Digital Marian Helper Magazine Spring 2021

M arian H elper • S pring 2021 • marian . org 5 Are you morally obligated to receive a COVID-19 vaccination? No, you are not. In a Dec. 8 statement, the National Catholic Bioethics Center (NCBC) wrote: “The Catholic Church neither requires nor forbids the use of ethically problematic vaccines, but instead urges people to discern what decision to make after having carefully formed their consciences about the moral and prudential issues surrounding the vaccines that become available.” Th e Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) underscored this point in a Dec. 21 statement on the morality of COVID-19 vaccines, saying vaccination “must be voluntary.” The Vatican hastens to add the following: Those who, however, for reasons of conscience, refuse vaccines produced with cell lines from aborted fetuses, must do their utmost to avoid, by other prophylactic means and appropriate behavior, becoming vehicles for the transmis- sion of the infectious agent. In particular, they must avoid any risk to the health of those who cannot be vaccinated for medical or other rea- sons, and who are the most vulnerable. But the Church approves use of the COVID-19 vaccines, correct? Not only that, but the Church is encouraging coronavirus vaccinations. The CDF, in its Dec. 21 statement, says, “In the absence of other means to stop or even prevent the epidemic, the common good may recommend vaccination, especially to protect the weakest and most exposed.” The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), too, is encouraging Catholics to receive the vaccination. In a statement released on Dec. 14, the USCCB referred to coronavirus vaccination as a “moral responsibility for the common good.” This stance is in accord with previous state- ments from the Church, most notably the Pontifical Academy for Life’s 2005 statement titled “Moral reflections on vaccines prepared from cells derived from aborted human fetuses” and the CDF’s 2008 bioethics document Dignitas Personae (The Dignity of a Person) , considered the most authoritative magisterial teaching on the topic. Both conclude that, in the absence of alternatives, Catholics can, in good conscience, receive vaccines made or tested using human fetal cell lines. The CDF again reaffirmed this position with its Dec. 21 statement, referring to the COVID-19 vac- cines as “morally acceptable.” But wait a minute: The Church says it’s wrong to create abortion-derived cell lines, correct? Absolutely correct. But the Church judges that receiving vaccinations related to these wrongly created cell lines is remote material cooperation with evil, permitted in order to secure the common good in the face of historic threats to innocent human life and well-being. The Church faced similar deliberations in decades past, notably with the rubella virus (also known as German measles), which reached epidemic propor- tions and has resulted in miscarriages and severe birth defects. The only available rubella vaccine, licensed in 1969, was developed using aborted fetal cell lines from two abortions in the 1960s. Those cell lines have been replicated to this day for use in rubella vaccines. The Church has stated that parents are justified in having their offspring vaccinated against rubella, not only to protect their offspring, but also to prevent their children from becoming carriers of rubella and thereby possibly infecting pregnant women and endangering the lives of unborn children. Not all bishops agree with the Church’s stance on vaccines that have a connection with abortion, correct? Correct. Perhaps most notably, the Most Rev. Athanasius Schneider, an auxiliary bishop of Astana, Kazakhstan, and the Most Rev. Joseph Strickland, bishop of the Diocese of Tyler, Texas, joined other Catholic clerics in signing a Dec. 12 statement declar- ing it immoral to use vaccines with any connection to abortion. “Any link to the abortion process, even the most remote and implicit, will cast a shadow over the Church’s duty to bear unwavering witness to the truth that abortion must be utterly rejected,” the statement said. “The ends cannot justify the means.” Their position holds that abortion is so heinous that even remote cooperation cannot be permitted.