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Reader: Where COVID vaccines are concerned, someone must take a stand for aborted babies

I was frustrated when I read The Criterion that I received today (Aug. 27 issue). Your article made me feel like I am a bad person for not getting the COVID vaccine (“Bioethicists discuss moral dilemma of seeking vaccine exemptions”).

Doesn’t anyone have a heart for the aborted babies that have been used for these scientists’ research? I am aware of the conditions under which they say this vaccine was developed, but don’t people realize that this type of research is ongoing and that countless little humans are being used in ongoing research, and it is only going to continue as long as good people say nothing?

I don’t like it when I hear the phrase “in science is our hope.” My hope is in the Lord. I don’t want to spread the COVID virus to anyone, but this is my one feeble attempt to take a stand for all the aborted babies. Will no one in our Catholic Church stand with me?

- Pat Cleeter | Aurora
 

A call to vocations: We need to promote marriage and having children

We frequently hear calls for vocations for the religious life, but we must also remember the importance of the most common vocation: married life. God’s original directive to man was to be fruitful and multiply.

Our country’s birth rate has fallen below the rate needed to maintain our population. The proportion of U.S. citizens between the ages of 25 and 50 who have never married is a record high 35%.The U.S. fertility rate has dropped to 1.8 children per woman, substantially below the rate of 2.1 children per woman needed just to maintain our current population.

In simple terms: two children per couple would only maintain the population if every woman had kids and never died before having kids, and since that is not true, then a minimum each couple should have is three children. With a decreasing population, there is a decreasing pool to recruit from for the religious lives.

In short, our priests should be asking couples to have “one more child” and to then consider encouraging the child to become a priest or nun.

The vocation of marriage is under attack in our progressive culture. First, we had the lie of the population bomb—that we would run out of food and that, overall, humans are bad for the Earth. To save ourselves and the planet, responsible people were encouraged not to have kids. Humans, both male and female, are made in the image of God and therefore are good, not bad.

Next, we had the lies that we should sacrifice our children to have better lives (abortion) and that sex should not be restricted to marriage but be freely available. Now we have the lie that gender does not matter. These are the same Canaanite abominations God warned the Jews about as they entered the promised land, and the ones the Jewish kingdoms gradually succumbed to.

And, of course, we know where that departure from God’s path led.

We need to promote marriage and having children!

- Frank Price | Indianapolis