April 2021
Review Article
VACCINATION: A CATHOLIC PERSPECTIVE by Pamela Acker. Kolbe Center for the Study of Creation, Dec. 2020. Paperback. 84 pp. Available from https://www.kolbecenter.org
Abortion-Tainted Vaccines:
Contributing to the Demand
“Why are you only now making an issue of abortion-tainted vaccines?” This was the question that the prior of the local chapel of the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX), posed to my wife and me in his office as we concluded our meeting with him in December of 2020. We had arranged the meeting to express our concern with an article on sspx.org that judged such vaccines morally permissible. His question was a legitimate one: why did it take us so long to speak up? It prompted us to ask hard questions of ourselves, such as why did we allow our children to be injected over the years with tissue from murdered babies in the form of (inter alia) Rubella and Varicella inoculations? The question does not have easy answers and requires an earnest examination of conscience. But as with all questions of morality, it really comes down to the point when one becomes fully aware that what one has been doing is, in fact, some form of cooperation in evil.
Awakening to misconceptions and misinformation
For us, the turning point was relatively recent. Two years ago, we attended a backyard barbeque, at which a long-time acquaintance of ours — a Catholic physician’s assistant — asked a rhetorical question regarding the MMR vaccine: “What kind of society injects into each and every child the tissue of aborted babies?” It was the first time that we heard a medical professional — Catholic or otherwise — put the matter into the realm of morality as opposed to questioning vaccine safety. So we started to conduct in-depth research, and what our investigation revealed — and continues to make clear — is that for years we unknowingly contributed to the growing demand for pharmaceutical companies to develop, test and produce vaccines and medications from stem cell lines of aborted babies. It is said that ignorance is bliss; but when you realise that for decades you have been complicit in literally encouraging these so-called medical researchers and vaccine developers in their growing harvest of tissue from murdered babies, you feel compelled to make a beeline to the confessional to discuss it with a good priest.
And that is where you run into problems. For in recent months, as a result of the propaganda campaign promoting the pseudo-pandemic, most of our churchmen — up to and including Bergoglio himself — have been urging Catholics to accept the COVID vaccines in the name of charity toward our neighbours. Some bishops and priests have even suggested that it is sinful not to get the vaccine. But for more thoughtful Catholics, the debate over whether we may accept abortion-tainted vaccines has centred, for the most part, on whether taking abortion-tainted vaccines is considered “remote” and “material,” or not. These two terms refer to actions of individuals regarding “cooperation in evil,” and come to us from the realm of moral theology. Some say that moral theology is a very complex discipline, requiring years of training and study. As alluded to above, we faithful in the pews generally seek guidance in such matters from priests more versed in discerning, for example, our culpability — or lack thereof — in the actions of our day-to-day lives.
Unfortunately, our priests and bishops appear to be counselling from dated information. We hear even “traditional” priests parroting the Liberal myth that each of these stem cell lines originated with the death of just one or two babies, many decades ago, as if “just” one or two babies a long time ago is acceptable. Many seem to trust such sources as Wikipedia and Big Tech “fact-checkers” to help them make up their minds. Under the misconception that time somehow blunts the evil of a gravely immoral action, many Catholics are told that the “greater good” of keeping healthy (dubious, at best) allows us to take the stem cell-derived vaccines which are, after all (they say), not even the actual cells from the “aborted fetus,” the act of which happened so very long ago. This has been, with some qualifications, the rationale for at least two district superiors of the SSPX, for example, to open the door to acceptance of abortion-tainted vaccines in general. But this was merely the logical extension of the ill-considered February 2006 issue of the SSPX Angelus magazine, the front cover of which read “The Vaccination Question.”
The SSPX did a great disservice to Catholics everywhere by publishing that misleading “Vaccine Issue,” wherein the 2005 decision of the Pontifical Academy for Life (PAL) was lauded by the same priest who had spoken against Rubella vaccines when he was USA District Superior. The feature article, penned by Dr. Timothy P. Collins, M.D., contains the author’s admission, at the beginning of the second paragraph, that he accepts “the usefulness of mass vaccinations in general ... (and) the authority of a government to impose regulations regarding mass vaccination (page 3).” Dr. Collins, in discussing the Wistar Institute of Sweden’s attempts at developing a stem cell line (WI-38), provides a supposed number of twenty murdered babies, though as we shall see, the actual number, admitted to by researcher Dr. Stanley Plotkin himself, was seventy-six. But it is not the number disparity that is disturbing — after all, even one child killed for such purposes is gravely immoral — but it is the fact that these abortions took place over a span of many years, making them much more “proximate” than we were led to believe.
Perhaps the argument can be made that the SSPX priests and laity who collaborated on that “Vaccine Issue” of Angelus magazine were working with the best information they were able to find at the time. Perhaps. But the SSPX blinked in the face of a great evil in February of 2006, reversing what it had previously taught. In a major change, these men contrived to give spiritual guidance that allowed the faithful to consider the macabre practice of injecting the tissue of murdered babies into untold millions of children the world over as conditionally acceptable. The SSPX had a direct hand in wrongly guiding countless trusting souls in the pews to accept vaccines under certain circumstances – an acceptance that would tragically do nothing but create a demand for continued butchery of babies.
The Plotkin admission: mass torture and slaughter ex utero
Now we know better regarding the full scope of the stem cell industry. The first “crack” in the pharmaceutical story of “only a couple” of murdered babies came in 2018, when Dr. Stanley Plotkin, the preeminent expert on vaccine research mentioned above, was forced to testify under oath during a trial of a mother who refused vaccines for her children. At first, even under oath, he tried to perpetuate the myth that the WI-38 line he developed had “only” used stem cells derived from two aborted babies. But when the mother’s defence attorney produced Dr. Plotkin’s own written study admitting to the stem cell line having used seventy-six murdered babies during research, this ghoulish doctor had to back-pedal and finally admit that seventy-six was, indeed, the correct number! These babies, he went on to describe, were extracted ex utero, and tortured without anaesthesia as their organs were systematically cut out of each poor child before the babies were eventually murdered. You can view the video of the relevant portion of the court proceeding.(1)
The failed Catholic strategy
Then, in 2020, a courageous young Catholic biologist and vaccine researcher named Pamela Acker wrote an eye-opening book entitled Vaccination: A Catholic Perspective. Miss Acker, who holds a Master of Science degree from Catholic University of America, was involved in biological research at Washington University in St. Louis. She also conducted research in vaccine delivery. Her book, published by the Kolbe Center for the Study of Creation, was apparently already sold out when we first heard of Miss Acker in an excellent hour-long LifeSite video interview Pamela Acker in January of 2021.(2)
In both the book and the interview, Miss Acker puts to rest the lie concerning the “one or two aborted babies a long time ago.” She also touches on the question of whether we have really made any advances against the medical research/vaccine industry reliance on stem cells from murdered babies. In other words, have we succeeded in significantly reducing fetal stem cell tissue in vaccine development (as promoted by the PAL — and SSPX — positions) over these last fifteen years? Has this pie-in-the-sky idea that we can temporarily accept abortion-tainted vaccines as long as we make our objections known to vaccine developers caused these scoundrels to seek morally acceptable alternatives? Absolutely not! Countless more babies have been brutally murdered, and at least one new major stem cell line has been introduced.
Vaccine industry and outdated science exposed
Pamela Acker’s responses during her LifeSite interview gives us a peek into the nefarious misdeeds of the research/vaccine industry. “Fetal cell lines” actually consist of tissue from scores, if not hundreds, of murdered babies. Miss Acker tells us that it is a blatant lie, for example, that “cell line” HEK-293, which was used in both the testing and development of the Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines, was from just one baby girl who was killed in 1973. Miss Acker makes it crystal clear that the “293” stands for “... the 293rd experiment that this particular researcher did to develop a cell line... for 293 experiments, you need far more than one abortion... we’re talking probably 100s of abortions.”
These amazing revelations are what caused us to order Pamela Acker’s book. What we discovered as we worked our way through her expertly written text was that the science that we thought we knew from our high school and college biology classes is no longer considered scientifically sound. Additionally, Miss Acker is not afraid to raise issues that may seem to some as too controversial. For example, on pages 8 & 9 of her book, she raises the point that we have made elsewhere regarding what we view as unnecessary mass vaccination. Under the subtitle of “Vaccination, or Sanitation?”, Miss Acker refers to an illuminating book by Dr. Suzanne Humphries, M.D., and Roman Bystrianyk, entitled Dissolving Illusions, in which the authors provide strong evidence that “death rates in the major vaccine-preventable diseases were dropping long before the introduction of the vaccines.” The “Learn the Risk” website has in-depth graphs to support the contention of not only Miss Acker, but the authors of the book she cited.(3)
Miss Acker takes us through a thorough discussion of the immune system, with welcome graphics, making clear that rapid advances in scientific understanding of the immune system have caused scientists to re-evaluate certain concepts that were once believed to be “settled” science. For example, in our former biology courses (admittedly, decades ago), we were taught that antibodies equalled immunity. Miss Acker disabuses us of that notion, and clearly shows that “antibodies do not equal immunity (p. 15).” Then, on pages 21 through 23, she shows us how not “all vaccinations are equal.”
The morality of "aborted-fetal-derived vaccines"
Pamela Acker touches on the disturbing fact that vaccination in general is rooted in the medical community’s “modern understanding of evolution.” She also provides a very interesting glimpse into the safety of vaccines. For us, however, the most compelling chapter of Miss Acker’s work is entitled “the Morality of Vaccination,” beginning on page 57. The section in which she discusses “vaccines and abortion” is worth reading over and over, given the current confusion among Catholics regarding the moral liceity of accepting abortion-tainted vaccines.
A loyal daughter of Holy Mother Church, she draws the conclusion from her scientific knowledge and experience, as well as from moral theologians she quotes and further references, that “permission to vaccinate with aborted-fetal-derived vaccines stands in direct contradiction to sound moral principles and it is difficult to see how this permission is justified.” She is convinced, as we are, that by continuing to accept abortion-tainted vaccines, we are only creating a demand for the illicit and immoral supply.
Up-to-date, thought-provoking, strongly recommended
It is interesting to see how so many myths that have been perpetuated about vaccines over the last several decades are simply not true. In fairness, some of the data and information that have proved these myths wrong are based on more recent research. But that is the beauty of Pamela Acker’s book: she provides us with the most up-to-date scientific understanding, while supporting her information with 379 footnoted references through the entire course of her book. This is not someone giving her opinions; Miss Acker did her homework, and she is well-versed in what she is discussing.
At only 85 pages, including the index, this short book is essential reading for not just those wishing to wade into the waters of the liceity of abortion-tainted vaccines, but also for any Catholic parent or grandparent who faces the prospect of their children or grandchildren facing prophylactic inoculation in general, and vaccines of dubious morality in particular. We are grateful to Pamela Acker for having the courage of her convictions to leave the vaccine research world, and to write such a thought-provoking book. We strongly recommend that you order it today and read it right away.
Boycott the vaccine ghouls!
In summary, to return to Father’s question to us months ago about why now — we must educate ourselves on the evils of our time, and as we become more knowledgeable about the tragic truth of abortion-tainted vaccines, we must put our Catholic Faith into action.
It is time for us to say “no more” to these ghoulish vaccine and pharmaceutical developers who profit from the slaughter of innocent children — souls that will be denied the Beatific Vision for eternity.
We can and must stop creating the demand for the products of these diabolical agents. It should have happened years ago; may God have mercy on us for taking so long to finally find our Catholic sensus fidei and backbones to speak up now!
The authors blog at "Tradidi Quod et Accepi: Passing On to Our Children and Grandchildren What We Have Received", https://aaambrosetti.wordpress.com
FOOTNOTES:
(1) https://www.lifesitenews.com/episodes/the-proof-many-aborted-babies-are-used-in-vaccine-creation
(2) https://www.lifesitenews.com/opinion/a-hill-worth-dying-on-expert-explains-how-aborted-baby-cells-taint-covid-vaccines