The Church and Idiots

Comes word from the New York Post of a Catholic woman whose appalling ignorance threatens the health of her community.

Vaccine-deny ma sues city 

• By MITCHEL MADDUX

• Last Updated: 2:52 AM, February 15, 2013

• Posted: 1:31 AM, February 15, 2013 

A devout Catholic mom on Staten Island is suing the city, saying her daughter was improperly barred from attending class when school officials wouldn't recognize her religious exemption from receiving medical vaccinations. 

In her federal civil-rights suit, filed in Brooklyn, Dina Check, of West Brighton, accuses the city Education Department of prohibiting her 5-year-old from attending PS 35 on Tuesday — even though she filed paperwork for an exemption stating her family’s belief that forced immunization violates important tenets of their faith. 

“To inject invasive and unnatural substances into this divine creation is showing a lack of faith in God and His way,” Check says in the lawsuit.

Assuming the Post's description of this woman as "devout" is accurate (my impression is the media describe anyone, from those who think they might have been baptized on up to the Pope, as "devout.") you have to ask (apart from asking who the hell catechized the dame--"religious exemption from receiving medical vaccinations." Huh?) why doesn't the Church step in here? Seems to me a few pithy words from the woman's priest, or bishop if she's particularly stubborn, would resolve this matter without having to resort to the courts.

One of the great glories of the Holy Catholic Church, one which I did not truly discern until my conversion, is she is truly indeed the universal Church, preparing for heaven all walks of mankind, from staggering geniuses to blithering  idiots; we are all created in the image of God, who wants us to live happily with him forever. When we stray from the narrow path a gentle nudge, or a sharp jab if necessary, from Holy Church steers us back onto it. In what form that nudge or jab takes depends on the strayer. Rhodes Scholars may require different manner of persuasion from those with lesser faculties; the Church adapts to the circumstance and situation.

My great-great uncle Robert, a protestant Ulsterman who emigrated to the United States, counted among his friends when living in Ireland the pastor of a nearby Catholic church. One day Uncle Robert asked his priest friend if he would have a word with a parishioner of his, a servant girl, rather simple, whom Uncle Robert had hired recently. The girl had turned out to be be insolent and lazy. Uncle Robert, not wanting to have to dismiss her, hoped a few words from the priest would set her right. The priest said he would talk to her.

A few days later Uncle Robert ran into his priest friend and reported the happy news of the servant girl's remarkable improvement; she was now respectful and hard working. He asked the priest what he had told the girl. He replied: "I told her if she didn't behave I would change her into a rabbit!" I think that approach, used by clergy on the woman referred to above, would work wonders.