Covid-19 and religious conscience rights: vaccine objectors stand on firm ground

I’m a regular on Drew Mariani’s afternoon show on Relevant Radio. We talk about everything from the Church to politics to culture. Recently, we talked about Covid-19 and conscience—about honoring a Catholic’s appeal to religious rights. The phones lit up.

Among the callers was a distraught New Jersey woman whose husband, a doctor employed by a hospital for over 20 years, had just been fired for declining forced vaccination. Her voice cracking, she explained that in addition to religious objections to vaccination, her husband has indisputable medical objections because of auto-immune issues. The vaccines could be hazardous.

He appealed not only to the U.S. Constitution but the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which in December 2020 formally affirmed: “vaccination is not, as a rule, a moral obligation.” It “must be voluntary.” This was officially affirmed by the American bishops.

The hospital refused him, with no explanation. He sought legal assistance. “It was like throwing away money,” his wife told Drew and me. “The lawyers said there was nothing they could do.”

He’s far from alone. This unethical assault on health care workers continues nationwide, with no relief from the U.S. Supreme Court.

Among its decisions, the court declined to halt New York Gov. Kathy Hochul’s denial of religious appeals of state health care workers. Justice Neil Gorsuch tried to defend them, to no avail. He denounced the state of New York’s intention to fire workers and strip their unemployment benefits. In a stinging dissent, Gorsuch judged the action “unconstitutional,” adding: “Today, we do not just fail the applicants. We fail ourselves.”

Among those failed, Gorsuch pointed to two Catholic physicians: “These applicants are not ‘anti-vaxxers’ who object to all vaccines. Instead, the applicants explain, they cannot receive a Covid-19 vaccine because their religion teaches them to oppose abortion in any form.”

And yet, not only are religious rights not being respected, but they are being suspected. Increasingly, supporters of vax mandates insist that those seeking religious exemptions aren’t actually religious—they’re hiding behind phony faith claims. “What really is ‘religious?’” asks an incredulous New York Times.

To be sure, one would hope that most people making religious appeals are genuinely religious. On its face, that seems a legitimate criticism. But dig deeper into the history of American religious-conscientious objection.

Note the crucial second word: conscientious.

From the start of the religious-appeal process against Covid mandates, I’ve been concerned that these appeals are typically labeled “religious exemptions.” More accurately, they are religious/conscientious exemptions.

Conscientious objection has a long and noble history in America. James Madison, father of the Bill of Rights, insisted that an individual’s conscience was a possession “more sacred than his castle.” Just as one has the right to property, one has the right to conscience.

This freedom has served America so admirably for centuries, from conscientious objectors in World Wars I and II to the Vietnam War, from the appeals of citizens as diverse as the Quakers, Mennonites, Sergeant Alvin York, Desmond Doss, Muhammad Ali, the Berrigan brothers, and Martin Luther King Jr. Today, it is appealed to by the likes of Hobby Lobby and the Little Sisters of the Poor.

Liberals aggressively support conscience when it comes to, say, refusal to fight in a war, but spurn it for the Christian cake-baker who begs to decline a same-sex “wedding,” or for Americans claiming conscience rights against forced vaxxing.

Americans stand on firm ground whether they appeal to their religion or conscience. Catholics, given the backing of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, should stand on even firmer ground.

Your conscience must remain sacred.

PAUL KENGOR is a professor of political science at Grove City College in Grove City, PA. He is the author of more than a dozen books, including A Pope and a President: John Paul II, Ronald Reagan, and the Extraordinary Untold Story of the 20th Century.