Whereas Bishop Vann's recent decision prohibits priests from signing the forms many parishioners' employers and universities require if a parishioner is following his or her conscience and applying for a religious exemption from a COVID vaccine mandate, and
Whereas this failure to provide this critical pastoral help forces parishioners to either violate their consciences or lose their livelihoods with incomplete religious exemption applications, which makes the Bishop responsible for helping to create a new class of poor and vulnerable in our society which he, in turn, refuses to help in the way required by the circumstances, and
Whereas the Bishop thereby fails to fulfill his pastoral duty as shepherd to practice justice in a particular way toward the poor and vulnerable, and also prevents his priests from doing so,
Therefore, we, the undersigned People of God in the Diocese of Orange, respectfully urge and implore Your Excellency, Bishop Vann, to kindly modify the current directive issued to priests in the Diocese of Orange, so that our local clergy are permitted to supply, as required by many employers and universities, a clergy verification signature and/or an accompanying letter for the religious exemption applications submitted by members of the Christian faithful who have a sincerely-held conscientious moral objection to a COVID-19 vaccine mandate.
