Chicago City Wire

An Immaculate Conception School parent who works in occupational safety is questioning the Archdiocese of Chicago’s support for masking and advocacy for vaccines in children.

He said his daughter’s teacher at the school uses extreme language to frighten her and other students into pulling up their masks. 

The parent — who was granted anonymity due to the nature of his work as a government employee — told Chicago City Wire, "The most alarming thing is if my daughter has (a mask on) at school, her teacher tells her that if she pulls it below her nose, she's murdering people or killing people by not keeping it over her nose," the parent said. 

The parent said the most troubling aspect of masking is that it he thinks it simply does not work in almost every scenario, and certainly not with paper or cloth masks, he said. 

"My job is one that involves COVID information daily to my subordinates, and I know all the facts and the science behind it, so when they tell me this, it really, truly bothers me," he said. 

He said not only is the school administration spreading fear and division, it is ignorant of the scientific facts surrounding masking and vaccines. 

"I confronted my principal about this once it was brought to my attention that the fact that a teacher was bringing this to my door, bringing this to my daughter, telling her that she was killing people," he said. When I confronted her, telling her all these facts, she was dumbfounded. I had no clue what any of this was." 

Pritzker has bypassed Illinois’ lawmaking apparatus and inundated the state’s business and education sectors with an ever changing set of mandates that many, including the parents interviewed, feel are more based on political control than anything else. 

Parents across the archdiocese's school population of nearly 70,000 have been noting the cardinal’s hypocrisy after being photographed at a Christmas party maskless, as well as that of the state’s rules as a whole.

"When you can go to a football game and not have to protect your respiratory system, but my children have to protect themselves," the father said. "The Archdiocese should be ashamed of themselves." 

He noted the Archdiocese is not bound to follow Pritzker’s executive orders regarding masks and vaccines. 

A commentary written for the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy website said that "cloth masks and face coverings are likely to have limited impact on lowering COVID-19 transmission because they have minimal ability to prevent the emission of small particles and offer limited personal protection with respect to small particle inhalation."

Schools across the country have received billions of dollars in funding to require masks and push vaccines.

Catholic schools like Immaculate Conception have also been the recipients of a combined $1.4 billion in federal funds during the pandemic. 

Another parent who  hired an attorney in his fight to end the masking of his son, who suffers from a neurological condition, said the problem is not with the Archdiocese not understanding what is right for children, but that the schools do not want to suffer a loss of funding for allowing even mask exemptions—even for disabled children who parents say are suffering due to masks.

"The indoctrination of our country at this point is scary because you're telling me that you truly believe that a piece of paper made in some sweatshop in Malaysia is going to protect my child from the deadliest virus in American history, supposedly," the Immaculate Conception parent said.

The parent said that the masks commonly used are not supported by science. 

"The CDC three days ago was on the record, stating that natural immunity is better than vaccination," he said.

Cook County is still mandating vaccines for entry to public places despite the CDC’s recent finding that natural immunity without being vaccinated provided more protection to those who had been infected  who then contracted the Delta variant of COVID last year. The CDC maintains 'vaccination remains the safest strategy for averting future SARS-CoV-2 infections, hospitalizations, long-term sequelae, and death.'

"What I would like to see happen is some normalcy in this country, being that we have the choice to decide what goes in our bodies," he said. "A cartel does not tell people to take their drugs, yet a democracy does. That's what's alarming to me in America right now. The mask mandates are very alarming to me. I'm sorry... it’s completely obscene in my opinion." 

Martin Kulldorff, an epidemiologist and infectious disease researcher at Harvard University, wrote in March 2021 that "thinking that everyone must be vaccinated is as scientifically flawed as thinking that nobody should." COVID vaccines are important for older, high-risk people and their care-takers. Those with a prior natural infection do not need it. Nor children. "