuhan, China that saw testing of 10 million residents, demonstrated zero cases of transmission between asymptomatic individuals.25 Another systematic review and meta-analysis of 54 studies with a total of 77,758 patients, demonstrated only a possible 0.7% chance of asymptomatic transmission.26 Despite this evidence, governments and bureaucrats continued to enforce irrational, inhumane and even illegal measures on free movement for a further two years.27 This was demonstrated particularly in Australia which saw unjustifiable state border closures and even the nonsensical quarantine in a non-medical hotel facility of high-risk elderly patients recovering from brain surgery28 or a 2-year-old child recovering from heart surgery, on the absurd grounds that they had travelled a few minutes over the interstate border.29
These irrational measures have had wide-ranging negative impact, particularly in children. Among these are:
A) a decrease in herd immunity due to lack of exposure, which has favoured rampant increases in other illnesses such as RSV, influenza,30 group A streptococcus31 and Adenovirus 41 hepatitis.32
B) A severe decline in early childhood cognition with one study revealing “a striking decline in cognitive performance since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, with infants born since mid-2020 showing an average decrease of 27-37 points”.33
C) A huge increase in mental health diagnoses, particularly depression and suicide attempts.34 Suicide attempts by children rose by 77% in the UK35 and 184% in Australia.36 We must also add that the restrictions on freedom of movement likely caused many deaths, in nursing homes in particular37 where elderly people were quarantined from family and died of grief and neglect due to isolation38 and lack of care due to staff shortages39 and fear.40
It should now be obvious that the lockdowns and restrictions of movement did not satisfy any of the criteria for the Common Good. Furthermore they cannot be compared with dire situations that justifiably restricted movement for the good of the individual and the Common Good such as wartime bombardments or genuine historic pandemics where people were dying in the streets.
Forced vaccination: On multiple accounts this was irrational as was extensively documented in the first three articles of this series. Firstly, even if proven effective, forced vaccination – and it was forced by government officials with the grave complicity of most bishops and pastors – violates the principle of informed consent; secondly, de facto, the vaccines that were imposed were not fully tested41 and there was a high likelihood that the pharmaceutical companies were covering up risks and harms in preclinical trials42 which later caused – and are still causing – a great number of grave injuries and even deaths43; finally, they are not effective, as at least one of the major pharmaceutical companies has since acknowledged.44
The undisputed statistics clearly demonstrate that the countries with the highest rates of Covid-related infections, complications, hospitalisations and deaths continue to be those nations where most citizens have received one or more vaccinations such as: Japan, Singapore, United Kingdom, USA, Canada, Germany, Austria, Australia and New Zealand.45 There is serious evidence to support the case for the vaccinations causing new waves of infections (escape variants)46 and increasing immunosuppression47 as well as the risk of sudden death with each additional vaccination due to cardiovascular compromise and spike protein damage.48
A case in point is Australia which enforced some of the harshest vaccination mandates. The latest statistics from this nation are very sobering. Data released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics49 in December 2022 found that nationally the number deaths for that year was 17% higher than the historical average.50 In New South Wales, Australia’s most populous state, the weekly report for Covid hospitalisations and deaths was consistently demonstrating that the overwhelming majority of those who died or were hospitalised with Covid were in fact vaccinated.51 The final weekly report of 2022 revealed that out of 1770 patients who were hospitalised, 74% were fully vaccinated and 0% were unvaccinated. Out of the 95 deaths in that week 81% were fully vaccinated (2 doses), 55% had received 4 or more doses and 7% were unvaccinated.52 What was the response to this glaringly obvious data by Australian state health officials? “The following changes will be implemented for the weekly report in 2023: Vaccination status of cases admitted to hospital, admitted to ICU and those who die will no longer be reported.”53
In conclusion, the forced restrictions, coercive medical mandates and curtailing of basic rights and freedoms were unwarranted, unjustified, and illegal, given they were not based on any sound logic or reason and suppressed essential human goods. It is clear that they were not good for anyone and did not serve the Common Good. The assumptions they were based on were demonstrably false, and therefore the measures were against right reason; none of them resulted in the preservation of a higher good. Most glaringly, all contradicted well established medical principles, including pandemic preparedness principles.
Pope Francis, and with him a lot of bishops and priests, were nevertheless talking about the importance of all these restrictions for the Common Good. Weren’t they relaying the teaching of the Church?
Let’s take a closer look now at what the Church actually teaches on the Common Good. The Catechism of the Catholic Church explains that “the Common Good resides in the conditions for the exercise of the natural freedoms indispensable for the development of the human vocation, such as the right to act according to a sound norm of conscience and to safeguard . . . privacy, and rightful freedom also in matters of religion.”54 Furthermore, “respect for the human person entails respect for the rights that flow from his dignity as a creature. These rights are prior to society and must be recognised by it. They are the basis of the moral legitimacy of every authority: by flouting them, or refusing to recognise them in its positive legislation, a society undermines its own moral legitimacy. If it does not respect them, authority can rely only on force or violence to obtain obedience from its subjects. It is the Church’s role to remind men of good will of these rights and to distinguish them from unwarranted or false claims.”55
This remarkable text underlines a number of very important points that have been overlooked during the pandemic. In particular, the norm of conscience must always and everywhere be respected. Yet, it was gravely violated by pressure, either on priests or teachers and other staff, to receive vaccination against their conscience. This point is particularly grave when the pressure came from bishops whose first duty it is to guarantee the rights of a well-informed Catholic conscience and not allow them to be impinged upon by the State. In the same way, the right to privacy was violated when it was required to make known to just about anybody one’s vaccination status.
The Catechism also tells us another essential point that we have intentionally left for now, namely, that part of the Common Good is to orient us towards the fulfilment of our vocation, which is to see God in eternity. It is because human beings are created in the image and likeness of God and destined to a supernatural life with God, that they have certain inalienable rights. Rights are grounded on and oriented towards true goods, be they natural or supernatural, which is why they must be respected by others, including by the public authority. The State does not give them; nor can it take them away. To attempt to do so would endanger the Common Good and the eternal salvation of persons.
Here we encounter another most serious consequence of the unjust pandemic measures, namely the closing of churches, which prevented people from fulfilling their religious duties to God and obtaining the spiritual help they need. It was exactly as if we were but animals being herded into separate pens because earthly life is all that matters. It is very odd that the same clergy who were parroting cliché ideas on the Common Good were unable to see that the right to worship God and receive the Sacraments is an essential part – the most noble part – of the Common Good. We even had the incomprehensible scandal of priests hiding in their presbyteries and refusing to hear confessions for fear of contagion. Such priests would do well to meditate on the example of St Charles Borromeo who lived through a real pandemic when people were dying on the streets. This holy bishop ministered to the sick himself and encouraged his clergy to do the same. For him, it was an opportunity to save souls, and even if it meant losing his own bodily life, he considered it to be a privilege to sacrifice it for others.
It makes sense that the Common Good should consider spiritual goods as well, but nevertheless, is it not sometimes necessary to renounce the individual good in order to safeguard the Common Good?
It is essential to understand that the Common Good would not exist without the individual good, nor vice versa. It is not possible to promote the Common Good while refusing fundamental, individual goods that are intimately a part of being human. The Catholic Church in modern times, especially in the first phases of the industrial revolution during the 19th century, in which people were treated like animals to maintain and develop the production lines, and again during the Nazi and Soviet eras when individual rights were denied for the profit of the State, has insisted that this dichotomy is false which creates a conflict between the good of the individual and the good of the group.
The situation is not unlike that of a pregnant woman whose life is in danger because of her pregnancy. Modern medical practice, ignoring the human dignity of the child in utero, states that we must sacrifice the child to save the mother. The Church says we must make every effort to save both, and we can never positively take away the fundamental right to life of either mother or child. So, coming back to our question, when we protect the rights of the individual, we are protecting the Common Good. When we protect the Common Good, we are protecting the rights of the individual. It is not one or the other.
Coming down to lessons to be learned for the future: It is gravely immoral for the State to impose medical treatment that the individual conscience refuses; it is gravely immoral to force people to stay in their homes when they are a risk to no one and their livelihood depends on their getting about and doing their job. When we are told that these things were done in the name of the Common Good, what we are dealing with, quite simply, is the abuse of a truth in the service of error and exploitation.
It sounds like your definition of the Common Good is a Christian one. Aren’t there good civilisations outside of Christianity, and therefore is not the Common Good possible even without reference to God and Christ?
In principle, it should be possible for a civilisation to follow the Natural Moral Law even without knowing of the true religion. This, however, is a utopian perspective, because it ignores the ravages caused by Original Sin. This is what prompted Pope St Pius X to state with great lucidity that “there is no true civilisation without a moral civilisation, and no true moral civilisation without the true religion: this is a proven truth, a historical fact.”56 What he meant by that was that human reason, due to its having been wounded by Original Sin, requires the supernatural guidance of the true religion revealed by God in order to not go astray. All religions other than the Christian religion are only human attempts at finding God. Since human reason has been weakened and obscured by Original Sin, it cannot find God on its own. This is why false religions propose solutions which, while being in part true, are fatally flawed. This also explains why the present-day attempt by the Church to find common ground with other religions can only weaken her own position, and in so doing, weaken the power of the Natural Law to guide our life in this world.
The only hope for humanity is a return to Jesus Christ and the religion He founded, that is to say, the Roman Catholic Church. The enemies of the Church know this very well. They know that the Church is the only force capable of resisting the godless New World Order, and that is precisely why so much effort is put into the corrupting the one true Catholic Church, confusing her clear and true teachings and portraying her as being on the side of the globalists.57
I thought we were supposed to “believe the science. ” Why do Catholics ignore science when it conflicts with the Natural Law and the Common Good?
In the minds of many, science is in opposition to faith. By faith you believe things you cannot see, but by science you know how things happen. There are two major problems with this view. Firstly, God created both the natural and supernatural orders, and therefore any authentically proved scientific fact can never be in opposition with the true faith. This is why the greatest promoter of science in the history of the world is the Catholic Church who has never seen any opposition between faith and science.58
The second is that if, in the name of science, one accepts a universe without God, then one must blindly trust science to find a meaning to reality, in which case one ends up transferring one’s faith to science. So what began as a way to reject faith has actually ended up replacing it with another faith. Instead of believing in God, we lose our common sense and believe in man. As G. K. Chesterton famously wrote: “It’s part of something I’ve noticed more and more in the modern world, appearing in all sorts of newspaper rumors and conversational catch-words; something that’s arbitrary without being authoritative. People readily swallow the untested claims of this, that, or the other. It’s drowning all your old rationalism and scepticism, it’s coming in like a sea; and the name of it is superstition… It’s the first effect of not believing in God that you lose your common sense, and can’t see things as they are”.59
A case in point is that in the context of the Covid pandemic, as was shown above, the true science clearly demonstrated the ineffectiveness of wearing masks and social distancing as well as the real dangers of the vaccinations that were proposed, but all this was ignored in favour of “faith in the science”.60 In this case, it was clear that scientism was becoming a new religion, based not on facts and data, but on blind faith in the science, in other words in those who invent it.
So, either you believe in God and in His Son Jesus Christ, or you “believe” in science. You cannot do both. But if you are a true Christian, you are more free to pursue true science without the oppressive influence of a State turned god and dictating to you its conclusions.
If you are in a pagan society without reference to God, you still have to obey the local authorities. Did not Christ say to ‘render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s’? So Christians should obey government mandates, right?
And to God the things that are God’s (Cf. Matt 22:21). By these words, Our Blessed Lord clearly set limits to the authority of Caesar. All things belong to God, including Caesar. The State exists to serve the interests of God and God’s creatures; it’s not the other way around. Since the whole universe exists only for God and to lead to eternal salvation the souls of human beings, then the State must acknowledge that fact and do nothing to impede it. On the contrary, it must protect the rights of the true religion and foster everything that can help souls achieve their salvation, banning all that would turn them away from it.
This is why the collaboration of the Church with the State, important though it is, has its limits. The laws of the State are valid before God only if they do not contradict the Divine Law manifested in the Natural Law. To quote the Catechism again: “Authority does not derive its moral legitimacy from itself. It must not behave in a despotic manner… A human law has the character of law to the extent that it accords with right reason, and thus derives from the eternal law. Insofar as it falls short of right reason it is said to be an unjust law, and thus has not so much the nature of law as of a kind of violence. Authority is exercised legitimately only when it seeks the Common Good of the group concerned and if it employs morally licit means to attain it. If rulers were to enact unjust laws or take measures contrary to the moral order, such arrangements would not be binding in conscience. In such a case, authority breaks down completely and results in shameful abuse.”61
The Common Good of society cannot trump the rights of God, nor does it override the Ten Commandments, nor does it take precedence over the innate rights of individuals. Rejecting God leads to rejecting man. This is the tragic story of humanity ever since the atheistic philosophers from the French Revolution on have persuaded us to try and build a world without God. At first, it’s about promoting man instead of God, but when God has been eliminated, there is no longer anyone to safeguard the dignity of man. Just think of how the atheistic regime of Soviet Russia unscrupulously killed millions of people in order to promote the “rights of the proletariat”.
When looking at it from this angle, the last three years, although a shock to many, were in fact a little foretaste of the logical next step that is to come in a society that has turned away from objective truth. When objective truth, reason and the Natural Law are replaced by moral relativism dictated by the passions and vices of human nature, it is only natural that man and his selfish desires will take the place of God, goodness and truth. The propaganda, the draconian laws, the medical terrorism and the lockdowns were the prelude to an openly totalitarian system – which is the only logical outcome of a society that has replaced God with “science”.
What can we do to truly promote the Common Good?
Whoever we are, it is imperative to realise that our present predicament is first and foremost a spiritual problem and therefore, without neglecting social and political means, the answer lies in the spiritual realm. Now, winning the spiritual battle boils down to two things: avoiding sin and practicing virtue.
The first step then to winning this spiritual battle is quite simply to keep the Ten Commandments. We find there the way to please God as well as the most fundamental requirements for the peaceful coexistence of rational creatures. Keeping the Commandments is just the start however; one must also practice virtue, namely the theological virtues of faith, hope and charity and the cardinal virtues of prudence, justice, fortitude and temperance. Practicing virtue involves of course avoiding the vices opposed to them, among which two need to be pointed out in this context, because many allow themselves to fall into them without even realising how potentially devastating they can be for the spiritual life and how detrimental to the Common Good:
– curiosity leads a lot of people to overindulge in social media, obsessing over the state of the world, as if their entire trust were in a human solution – so much time is lost that could be devoted to prayer, serious study and good works;
– cowardice can cause others to run for cover and play the ostrich because of the fear of the struggles facing us. Correcting evils in Church and society does not come about without strong souls who accept to put their necks out to fight evil. Evil prospers when good people do nothing.
The second step is to faithfully fulfil the duties of our state in life, whatever that may be. Parents must ensure that Christ reigns supreme in the home, and to that end, that the family pray and practice the faith together. For a Catholic family, this means daily prayer together and at least weekly attendance at Holy Mass (Sundays and Holy Days). These are the essential foundation stones for a solid Christian home which will shape the societal norm and can then be reordered to the true Common Good. Priests must be clear and consistent in preaching the truth, and fear no one but God; they must not cooperate with unjust directives, such as refusing Communion on the tongue or otherwise refusing access to the church or to the sacraments for fear of contagion. Doctors must be aware of their duties to human life in all its stages; in particular, they must not cooperate with the making or administering of unethical products or procedures, even if it means losing their position, nor can a doctor refuse to administer care to a patient for fear of contagion. Teachers, professors and lawyers must cultivate love for truth and justice at any cost. The civilisation of tomorrow rests on the handing down of truth and the refusal to compromise with it at any level. Law enforcement officers must respect inalienable human rights and always treat persons with dignity. Politicians must promote laws that respect God’s commandments; never may they support legislation that is contrary to them, nor may they allow themselves to be swayed by purely monetary considerations.
A final point, but not the least: we Catholics know that Our Lady has consistently given, in numerous apparitions over the past five centuries, a message of penance and prayer. She has asked again and again that we recite the daily Rosary.62 This is a simple means that is within the reach of everyone. It is not asking much. Let us heed the voice of our heavenly Mother. The Rosary is such a powerful prayer because it uses the very words of God in Holy Scripture to focus our attention on the mysteries of the life of Our Lord Jesus Christ. It allows us to contemplate the life of Jesus through the eyes of His Mother Mary. By humbly respecting our Mother’s wishes, we will be working to make reparation for our own sins, for the public sins of our nations which have turned their back on Christ, for the scandals given by the Church either through moral corruption of its members or through confusing teachings of the hierarchy, and for the blasphemies and offences against her Immaculate Heart. As St Bernard of Clairvaux wrote: “It is the will of God that all things come to us through Mary.” It is His will, therefore, that through the Immaculate Heart of Mary the enemies of Christ be conquered and a restoration of a Catholic civil order commence which will ultimately restore the true concept of the Common Good. May that day come quickly!
Father Ambrose – 21 January 2023
Father Ambrose is a Catholic priest who holds a doctorate in theology from a pontifical university and has many years of experience teaching moral theology. Due to the highly politicised nature of discussions surrounding the Covid-19 Pandemic, he regrettably feels it necessary to write these articles under a pseudonym in order to protect the souls he serves in his priestly ministry. He will happily receive any correspondence at ambroseastor@protonmail.com. This article and all the other articles in this series may
be reproduced and shared in any way without special permission.
The author is deeply grateful to the panel of medical professionals, particularly Dr E, Dr T, and Professor X, for their assistance in writing, editing and proofreading the technical medical aspects of this article in order to ensure the accuracy and veracity of medical statements and supporting literature.
FOOTNOTES
1 The first three articles are available here: https://www.truedevotions.ie/author/fr-ambrose-astor/
2 Cf. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9396745/
3 Cf. and https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40926-020-00154-w
4 Cf. https://www.ohchr.org/en/2021/06/vaccines-against-covid-19-must-be-considered-global-public-good-high-commissioner-human.
5 Cf. Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Catholic Church, 164-170.
6 Cf. https://gbdeclaration.org/
7 Cf. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9557944/, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9557939/
8 Cf. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0169207020301199, https://www.hartgroup.org/nhs-cites-a-computer-modelling-study-to-justify-ongoing-mask-requirements/
9 Cf. https://covid19criticalcare.com/senate-testimony/, https://bird-group.org/
10 Cf. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7151430/
11Cf. www.health.act.gov.au/sites/default/files/2021-02/COVID-19%20Information%20for%20pregnant%20women%2006052020.pdf,
https://www.bbc.com/news/health-57021736
12 Cf. brownstone.org/articles/studies-and-articles-on-mask-ineffectiveness-and-harms/, https://brownstone.org/articles/time-to-unmask-the-truth/
13 Cf. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33205991/, https://www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m4586
14 Cf. https://www.hartgroup.org/masks-do-more-harm-than-good/
15 Cf. https://www.bmj.com/content/369/bmj.m2003
16 Cf. https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/bmjopen/11/2/e044364.full.pdf
17 Cf. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048969722020009#!
18 Cf. https://www.investmentwatchblog.com/bombshell-disposable-blue-face-masks-found-to-contain-toxic-asbestos-like-substance-that-destroys-lungs/, https://childrenshealthdefense.org/wp-content/uploads/Masks-false-safety-and-real-dangers-Part-1-Friable-mask-particulate-and-lung-vulnerability.pdf
19 Cf. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-15409-x
20 Cf. https://rc.rcjournal.com/content/65/5/658
21 https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36577463/, https://journals.lww.com/retinajournal/Fulltext/2021/11000/FACE_MASK_CONTAMINATION_DURING_COVID_19_PANDEMIA_.3.aspx
22 Cf. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7884659/
23 Cf. https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp2006372
24 Cf. https://www.hartgroup.org/asymptomatic-spread/
25 Cf. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-19802-w
26 Cf. https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2774102
27 Cf. https://www.hartgroup.org/variants-of-sars-cov-2-and-the-futility-of-border-closures/
28 Cf. https://9now.nine.com.au/a-current-affair/queensland-premier-annastacia-palaszczuk-is-blasted-in-emotional-interview-with-acurrent-affair-host-tracy-grimshaw/47bc95ff-1268-43c2-a41d-0d341dd69273
29 Cf. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-08-22/qld-gov-denies-toddler-home-isolation-heart-surgery-coronavirus/12584354
30 Cf. https://www.bostonglobe.com/2022/12/15/opinion/unintended-consequence-covid-control-measures-kids-without-immunity/
31 Cf. https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/we-cant-ignore-group-a-strep/
32 Cf. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/langas/article/PIIS2468-1253(22)00166-2/fulltext
33 Cf. https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.10.21261846v2, https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/apr/04/pandemic-has-delayed-social-skills-of-young-children-says-ofsted-chief
34 Cf. https://www.covidmedicalnetwork.com/coronavirus-facts/lockdowns-and-mental-health/overview.aspx
35 Cf. https://www.bbc.com/news/education-60197150
36 Cf. https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/health/mental-health/attempted-suicide-rates-among-victorian-teenagers-soar-by-184-percent-in-past-six-months-kids-helpline-reveals/news-story/db9d5136075a7c7edf4750a0391b0653,
37 Cf. https://www.hartgroup.org/covid-policies-in-care-homes-doing-more-harm-than-good/
38 Cf. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25910392/
39 Cf. https://www.hartgroup.org/care-home-isolation-and-neglect-an-urgent-crisis/
40 Cf. https://www.hartgroup.org/care-homes/
41 Cf. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36055877/
42 Cf. https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/judge-evidence-pfizer-whistleblower-lawsuit/
43 Cf. Openvaers.com, https://www.vacsafety.org/
44 Cf. https://www.news.com.au/technology/science/human-body/pfizer-did-not-know-whether-covid-vaccine-stopped-transmissionbefore-rollout-executive-admits/news-story/f307f28f794e173ac017a62784fec414
45 Cf. https://www.conservativereview.com/horowitz-possibly-the-most-important-study-on-covid-shots-might-explain-why-covidnever-seems-to-end-2659039644.html
46 Cf. https://rumble.com/v23tmxi-geert-vanden-bossche-we-are-turning-vaccine-recipients-into-asymptomatic-sp.html
47 Cf. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciimmunol.ade2798
48 Cf. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9557944/, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9557939/, https://www.stewpeters.com/video/2022/11/live-world-premiere-died-suddenly/
49 Cf. https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/health/causes-death/provisional-mortality-statistics/latest-release
50 Cf. https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/health/health-problems/excess-deaths-in-2022-incredibly-high-at-13-per-cent/news-story/2a33dfeeb7476765da4e237c59f59bf7
51 Cf. https://www.health.nsw.gov.au/Infectious/covid-19/Pages/weekly-reports.aspx
52 Cf. https://www.health.nsw.gov.au/Infectious/covid-19/Documents/weekly-covid-overview-20221231.pdf (page 4)
53 Cf. https://www.health.nsw.gov.au/Infectious/covid-19/Documents/weekly-covid-overview-20221231.pdf (page 1)
54 Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1907.
55 Ibid., 1930.
56 St Pius X, Apostolic Letter, Our apostolic mandate, 25 August 1910.
57 Cf. for example https://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/news/2019-03/pope-development-goals-rooted-in-ethics-not-economics.html
58 There are many excellent books on this subject. An easy and comprehensive read is: Thomas Woods, How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilisation, Regency, 2012.
59 59 G. K. Chesterton, The Oracle of the Dog.
60 This was extensively examined in the first two articles of this series Conscience and Prudence. However, the question of science as a whole and the trajectory on which we find ourselves on at this stage shall be properly examined in a future article.
61 Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1902-1903.
62 Among the most significant apparitions, I would like to mention those in Quito, Ecuador (1594-1632), La Salette, France (1846), Lourdes, France (1858), Fatima, Portugal (1917), and Akita, Japan (1973).
