The COVID Religion And Abp Broglio

The controversy over United Airlines's vaccine mandate has brought to the fore a key question for people who request exemptions based on religious or conscientious grounds. United's original policy states:

"Given our focus on safety and the steep increases in Covid infections, hospitalizations and deaths, all employees whose request is approved will be placed on temporary, unpaid personal leave on October 2 while specific safety measures for unvaccinated employees are instituted," said United's memo to employees. "Given the dire statistics...we can no longer allow unvaccinated people back into the workplace until we better understand how they might interact with our customers and their vaccinated co-workers."

Although the employees' unions were slow to react, six individual employees did file a class action suit against the company, which is covered in a lengthy, obtuse, and poorly organized piece in Breitbart News.

United Airlines originally told its 67,000 U.S. employees they must be vaccinated against Chinese coronavirus (or secure an exemption) by September 27 or face termination. As the airline’s vaccine mandate stands, any employees with exemptions would still be considered employed but would be placed on unpaid leave and would lose their benefits for up to six years or until the airline deems pandemic conditions safe for unvaccinated employees to return, according to the complaint.

However, the airline indicated that exemptions of any sort would be few and difficult to obtain, and employees who considered requesting one would, according to the CEO, be "putting your job on the line. You better be very careful about that." But in response to the lawsuit, "the airline agreed of its own accord to postpone its vaccine mandate until October 15 for employees with exemptions during litigation." Yesterday, the judge issued a temporary restraining order extending this deadline to October 26 as he considered other issues raised in the case. Still, unvaccinated employees are subject to punitive and humiliating treatment during even this pause:

According to an internal memo obtained by Breitbart News, the airline has temporarily mandated that unvaccinated employees wear N-95 or KN95 respirator masks at all times, effective October 2, as it waits for “the outcome of the litigation” regarding its reasonable accommodation process.

The internal memo continues,

You must wear your mask at all times in all United locations, including outdoors and on aircraft (this includes for personal or business travel). You may remove your mask only when you are actively eating or drinking and you must put your mask back on in between bites and sips. To the extent possible, please only eat or drink outdoors or in rooms alone or when socially distanced from others. Failure to comply with this mask requirement is subject to disciplinary action as outlined in the mask policy in the Working Together Guidelines.

This policy goes well beyond current CDC guidlines or OSHA rules and amounts to effective religious discrimination. In fact, for those who suggest COVID has become a state religion, it clearly suggests that the unvaccinated are ritually unclean and disregards current medical evidence that vaccinated individuals spread COVID as easily as unvaccinated.

I can't help but see Abp Broglio's announcement in that context:

“No one should be forced to receive a COVID-19 vaccine if it would violate the sanctity of his or her conscience,” Timothy Broglio, archbishop for the military services, said in a statement.

Since Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin issued a military-wide vaccine mandate this summer, Broglio said, some service members have requested a religious exemption through the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. While he said the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith had determined that being vaccinated was “not sinful,” the church valued its teachings on the “sanctity of conscience.”

“This circumstance raises the question of whether the vaccine’s moral permissibility precludes an individual from forming a sincerely held religious belief that receiving the vaccine would violate his conscience,” he wrote. “It does not.”

The problem for the past two years has been an environment of constantly changing "science" and moving goalposts enforced by the power of the state that leave little room for informed personal choice, or indeed the nudgings of conscience. I can't imagine that Abp Broglio made his announcement without coordinating it with the USCCB and possibly the Vatican as well. This will definitely strengthen the ability of military members, and probably others as well, to substantiate their requests for exemption.

The bishops are showing considerable insight into the real issues at stake in the COVID crisis.