On compulsory vaccination

In a December 6 statement entitled ‘Protect, Heal, Reconcile’, the Austrian bishops’ conference said:

“Compulsory vaccination is a serious encroachment on the bodily integrity and freedom of the individual. It is therefore only permissible if, taking into account proportionality, all other options have been exhausted to protect the population – in the case of the pandemic, the health system, and thus human lives. It is ultimately the responsibility of the government to assess whether the preconditions for a temporary condition are met and whether a temporary vaccination obligation is now the appropriate means of protecting the common good.”

Protecting the weak

Speaking to members of the Union of Italian Catholic Jurists (UGCI) on December 10, Pope Francis said “the role of the Catholic jurist –  consultant, lawyer or judge – is to contribute to the protection of the human dignity of the weak by affirming their rights. In this way he or she contributes to the affirmation of human fraternity and not to deface the image of God imprinted in each person”. He quoted Cardinal Dionigi Tettamanzi was fond of repeating that “the rights of the weak are not weak rights”.

Pain – an invitation to love oneself?

The following three short quotes are from Hillary McBride’s latest book The Wisdom of Your Body: Finding Healing, Wholeness and Connection Through Embodied Living.

Hillary McBride’s book The Wisdom of Your Body: Finding Healing, Wholeness and Connection Through Embodied Living.

“Embodiment is the experience of being a body, not just in isolation but also in the world.”

“Pain can be an invitation into loving and caring for oneself, sometimes learning how to do that for the first time.”

“The Divine is right here among us and showed us through his body that our bodies are not bad,  that the Divine exists in flesh and that the body is part of God’s way of being in the world.”

(Compiled by Fr Joe Borg)