“Louisiana has the highest growth in COVID-19 cases of any state in the country, and on Tuesday (Aug. 3) the state hit an all-time high of coronavirus hospitalizations.”
This appeared in an article in The Advocate on Aug. 4 regarding Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry advising state employees how to avoid mandates for school children to wear masks and be vaccinated to protect them from catching and spreading the COVID-19 virus. Landry claimed his employees could use philosophical and religious reasons to object to such mandates should they be issued, presumably by government or school officials. The complete text of his email was not given.
I am not sure which philosophy the attorney general was referring to but the usual claim in such objections is the U.S. Constitution guarantees all American citizens the right to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” Modern libertarians jealously defend the freedoms the Constitution protects.
However, those freedoms are not unlimited. The Constitution’s preamble speaks of “the general welfare of the country.”
Those rights are not of equal weight. Without life, what good is the right to choose what we wear, or not, or what form of happiness we wish to pursue?
Therefore, our government has the right to force some citizens into its military in times of war to protect the majority of us. Also, liberty means the freedom to do what the individual chooses to pursue in his or her idea of happiness as long as his or her choice does not infringe on the rights of others. And health is one of those rights. For example, we have no smoking regulations in restaurants, hospitals and public buildings.
The philosophical principle we use in our Catholic tradition to measure the correct use of our freedoms is called “the common good.” To protect the common good of all of us we accept many limitations to our freedom. For the health of our youngest, children up to the age of 8 years old must ride in a child safety seat in the back seat of a car. We accept fines if we drive over the speed limit or shoot above the legal limit of ducks or catch and keep too many red snappers.
In our public schools, our children have to be vaccinated for diphtheria, tetanus and polio. If you are as old as I am, you would remember when some of your schoolmates had withered legs, and now those signs of polio have been eradicated by vaccines.
One of the arguments offered for a philosophical exemption was face coverings impose risks on the child’s mental and emotional health by hindering verbal and nonverbal communication. In philosophical ethics, the last step in proving the rightness of a decision is often proportionality. If I do this, will it result in more harm than good? In the case of COVID-19, should the real risk of serious illness and possible death not outweigh the slight hindrance of verbal and nonverbal communication possibly caused by wearing a mask?
As Dr. Catherine O’Neal, the chief medical officer at Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center, warned, we are at a crucial point in our fight to overcome this pandemic. It is a matter of overcoming the spread of this virus through vaccines and other steps like masks and social distancing or accepting a lot more deaths.
There is no question of which choice is proportionally more ethical. More persons must get vaccinated for their good and the common good.
The religious exemption the attorney general’s letter cited is St. Luke’s Gospel which reads: “and he sent them to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal the sick.” It is hard to imagine how this would exempt someone from getting vaccines or wearing masks. Christian-sponsored hospitals have been at the forefront of medical scientific advances for hundreds of years. The best medicine is preventive medicine, and that includes vaccines, mask wearing and social distancing for the control and elimination of diseases caused by viruses.
In his religious exemption the attorney general says, “I believe that Christians are called to communicate God’s words and message of love to the world.” This is correct. But this message of love, particularly that love commanded and exemplified by the son of God, Jesus Christ, is what demands of us more than just the philosophical demands of strict justice. These are based on man’s created essential nature as a social being.
Jesus went much further. He commanded us to “love one another as I have loved you.” Christ-like love, which exemplifies God’s love of us, stretches and transforms our concern and care for the neighbor to include personal care, healing and protection of others. Think of Jesus’ parable of the good samaritan, his many healings of the sick and of lepers. Divinely revealed love finds openings to extend, reshape, renew and transform the natural and philosophical claims of justice.
More than natural law (our common sense of and traditions of justice) and far more than legal law is the righteousness of God. It must transform both of these levels of natural justice, if our ethics is to be Christian.
We cannot know the full extent of our moral obligations without God’s self-revelation through Jesus and without the knowledge of God’s love for us. Our response always begins with gratitude for that divine love translated into our love and care for others.
I see some of this transformation taking place in our nation’s sharing of vaccines with poorer nations. However, we still need more love and protection of ourselves and others at home by getting vaccinated, wearing masks and social distancing.
Father Carville is a retired priest in the Diocese of Baton Rouge and writes on current topics for The Catholic Commentator. He can be reached at johnny carville@gmail.com.