“One may never do evil so that good may result from it. …A human being must always obey the certain judgment of his conscience. If he were deliberately to act against it, he would condemn himself.” (Catechism of the Catholic Church)
…CONTINUED FROM PART 1…
In mid-August with less than one month before the start of the 2021-22 school year, it was proclaimed by the Washington state governor that all educators – whether in public or private schools – were required to receive a covid-19 inoculation within two months. There were religious exemptions allowed in the proclamation, but our Seattle Archbishop followed the vaccine mandate even more firmly than public school superintendents in that he declared the Archdiocese would not allow any religious exemptions asked by an employee who refused the covid-jab by the governor’s mid-October deadline.
Even though the Archbishop published a statement which firmly stated his stance of no exemptions, I made an attempt to prove my case from an authentically Catholic perspective for not needing to inject a forced drug into my body. I wrote a detailed letter to him and others who held authority over me – my boss/pastor, the superintendent of Catholic schools, and the archdiocese’s human resources director – asking for an exemption from the mandate.
In my letter – published in its entirety below – I explained that it was a sin in my well-formed conscience to receive an inoculation, even if it would supposedly prevent me from getting the covid-19 virus, because the vaccine was prepared with the aid of using aborted fetus cells. I included other reasons I would not take a shot, such as the dangers of putting an untested drug in my body that was not like a traditional vaccine and the statistical fact that almost all Americans, especially those in our line of work – children and healthy young and middle-aged adult-educators – were not dying of the virus. But my letter’s main focus – being that I was writing to Church leadership and I was employed by the Catholic Church – was on the Catholic connection with abortion-tainted medications and with me having an informed and sure judgment in conscience, which is a timeless Catholic principle.
Here is my letter…
September 2021
Dear Archbishop, Father, Superintendent, and Human Resources Director:
After praying to the Holy Spirit to give me wisdom and to make the right moral choice for me, and after contemplating my strong beliefs in protecting innocent human life and never wanting to support or condone abortion, and after consultation with my personal physician, and after weighing the good of protecting my health and the health of loved ones and others in the community, I have come to the conviction in conscience that I should not receive the covid-19 vaccination.
Thank you for providing me with the opportunity to freely express my sincerely held, conscientious, religious conviction and belief, without discrimination as guaranteed in the First Amendment of our U.S. Constitution and supported by our State Constitution, as well as affirmed by the content and intent of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. Conscience, and its freedom, cannot be considered only as a civil right but is something intrinsic to our Catholic faith.
This decision to ask for a conscientious religious exemption does not come lightly. I have been a Seattle Archdiocesan employee since 1983, and this year will be my 41st year teaching or administering in Catholic schools (Eastside Catholic, Assumption-St. Bridget, St. Louise). Having just turned 60, I still have seven more years left before considering retirement, and I want to finish my career with the Archdiocese and in Catholic education. Educating in a Catholic school has not just been my profession; it’s been my vocation. My mentality is I have received an invitation from God to take this path toward deeper intimacy with Him by ministering to students, helping these youngsters realize their Christian call to get to know the Lord, to learn to love the Lord, and to want to serve the Lord.
I would like to explain why I believe an exemption for me to receive a vaccine due to a severely held conscientious religious reason is justified.
The Catholic Church teaches, and right reason affirms that, as a general rule, free and informed consent is required prior to all medical treatments and procedures, including vaccination. There is a principled religious basis on which a Catholic may determine that he or she ought to refuse certain vaccines. A Catholic may judge it wrong to receive certain vaccines for a variety of reasons consistent with these teachings, and there is no authoritative Church teaching universally obliging Catholics to receive any vaccine.
The National Catholic Bioethics Center reminds us that the Catholic Church teaches a person may be required to refuse a vaccination if his informed conscience comes to this sure judgment. The Catechism states that a person is morally required to obey his or her sure conscience, even if it errs.
The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith asserts that vaccination is not morally obligatory in principle and so must be voluntary. A person’s informed judgments about the proportionality of medical interventions are to be respected unless they contradict authoritative Catholic moral teachings.
Additionally, there is a general moral duty to refuse the use of vaccines that are connected with human cells lines derived from direct abortions. Some have noted that two of the available covid-19 vaccines in the United States weren’t actually developed with the use of aborted fetal cell lines, but the aborted fetal cell lines were only used in the vaccines’ testing. That distinction does not remove that fact that by accepting this vaccine I would be cooperating with the immoral crime of abortion. As a faithful Catholic who has protested in front of abortion clinics, has promoted prolife marches, and has promoted the position of “adoption-over-abortion” including my wife and I adopting two children, any type of collaboration with abortion goes against my conscience.
Furthermore, both the USCCB’s Ethical and Religious Directives for Health Care Services and the National Catholic Bioethics Center insist that a Catholic may refuse a vaccine based on the Church’s teachings concerning therapeutic proportionality – that is, an assessment of whether the benefits of a medical intervention outweigh the undesirable side-effects and burdens in light of the integral good of the person, including spiritual, psychological, and bodily goods. The judgment of therapeutic proportionality must be made by the person who is the potential recipient of the intervention in the concrete circumstances, not by public health authorities or by other individuals who might judge differently in their own situations. In my own case, I have consulted my personal physician about the pros and cons of receiving a covid-19 vaccine. I also have considered other facts such as these:
- The Centers for Disease Control show that the infection fatality rate for my age is 0.005.1
- The two fundamental reasons people die from covid-19 is due to their age and comorbidities. The median age of death from covid-19 is 78; I just turned 60. I do not have any of the comorbidities such as diabetes, obesity, chronic lung disease, or asthma that are the factors in 99% of covid deaths.2,3
- The covid vaccines have not received FDA approval. Being considered as only Emergency Use Authorization inoculations means the products are investigational and experimental only, their investigational studies have not been completed, the vaccine would not otherwise have been approved at this particular stage of testing, and the pharmaceutical companies who manufactured them are not liable.4
- The vaccine protection against infection is not living up to its original promise, as evidenced by the CDC now saying “some vaccinated people infected with the Delta variant after vaccination may be contagious and spread the virus to others” and as evidenced by booster shots now being needed for those who have received the vaccine only eight months ago. 5,6,7
Therefore, based on all the above points, and realizing that at the core of the Church’s teaching is that vaccination is not a universal obligation, and a person must obey the judgment of his own informed and certain conscience, if I as a Catholic have come to an informed and sure judgment in conscience that I should not receive a vaccine, then the Catholic Church requires that I follow this certain judgment of conscience and refuse the vaccine.
The Catechism is clear: “Man has the right to act in conscience and in freedom so as personally to make moral decisions. ‘He must not be forced to act contrary to his conscience. Nor must he be prevented from acting according to his conscience, especially in religious matters.’” 8,9
The Vatican is also clear by stating: “Vaccination is not, as a rule, a moral obligation and that, therefore, it must be voluntary.” 10
The right to freedom of conscience and religious freedom is based on the inherent dignity of the human person. This decision to take a vaccine or not is intimate and personal. Consistent with the above, a Catholic may, after consideration of relevant information and moral principles, discern it to be right or wrong to receive one of the available covid-19 vaccines.
Therefore, coming to the sure conviction in conscience that I should not receive it, and being this is a sincere religious belief, I am bound before God to follow my conscience. Correspondingly, the Catholic Church requires that I follow this judgment of conscience and refuse the vaccine. Accordingly, the Seattle Archdiocese must support any Catholic who has come to this conviction in seeking a sincerely held, conscientious, religious conviction and belief exemption from this vaccination requirement.
Finally, I understand the Vatican’s statement that: “Those who, for reasons of conscience, refuse vaccines produced with cell lines from aborted fetuses, must do their utmost to avoid, by other prophylactic means and appropriate behavior, becoming vehicles for the transmission of the infectious agent. In particular, they must avoid any risk to the health of those who cannot be vaccinated for medical or other reasons, and who are the most vulnerable.”
Thus, I acknowledge that it is up to unvaccinated employees to follow appropriate procedures to minimize risk of contracting or transmitting covid. I would appreciate receiving clearly delineated provisions for those like myself who work in parish schools, who have exemption from vaccination, and who want to be sure to do our part in looking out for others’ health, especially to the most vulnerable.
In accordance with Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, it is my understanding that it is my employer’s responsibility to provide a reasonable accommodation. In requesting this accommodation, I am specifically requesting that my employer (St. Louise Parish and the Seattle Archdiocese) respect and honor my sincerely held, conscientious, religious beliefs by providing employment accommodations free of retaliation and discrimination. I request complete confidentially regarding my decision, so that I am not segregated or treated differently.
Being that the Governor’s Proclamation does not specify that a school employee with a religious or medical exemption must refrain from working in the school or being around children, I respectfully ask that my current position remain with the same job description, working onsite with students and staff during school days, realizing as noted above that any appropriate, additional safety procedures may need to be followed.
I appreciate your time and look forward to your response to my request for an exemption.
Sincerely,
Dan Fitzpatrick
Principal, St. Louise School
1 https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/planning-scenarios.html
2 https://www.cdc.gov/pcd/issues/2021/21_0123.htm
4 https://www.fda.gov/vaccines-blood-biologics/vaccines/emergency-use-authorization-vaccines-explained
5 https://www.nytimes.com/article/covid-breakthrough-delta-variant.html
6 https://www.cbsnews.com/news/covid-19-vaccine-booster-shot-dose-8-months/
8 http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/para/1782.htm
10 https://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/en/bollettino/pubblico/2020/12/21/201221c.html
After sending this letter, I received no response from the Archbishop or the superintendent but did hear back from the Archdiocese’s human resources director, whom I soon found out had been working behind the scenes with my boss/pastor. In the letter the human resources director wrote in reply, she never referred to any of the points I made in my initial letter and never attempted to refute my points or correct my references, but merely explained the consequences for refusing to get inoculated. The official Archdiocesan decision was short and simple – if I refused the vaccine I would need to vacate my position in October (i.e., be fired). However, they did offer to continue compensating me for the remainder of the school year if after vacating I agreed to a few things. I would have to agree to not make a public disturbance over the issue, agree to become a virtual consultant to the interim principal (whom the pastor was going to swiftly hire, to help him negotiate the running of the school through June), and agree to never work for the Archdiocese again (at St. Louise or any other Catholic parish/school in Western Washington) even if in the future the covid-shot mandates were removed.
My boss/pastor and the Archdiocese were willing to keep paying me until the end of that school year because with this deal of me agreeing to not build a public protest and them being able to announce I was remaining on staff – albeit as a virtual consultant – they would get less blowback from parents and teachers who would be upset with my removal. As for my reasons to agree to this deal in a publicly amiable manner, like them I too wanted to avoid a fight for all to see that would have the students caught in the middle of a big controversy which would damage the school. I also didn’t want my students and staff to suffer with a complete departure from their leader that would leave the interim principal totally ill-informed. By agreeing to the temporary consultant gig, I would be able to help the interim principal with the hundreds of questions he would encounter in the proceeding months.
Of course, I also agreed to this deal because I couldn’t bear to have such a sudden financial hit to my family if I rejected their offer and thus would be immediately fired with no virtual consultant position and no compensation. My wife had been disabled for the past ten years, so I was the sole bread winner. I couldn’t afford to have the entirety of my salary cut off right then and there in October, so I agreed to the deal if it meant I wouldn’t have to take the shot but would still receive some compensation until the school year ended nine months later. It was in June that I was officially fired, received no more salary, and lost my wife’s and my medical benefits.
Ironically, prior to being forced out, under my leadership during the prior school year and for the first two months of the current school year, there was not one case of the coronavirus having been transmitted at school between classmates, and no faculty members ever caught it from school exposure. Yet after I left, in the remaining nine months of that 2021-22 year at St. Louise School, while I was safely and securely locked away in my house as claimed by the pro-vaccine powers that be, there were multiple cases of my school’s students passing the virus on to other students and of teachers needing to stay home because they became ill after contracting the virus at school. Funny, but there was no explanation from the Archdiocese how this could have happened since their removal of me was to get rid of their dangerous, unclean, un-jabbed employee so as to not place any students or teachers at risk.
When it became obvious in the ensuing months, and then even a couple of years later, that not only did the covid-19 vaccine not act like a true vaccine but that those who received booster shots were actually becoming the dangerous ones – not only continuing to catch the virus but becoming more contagious than those who were never inoculated, and having massive elevated risks for heart attacks, blood clots, and pulmonary emboli – I still never received an acknowledgement from any of my superiors that they might have overreacted.
Last year, federal and state governments, many big corporations, and even some public school districts started to officially apologize to their employees who were unfairly fired months earlier for refusing to be vaccinated against their will. In some cases, the employers offered these ill-treated employees their jobs back with back pay. But the Seattle Archdiocese over these past two and a half years continues to remain mum in their attempts to memory-hole how they had unjustly required jabs which ended up not being genuine, reliable vaccines. The Archbishop forced out a few of us employees who refused abortion-tainted inoculations because as faithful Catholics we could not act against our informed and sure judgments in conscience, and to this day has never contacted us, sent us an apology, offered an explanation, or even offered to pray for us.
Had it not been for the devoted teachers and school parents who offered prayers and words of encouragement, I would have felt abandoned and alone in August when I was publicly reprimanded by my boss/pastor (refer to my previous post from April 13 about that incident) and then again in October when my departure was announced. That August, many of my teachers and school parents immediately confronted the pastor to inform him that his public disciplining was both unethical from an employer-employee standpoint and also uncalled for because they appreciated having a principal who dared to speak up and didn’t want me silenced. These like-minded parents and faculty appreciated having a counter-cultural leader whom they trusted would never lie or pretend like many leaders in the educational and church communities were doing by either staying silent or broadcasting false information on scandalous issues and perverted sexuality topics.
Then later in October, these loyal parents and teachers again came to my defense when it was announced I would be forced to leave my job because I wouldn’t cave and go against my principles. These genuinely Catholic and truth-loving friends and colleagues told me they admired me for withstanding such tremendous pressure, for doing what they weren’t strong enough to do, for withstanding insults and social exclusion, and for holding my ground against the most intense propagandized fear campaign in our lifetime. Some of these parents, in private meetings that my pastor and I held for anyone who wanted to express their thoughts on my dismissal, literally pointed their fingers directly in the face of my boss/pastor and told him that he was wrong in forcing out their children’s principal. If I wasn’t able to personally say thank you back then to all of those who supported me, please let me say now how much your appreciation and encouragement boosted my spirits.
That fall of 2021, at the age of 60, beginning the 41st year of my career as a Seattle Archdiocesan teacher/coach/principal with 34 of those years as principal of St. Louise School, I found myself with a decision to make:
A) Pick the harder right – which would result in losing my job, salary, and health benefits, along with ending any future Catholic career in Western Washington since I would be permanently banned from any other job in the Archdiocese;
B) Pick the easier wrong – which would allow me to continue working in a job that I was planning on being in for about seven more years (retiring as principal when I came to be 67).
In these two and half years since then, there has not been one day that has gone by where I have ever regretted choosing choice (A) and not caving, not pretending this particular inoculation was safe and effective, and not lying to my well-formed conscience regarding an abortion-connection with the vaccine.
I might not have had regrets, but I did have disappointment. I sorrowfully had to come to the realization on October 14, 2021 – the day I drove away from St. Louise for the final time and saw in my rearview mirror the school staff waving goodbye – that my values no longer aligned with the values of my Archbishop, my boss/pastor, and the Seattle Archdiocese Catholic school system, where I had devotedly ministered for four decades.
In my next post – the final one in my 3-part series – I’ll explain how it wasn’t just me who was improperly treated by Church leadership. Regrettably, almost all Catholics were let down by many of our clergy during these past three years of covid-19 over-reactions.
The 3rd and Final Post of this 3-Part Series Will Be on April 20:
A Principal’s Principle for Parenting: Don’t Lie, Don’t Pretend, and Don’t Cave (Part 3 of 3)
A PRINCIPAL'S PRINCIPLES FOR PARENTING 
What incredible courage you’ve demonstrated against the most vile tyranny in our lifetime, Dan. Your articulate argument outlined in your letter to the Archdiocese no doubt left the wrong-minded fools in leadership speechless.
Your resolute spirit is exceptionally inspirational and I am convinced Our Lord will reward you with a place in Heaven, and a genuine welcome with the words from Matthew’s gospel, “Well done my good and faithful servant.”
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Appreciate the acknowledgment and kind words, Colin! Blessings to you!
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