Archdiocese of Toronto requires regular testing for unvaccinated clergy, employees

Joe Bukuras   By Joe Bukuras for CNA

September 27, 2021 Catholic News Agency News Briefs 7 Print

Cardinal Thomas Collins / Daniel Abel/cc 2.0

Boston, Mass., Sep 27, 2021 / 16:23 pm (CNA).

Clergy in the Archdiocese of Toronto who have not received a COVID-19 vaccination must show proof of a recent negative coronavirus test to their pastor “prior to or immediately upon entering parish offices, or presiding at religious services,” according to new rules that Thomas Cardinal Collins outlined last week.

“Beginning on October 8, 2021, we will require that all clergy (bishops, priests, deacons) be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 or provide regular proof of a recent negative COVID-19 test result in order to perform their duties,” the Archdiocese of Toronto’s COVID-19 Vaccine Policy says.

The same requirement applies to volunteers, lectors, choir members, ushers, and “individuals performing similar functions” as well as employees at parishes, the chancery, and “satellite offices.” The policy accepts a “rapid test” administered at a local pharmacy. However, the unvaccinated clergy, staff, or volunteer member “is responsible for the cost (about $40/test),” the policy states.

No proof of vaccination or recent negative test will be required to attend Mass or other religious services, the policy states.

The policy was circulated on Sept. 24. In a letter accompanying the new rules, Cardinal Collins urged “those that have not been fully vaccinated to do so as soon as possible.”

The cardinal said that requirements from the provincial government as well as organizational policies in many institutions will significantly impede the ability of unvaccinated clergy to serve the faithful.

“This will restrict your ministry in schools, hospitals, long-term care homes and other settings requiring full vaccination,” he wrote. “We know that these visits and your ongoing pastoral care in these settings are important aspects of your ministry.”

Cardinal Collins noted that many clergy are living in a community, including some who “may be elderly or with more significant health challenges.” He also said that staff or volunteers in rectory or office may also be at greater risk depending on their circumstances.

“In short, we have a responsibility to ensure a safe environment for staff and volunteers. Vaccination remains the best defence against infection for oneself or others,” Cardinal Collins wrote. “Should you choose not to be vaccinated, regular weekly rapid tests (as outlined in the policy) will be required.”

The new policy states that those who violate the rules “may be subject to discipline (which includes being placed on an unpaid leave of absence), up to and including termination of employment for just cause.”

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Be humble in serving your brothers and sisters in need, Pope says in Colombia

September 10, 2017 CNA Daily News 0

Cartagena, Colombia, Sep 10, 2017 / 11:00 am (CNA/EWTN News).- In his Angelus address Sunday, Pope Francis said the story of Our Lady of Chiquinquirá, the patroness of Colombia, provides an example of the humility with which all Christians should serve each other. 

“The Lord teaches us through the example of the humble and those who are not valued,” the Pope said Sept. 10. “They are the poor, humble ones, who contemplate the presence of God and to whom the mystery of God’s love is revealed most clearly.”

“As we pray the Angelus, recalling the incarnation of the Word, we also reflect on Mary who conceived Jesus and brought him into the world. We look to her this morning under the title of Our Lady of Chiquinquirá,” he said.

Our Lady of Chiquinquirá is the patroness of Colombia. Her image, which was painted on a piece of cloth in the 16th century was abandoned for a long time and allowed to become discolored and full of holes.

Tradition holds that a woman named Maria Ramos found the image in an old oratory in the town of Chiquinquirá in 1855 and “had the courage and faith to put this blurred and torn fabric in a special place, restoring its lost dignity,” Francis said.

It is said the painting was repaired to its former brilliancy through a miraculous restoration which occurred on Friday, Dec. 26, 1586.

The Pope pointed out how the Lord granted Maria Ramos, an ordinary woman, the grace to receive the poor image of the Blessed Virgin Mary, even in its damaged and worn state; and he gave the indigenous Isabel and her son Miguel the grace of being the first people to witness the transformed image.

Maria Ramos, he continued, is a model “for all those who, in different ways, seek to restore the dignity of our brothers and sisters lost through the pain of life’s wounds, to restore the dignity of those who are excluded.”

She is also a model for all those who provide dignified accommodation and care to those without a home, he continued. Being, above all, “a model for all those who pray perseveringly so that the men and women who are suffering may regain the splendor of the children of God which they have been robbed of.”

Pope Francis led the Angelus at the Church of St. Peter Claver in Cartagena, in one of the last events of his Sept. 6-11 trip to Colombia.

He urged all gathered to pray for the intercession of Mary and St. Peter Claver, “the slave of the blacks forever,” as he wanted to be known, who would wait for ships from Africa in the port city of Cartagena in order to help the slaves brought there.

Because of language differences, St. Peter Claver was often only able to communicate through his evangelical and charitable works. If he ever felt revulsion towards the slaves, he would kiss their wounds, the Pope said.

“He knew that the language of charity and mercy was understood by all. Indeed, charity helps us to know the truth and truth calls for acts of kindness,” Francis said.

The saint, who is buried beneath the altar in the church with his name, was “austere and charitable to the point of heroism,” the Pope said. And after helping hundreds of thousands of people, he himself spent the last four years of his life sick and confined to a bad cell.

St. Peter Claver is also a witness to the responsibility and care we should have for one another, he noted, despite the criticism he faced from those who hated his ministry and thought it would undermine the lucrative slave trade.

In Colombia and around the world millions of people are still being sold into slavery, the Pope emphasized. “They either beg for some expressions of humanity, moments of tenderness, or they flee by sea or land because they have lost everything, primarily their dignity and their rights.”

“María de Chiquinquirá and Peter Claver invite us to work to promote the dignity of all our brothers and sisters, particularly the poor and the excluded of society, those who are abandoned, immigrants, and those who suffer violence and human trafficking.”

They all have human dignity, he concluded, because they are living images of God. “We all are created in the image and likeness of God, and the Blessed Virgin holds each one of us in her arms as her beloved children.”

“Let us now turn to Our Blessed Virgin Mother in prayer, so that she may help us recognize the face of God in every man and woman of our time.”

After the Angelus, the Pope assured those present of his prayers for the countries of Latin America, particularly Venezuela, expressing his closeness to the nation and those from the nation who have been welcomed into Colombia.

“From this city, known as the seat of human rights, I appeal for the rejection of all violence in political life and for a solution to the current grave crisis, which affects everyone, particularly the poorest and most disadvantaged of society,” he said.

Before the Angelus in the Square of St. Peter Claver, Pope Francis blessed the cornerstones of two new homeless shelters being built in Cartagena. He also visited the home of a woman who opens her home daily to those in need, giving them food and affection.

“These visits have done me much good because they demonstrate how the love of God is made visible each day,” Francis said.

In his blessing of the cornerstones in St. Francis Square, the Pope prayed to the Lord that he would “fill with your blessings these servants of yours, who wish to devote themselves generously to the help of their brothers; so that, in urgent needs, they may serve you faithfully and fully in the person of their neighbor. Through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

[…]

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7 Comments

  1. Is Cardinal Collins going to fire his priests, then, who do not comply with this coercion? I pray there is a revolt. The Catholic Church teaches that such medical interventions must be voluntary. It is ironic that the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, of which Cardinal Collins is obviously a member, has apologized to our Indigenous people and now pledged 30 million dollars to them for injustices committed against them in residential schools, but at the same time he implements a coercive Covid 19 vaccine mandate for his priests, staff, and volunteers. The fact that these vaccines have safety issues makes this coercion even more ominous. Has he not read anything on this?

    Does Cardinal Collins know of the anxiety and suffering of those caused by his coercive mandate and who are being told to put an interim approved vaccine in to their healthy bodies? For many it goes against their conscience.

    Cardinal Collin’s response is one of panic. It is a caving into the State (Pontius Pilate)…which is contrary to the Gospel. It is the gospel of fear!

    Please, Cardinal Collins and others, see scholarly information on Covid 19 here:

    https://www.canadiancovidcarealliance.org

    https://healthprofessionalsunited.ca/open-letter-one/

    https://doctorsandscientistsdeclaration.org/

    Reply

    • Cardinal Collins seems to care more about the China Flu that ( perhaps) kills the body – but he won’t ( even try to ) stop the child-corrupting curriculum that teaches sodomy as a sacrament in Ontario Catholic Schools. Trading the innocence of little Catholic school children in return for Lucifer’s gold is like Caiphas saying ; “Better that the children be perverted for the sake of government funding”. Cowardice and deliberate cooperation with child corruption is the antithesis of the mission of Christian Education.

      Christ gave a very strong warning about the “millstone” regarding the corruption of innocent little ones.

      Didn’t Cardinal Collins promise that he
      would protect the children ???

      Better a child go to a Public School and learn paganism as paganism – than go to a “Catholic” School and learn buggery as a sacrament.

      “Silence in the face of evil is evil”.

      – Dietrich Bonhoeffer

      Reply

  3. It has been both odd and disturbing to see highly placed Catholic clergy kneel at the altar of secularism, where this disease is concerned. It has been intrusive enough here in the US but both Canada and Australia has taken their mitigation measures to draconian levels. One could easily call them suppressive of religion. We already know about the anti-catholic sentiment in Australia thanks to the official government rail-roading of Cardinal Pell. They also now have “camps” for the forceable detention of those who test covid positive, as well as tracking devices placed on phones which use face recognition technology to “check up” on people who test positive, to ensure they remain locked at home. Failure to match the required metrics result in the arrival of police at your home. Canada now has been taking to arresting and jailing Protestant Ministers who have the temerity to hold services, now two years into the pandemic.If suppression of religion was their primary aim, this could not be more damaging to the church. Are they really this afraid of a virus which has hardly any death rate? Are people falling over dead in the streets? I have often thought of Canadians as an anemic version of Americans, sans the weapons and spine to use them.Their current mode of operation in these former Brit possessions does not change my opinion, and gives a sadly clear picture of people willing to sacrifice their civil rights for hardly any sane reason. How long is a nation suppose to pander to irrational fear, and compromise quality of life and religious freedom, for a virus which will in all likelihood NEVER be eradicated totally? When does a govt official with gumption voice that reality out loud and allow people to get on with living?? The larger question is WHY are church officials continuing to cooperate with this obvious repression? Using the excuse of “concern for the health of others” is not sufficient.Not at this point, two years out. Not given the low death rate and not given how long we have lived under virtual martial law as applied by leftists.It would be nice to see some leadership shown in the church, some officials with the sheer strength of will to say what is necessary to save what is left of the church. I understand the Bishop of Quebec cancelled Christmas Mass last week. That is disgusting, and a disgrace. How long will this go on? Five years, ten? Will it still be ok to cancel church then? Evidently our US covid death rate over TWO years has been about 800,000. That is 400,000 per year. While in contrast, according to the CDC, our annual CANCER death rate is 600,000. Many of those deaths are also preventable. Why are we not hysterical about that? Its time to tell the media to stop the hysterical reporting of active covid cases, the vast majority of which do not end in death. Its time for Catholic clergy to go back to celebrating Mass as we did before, with servers, and singing. For that we need some cardinals and Bishops with a spine and a devotion to God, as opposed to the state.

    Reply

  4. Sadly I only saw this now…how terrible to watch the highest prelates in our Church fall on their sword…the sword of the apostles …that is the defense of Christ’s Church and His children…and the men ordained to serve the Church…

    How shocking that the Cardinal is enforcing such an anti christian method…..reminds me of the Protestant Reformation when almost every Bishop bar a few bowed to the murderous evil man.
    King Henry…and thousands of my people were killed,raped by the english soldiers,lands repossesed….
    I wonder were these bishops are now..

    The Cardinal obviously does not pay attention to true and honest medical science…..and thats dangerous.

    Covid 19 was man made in a bioweapon wuha lab…it was designed to mame and kill..
    We know this.
    Who i wonder was its first target? The following were, are :
    The western armies…
    The Church
    The western govts
    and then just regular people..
    Who according to the CCP have to be controlled or just killed if they are elderly or disabled.

    Is there plan working ..

    Who is assisting them? All the above.

    The Cardinal should spend some time listening to honest drs and scientists like the mnra inventor Dr Malone and many others
    ..

    Reply

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