Page 31 - Vaccines

Key principles of Catholic moral theology

distinction, rooted in the Bible, is not to be abused.
Nevertheless, it is a legitimate and necessary distinction,
reflected in the constant doctrine of the Magisterium on
these questions across the centuries and expressed with
great precision and clarity in his major encyclical on the
Gospel of life, Evangelium vitae, by John Paul II,2 using a
formula taken from, and references to, Lumen gentium,
n. 25, which indicate that he was confirming that this
doctrine (and its applications to the question of deliberate
and directly procured abortion and to deliberate, direct
euthanasia) was an exercise of the infallibility of the
universal ordinary Magisterium.

b. The good of health and the medical good;
the therapeutic principle

i. The nature of these goods and their inter-
relationship

The good of health is also an intrinsic human good; it is
not the primary human good, since the primary human
good, in the sense of the complete and absolute human
good, is salvation or eternal life and since, in the sense
of the most basic or fundamental human good, it is
human life as such.3 Nevertheless, the intrinsic human
good of health is intimately connected to the most basic
human good of life, insofar as ill-health restricts our
capacity to live our lives normally or as we would justly
seek to do and insofar as it can be such as to threaten our
survival, our life on this earth. In terms of the proper care
which we have a duty to take to protect our own health

2 Cf. John Paul II, Evangelium vitae, n. 57.
3 Cf. G. J. Woodall, “Elementi di teologia morale” in G. Brambilla
(a cura di), Riscoprire la bioetica: capire, formarsi, insegnare
(Rubettino, Soveria Mannelli, 2020), 43–72, esp. pp. 43–50.

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