guest column:Fr Oskar Wermter SJ
The whole world was anxiously waiting for the development of an anti-coronavirus vaccine. Scientific research laboratories in many countries were working on it. Now more than one vaccine, tested and found effective, is available. Vaccination campaigns have been launched. There is little hope that the COVID-19 virus is going to get exhausted, weakened and disappear by itself. Our hope rests on vaccines with which millions will be immunised.
Zimbabwe is not yet part of this worldwide effort.
South Africa, which has many infections and deaths than Zimbabwe and other African countries, also needs the vaccines, urgently.
It will be in the interest, not just of southern Africa, but of the entire globe, to immunise the large population of the continent.
Any country must have an interest in creating more and more coronavirus-free zones, so as to stop the virus once and for all from spreading further.
In the 1980s, I was in charge of a big rural mission centre with two schools and a hospital.
There was a bright high school student who had a very weak heart from birth.
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He needed surgery to give him a chance to survive. But his father, a peasant farmer and member of an apostolic sect, objected to his son being attended to by our doctor.
When his mother finally managed to take him to the hospital, behind his husband’s back, it was too late.
The young lady doctor was in despair. “A year ago we could have saved him, but now it may be too late….”
Other parents refused to have their children vaccinated against contagious, and mostly fatal, childhood diseases.
This same attitude is still doing its destructive work. We all hope that very soon a sufficient number of doses of the vaccine will be available for an effective countrywide vaccination campaign.
If a country shares with us this life-saving drug, out of a sense of solidarity, it will be more than an act of charity or philanthropy.
It will be out of benevolence of the donor community. The COVID-19 virus must be suppressed wherever it is found for the benefit of the entire human race.
This must be the attitude of all of us, as a universal and collective decision. We cannot allow “private judgment” to prevail over this global consent.
Is there no “freedom of conscience” and the right to freely live one’s religion and worship as one’s conscience dictates? This is not a matter for religious sects to decide. It is a question of human rights.
A child born into our universal human family has the right to life. Even the parents cannot claim to be the “owners” of the life of the child and dispose of it as they please. Life belongs to the Life-Giver who must be respected.
In ancient Rome, a father had this right over a child’s life. Not anymore! We have learnt something in the meantime. A child given to our family deserves our full protection.
Why would a “mupostori” (or other apostolic sect member) deny his child this protection? The common teaching of such religious groupings is that God alone is our healer. To presume this authority as a mere human being is considered arrogant and blasphemous.
A devout sect member prays for the sick, including his sick children. To take such children to a modern hospital and a scientifically trained doctor is regarded as showing lack of faith in God, the almighty Healer, and lack of trust in divine healing power.
But there is no competition between God, “by the almighty healer”, and human healers. They are not rivals, they belong together.
This ban on modern medicine comes from so-called “prophets” who claim to speak and act with divine authority.
In fact, God our Creator acts through human agents. A surgeon who has faith and trusts in God will ask for the spirit of healing that He may guide him as he picks up the surgical knife.
To put it simply: God the healer needs our hands. Surgeons do not take the place of the divine healer with pride and presumption. They work together with the spirit that guides them.
The pride and presumption is not in the surgeon, but in the prophet. I saw nurses whose slogan was: “We nurse the patients, God heals them.” The “prophet” wants to be regarded as indispensable, as if he has a monopoly, and all the patients infected with a contagious virus will have to seek his services.
That would increase his income and prosperity if he claims to have sole access to divine power. As if God was dependent on humans.
God is the author of human intelligence. It is not presumptuous to use this gift. In fact, it is our duty. It was given to us for our good and the benefit of the sick. And we have to share medical knowledge with the young generation of doctors, nurses and medical scientists.
Healing is a gift, not a business, and like most gifts coming from our Creator it is not just given to a few, but is meant to be shared globally.
Health is a highly political issue. It must be treated as a priority. It is highly regrettable to see the health budget being reduced, while the military is being provided with more weapons.
Public health is also very much dependent on State subsidies. The needs of this sector are enormous.
There are the infectious childhood diseases. There is a great need for an efficient maternity service.
The number of maternal deaths is unacceptably high. There are countless contagious diseases over which we often have lost control. There are diseases which are cancer-related and often have a fatal outcome, as well as tuberculosis and HIV/Aids.
Then there are diseases caused by the lifestyle in our technical civilisation, eg heart diseases, often the result of stress and overwork as well as nicotine (smoking). The list is endless.
Then our health is threatened by a badly managed environment. Water is becoming scarce, air is more and more often polluted, causing lung diseases.
Smoking used to be socially acceptable. It should not be any longer. This is tied up with many economic issues. To some, tobacco consumption cannot be stopped because the industry controls advertising.
Tobacco farmers are employing many people. Can we afford to fire the entire lot?
The car industry gives us similar headaches. Petrol and diesel fuels are a product of oil. Can we run industry without oil as a basic energy source and thus kill the car industry and our transport systems?
But from a health point of view, oil products and diesel fumes put our populations at great risk. What is the alternative? Electrical cars? This is not just futuristic play of the imagination. It is about our immediate needs.
The consumption of drugs like heroin and cannabis, cocaine and nicotine can destroy a person once he or she is addicted to them.
A whole generation of young people might be spoiled and corrupted by such substances. A workforce in industry might no longer be disciplined as needed in industrial production.
And in families, alcoholism may break up marriages, destroy families and destroy intellectually brilliant people who may never be able to enjoy the fruits of their talents.
This is a question of moral and spiritual values. What kind of person is our education trying to groom?
Self-centred, ambitious women and power-hungry men in leadership positions, or “men and women for others” whose ambition is to let everyone benefit from the “common good” which they hope to create? What is the core value in our society? Is it greed and hunger for power with which to accumulate the wealth that gives us influence in society?
Our struggle to defeat the coronavirus tests our beliefs and values. When we obey the COVID-19 rules and sanitise our hands, keep social distance, avoid direct contact by shaking hands, and shun large assemblies, do we do that out of fear of the law enforcement agents because we care about our fellow citizens and do not wish to endanger?
Our society must be held together by mutual love. Self-centred behaviour does not work.
Global solidarity in distribution of vaccines is not imposed by the State, it depends on personal convictions and the education we got in our families.
