Although he has encouraged Catholics to be vaccinated against Covid, Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone has disclosed that he has not been vaccinated himself. He said that his physician told him “it’s probably not necessary for me to be vaccinated.”

Press coverage of the archbishop’s disclosure concentrated on the opinions of public-health officials who disagreed with the archbishop’s physician—a marked violation of the usual argument that the state should not interfere with the relationship between doctor and patient.