A student receives a COVID-19 vaccine dose on the campus of the University of Memphis in Tennessee July 22, 2021. (CNS photo/Karen Pulfer Focht, Reuters)
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Whether to get vaccinated against COVID-19 continues to raise moral questions for some Catholics, particularly as some employers have begun requiring workers to get the shot.
The highly contagious Delta variant of the coronavirus is causing infections to skyrocket in the United States and around the world. For the first time since February, the U.S. is averaging over 100,000 new cases a day.
In North Carolina, nearly 14,000 people have died from the virus. Public health officials report a sharp spike in the number of hospitalizations, mostly among the unvaccinated. As of Aug. 10, 2,179 North Carolinians were hospitalized with COVID-19 – a number that has more than quadrupled since early July.
Approximately 62 percent of state residents have gotten at least one vaccine dose, according to state health data. Meanwhile, there are calls for a vaccine mandate to help stop the spread of COVID-19.
State and federal governments’ authority to mandate vaccinations is limited, but it is legal for a business to require vaccinations as long as they provide medical and religious exemptions.
What should Catholics do?
Church teaching is clear: People may get vaccines but should not be coerced into doing so. People also have the right to weigh for themselves – using a well-formed conscience – the concerns over unethical methods used to develop the COVID-19 vaccines versus the duty to pursue the common good amid this global health crisis.
GETTING THE VACCINE IS OK
Pope Francis has repeatedly encouraged people to get the COVID-19 vaccine, as he has done. The pope even set up a vaccine clinic at the Vatican, and he has implored governments and pharmaceutical companies to share vaccine supplies with the world’s poorest countries.
After the U.S. Federal Drug Administration authorized three vaccines for emergency use in late 2020, the Vatican and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops said Catholics may validly receive the COVID-19 vaccine in light of the severity of the global pandemic.
WHAT ABOUT THE ABORTION CONNECTION?
Catholics have expressed concerns that the available COVID-19 vaccines have some connection to controversial cell lines derived from elective abortions decades ago. All three – Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson – were tested with the cell lines, but only the Johnson & Johnson vaccine was produced directly from them.
The Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issued guidance last December stating that getting the vaccine is permissible, given the current limited options. In its
“Note on the Morality of Using Some Anti-COVID-19 Vaccines,” the CDF said: “When ethically irreproachable COVID-19 vaccines are not available ... it is morally acceptable to receive COVID-19 vaccines that have used cell lines from aborted fetuses in their research and production process. The moral duty to avoid such passive material cooperation is not obligatory.”
The USCCB advised Catholics to consider the Pfizer or Moderna shot if possible, because they were developed with less reliance on abortion-derived cell lines than the third vaccine, Johnson & Johnson’s one-dose shot.
“In view of the gravity of the current pandemic and the lack of availability of alternative vaccines, the reasons to accept the new COVID-19 vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna are sufficiently serious to justify their use, despite their remote connection to morally compromised cell lines,” said Bishop Kevin C. Rhoades of Fort Wayne-South Bend, Ind., chairman of the U.S. bishops’ Committee on Doctrine, and Archbishop Joseph F. Naumann of Kansas City, Kan., chairman of the bishops’ Committee on Pro-Life Activities, in a March 2 joint statement.
Bishop Peter Jugis echoed that guidance, assuring people they are not “complicit in an act of abortion by receiving a vaccine developed using cell lines distantly linked to an abortion.”
“The Church teaches that a vaccine recipient’s participation in the act of abortion would be passive, material and remote. In other words, someone who receives a COVID-19 vaccine would not be morally complicit in the original act of abortion,” he said.
Dr. Joseph Meaney, president of the National Catholic Bioethics Center, notes that the Vatican and USCCB statements have not been a flat endorsement of the vaccines.
“To a certain extent, people have taken the statements that have come out – which are all true, that people can discern in conscience to accept the vaccines – to be kind of an endorsement,” Meaney said. “It’s more like a permission. It’s a reluctant permission.”
VACCINATION SHOULD BE VOLUNTARY
Catholic teaching says any vaccination should be voluntary, not mandated.
A number of clergy in the Diocese of Charlotte have gotten the vaccine and churches across the diocese have hosted vaccine clinics for parishioners and people in need, but the diocese is not requiring employees to be vaccinated.
The diocese’s 19 schools are similarly not mandating the vaccine for its staff and students. Nor is the Benedictine-run Belmont Abbey College, but it is asking students to report their vaccination status after arriving on campus this month.
Many corporations including Google and Walmart, and health systems such as Atrium Health and Novant Health in Charlotte, Cone Health in Greensboro, and Wake Forest Baptist in Winston-Salem, are phasing in mandates for their workers.
Federal and state law allows businesses to require COVID-19 vaccinations under certain circumstances. But to avoid violating anti-discrimination laws, employers must provide reasonable accommodations to workers who decline the vaccine on medical or religious grounds.
Some Catholic leaders worry about a mandate and what they see as a lack of attention on offering exemptions.
The Catholic bishops of Colorado in a joint letter Aug. 6 reiterated “the use of some COVID-19 vaccines is morally acceptable under certain circumstances,” but said they objected to mandating that Coloradans get vaccinated, after Denver became the first major U.S. city to mandate COVID-19 vaccinations for private-sector employees.
“We understand that some individuals have well-founded convictions that lead them to discern they should not get vaccinated,” the prelates said. “In the case of the COVID-19 vaccine, we are convicted that the government should not impose medical interventions on an individual or group of persons. We urge respect for each person’s convictions and personal choices.”
The Catholic Medical Association and the National Catholic Bioethics Center both recently issued similar statements urging against imposing a vaccine mandate without conscience, religious or medical exemptions, especially as a condition of employment.
“Part of our Catholic doctrine is that you should have to follow your conscience,” said the NCBC’s Meaney. “And if your conscience is telling you not to do this, then you’re not doing it not just from your conscience perspective, but also from your religious Catholic belief.”
(The Catechism of the Catholic Church specifically addresses the formation of conscience in paragraphs 1776-1794.)
WHAT IF I DON'T WANT THE VACCINE?
People who opt not to get vaccinated are obligated to avoid transmitting the virus. That means following public health advice on face coverings and social distancing, avoiding travel and mass gatherings, and acting diligently to prevent virus spread.
The Vatican’s guidance last December noted: “Those who ... 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 transmission of the infectious agent. In particular, they must avoid any risk to the health of those who cannot be vaccinated for medical or other reasons, and who are the most vulnerable.”
CONSIDER THE COMMON GOOD
Whether someone chooses to get the vaccine is a matter of individual conscience, yet it is also important to consider how one can best pursue the common good, which “concerns the life of all” (CCC, 1906). (Read more about how the Church defines the common good in the Catechism, paragraphs 1905-1912.)
According to the Vatican’s guidance: “... from the ethical point of view, the morality of vaccination depends not only on the duty to protect one’s own health, but also on the duty to pursue the common good. 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.”
— Catholic News Service and Catholic News Agency. Patricia L. Guilfoyle, editor, contributed.
What does Bishop Jugis say about the vaccines?
Earlier this year Bishop Peter Jugis offered guidance on the available COVID-19 vaccines, encouraging people to carefully consider the vaccine for the common good, and if they choose to be vaccinated, choose one that is ethically derived: Bishop Jugis offers guidance on COVID-19 vaccine
More online
- Read the Vatican's guidance on the morality of the COVID-19 vaccines
- Read the US Bishops' statements about the COVID-19 vaccines, get prayer resources and more
- Get education and guidance on the vaccines, learn more about religious exemptions and talk with an ethicist
Catholic bioethicists: Vaccine mandates must include conscience exemptions
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Catholic bioethicists: Vaccine mandates must include conscience exemptions
However, Catholics who refuse the vaccine are still obligated to avoid transmitting the virus
WASHINGTON, D.C.— As workplaces have begun to require COVID-19 vaccinations for employees, some Catholic institutions insist that conscience exemptions are necessary.
In addition, priests should be allowed to support Catholics who conscientiously refuse COVID-19 vaccines, says one bioethicist.
“It is Catholic doctrine that people’s well-founded conscientious objections are part of their religion,” said Dr. Joseph Meaney, president of the National Catholic Bioethics Center, in an interview with CNA on Monday. Meaney spoke in support of religious and conscience exemptions to COVID-19 vaccine mandates.
“Part of our Catholic doctrine is that you should have to follow your conscience,” he said. “And if your conscience is telling you not to do this, then you’re not doing it not just from your conscience perspective, but also from your religious Catholic belief.”
Some employers have already begun mandating that employees receive COVID-19 vaccines. New York City this week announced it will require proof of COVID-19 vaccination for workers and patrons of some businesses, such as gyms, restaurants and theaters.
The Archdiocese of New York, meanwhile, has warned priests against granting religious vaccine exemptions for Catholics.
“There is no basis for a priest to issue a religious exemption to the vaccine,” stated a July 30 memo from the archdiocese’s chancellor, John P. Cahill, to all pastors, administrators, and parochial vicars in the archdiocese. The memo was issued several days before the city announced its vaccine mandate.
While recognizing the “discretion” of individuals to either receive or decline a COVID-19 vaccine, the archdiocese’s memo said that priests “should not be active participants to such actions” by granting religious exemptions.
However, priests could “definitely” have a basis to support Catholics’ religious exemptions to vaccine mandates, Meaney told CNA. The National Catholic Bioethics Center has provided a form letter on its website for Catholics seeking to opt out of vaccine mandates for reasons of conscience.
“People objecting to this (ethically-tainted vaccines) are doing so from a very sound Catholic basis, and so I think they should get the support of the Church for doing so,” Meaney said.
All three COVID-19 vaccines approved for use in the United States have some connection to controversial cell lines derived from elective abortions decades prior. All three vaccines – produced by Moderna, Pfizer, and Johnson & Johnson – were tested with the cell lines. Only one – produced by Johnson & Johnson – was produced directly using the cell lines.
In the 2008 document "Dignitas Personae," the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith spoke against the use of cell lines derived from elective abortions in vaccines; the document recognized that parents, for serious reasons, could use these vaccines for their children.
Both the Vatican and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops have said that Catholics may validly receive one of the COVID-19 vaccines with connections to abortion-derived cell lines. The USCCB noted that Catholics should seek, if possible, to receive a vaccine with a lesser connection to the cell lines.
However, these statements have not been a flat endorsement of the vaccines, Meaney said.
“To a certain extent, people have taken the statements that have come out – which are all true, that people can discern in conscience to accept the vaccines – to be kind of an endorsement,” he said. “It’s more like a permission,” he said, “it’s a reluctant permission.”
In its statement, the National Catholic Bioethics Center also strongly emphasized that individuals who opt not to get vaccinated for reasons of conscience are obligated to avoid transmitting the virus.
The NCBC quoted the Vatican statement, in part: "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 transmission of the infectious agent."
— CNA
No vaccine mandate without conscience protections
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Two Catholic groups: No vaccine mandate without conscience protections
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Two Catholic organizations issued statements in July urging against imposing a coronavirus vaccine mandate without conscience, religious or medical exemptions.In a poll of its members, the Catholic Medical Association said in a July 28 statement that all who responded "voiced moral/ethical objection to the use of aborted fetal cell lines in development, testing and/or production of all three currently available vaccines."
"As an organization, CMA opposes mandatory COVID-19 vaccinations as a condition of employment without conscience or religious exemptions," the association said. "An individual Catholic's decision to be vaccinated should be informed by the clear and authoritative moral teaching of the church on vaccinations."
When it comes to health care organizations, "historically, a vaccinated workforce has been an effective means of fostering" a safe environment for its patients, CMA acknowledged.
"While we recognize the importance of this consideration medically and ethically," it said, "the Church's teaching is clear, that 'as a rule' vaccination 'must be voluntary' and based on an individual's personal assessment in good conscience of the medical risks/benefits and morality of a particular vaccine. This is imperative."
The National Catholic Bioethics Center, in a July 2 statement, said it "does not endorse mandated COVID-19 immunization with any of the three vaccines" which received emergency use authorization July 1 from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
Both the NCBC and the CMA quoted from the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith's Dec. 21, 2020, statement: "Note on the Morality of Using Some Anti-COVID-19 Vaccines."
The NCBC quoted the Vatican statement, in part: "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 transmission of the infectious agent."
"When ethically irreproachable COVID-19 vaccines are not available ... it is morally acceptable to receive COVID-19 vaccines that have used cell lines from aborted fetuses in their research and production process," said the CMA in quoting the document. "The moral duty to avoid such passive material cooperation is not obligatory... At the same time, practical reason makes evident that vaccination is not, as a rule a moral obligation and that, therefore, it must be voluntary'"
The CMA, like the NCBC, also strongly emphasized that individuals who opt not to get vaccinated for reasons of conscience are obligated to avoid transmitting the virus.
"The NCBC's position is that we do not take a position on receiving a vaccine. We do not tell people (to) get a vaccine, we do not tell people not to get a vaccine," said Jozef Zalot, an NCBC staff ethicist, in a July 30 phone interview with Catholic News Service.
Zalot said NCBC developed its statement after receiving queries from parents of children about to attend college, "including Catholic colleges," that were requiring students to be vaccinated.
"We drafted this very short response for them, but in that time, the issue has kind of exploded," he added.
The Delta variant of the coronavirus is now responsible for the great majority of reported infections in the United States, and the number of infections has soared to a daily rate nearing 90,000, a number first reached last November, eight months into the pandemic.
"Catholic executives, health care systems and emergency rooms, and governments are mandating vaccines, but our position remains the same," Zalot said.
"As calls increase for universal vaccination as a condition of employment, a lack of accommodation will result in an individual's inability to work in their chosen vocation, lead to further shortages of essential health care workers, while exacerbating existing hesitancy and distrust regarding the COVID-19 vaccines," the CMA statement said.
"The exemption process should be clear and consistent while not placing an undue burden on those requesting an exemption, while protecting the health of all involved," it continued. "As has been true throughout this pandemic, procedures followed to minimize risk of contracting or transmitting SARS-CoV-2 should be clearly delineated and those in particular who choose not to be vaccinated must agree to adhere to these provisions."
"The call for mandates just started coming out a week and a half, two weeks ago, and we got four, five calls from members," said Dr. Michael Parker, president of the 2,600-member CMA, in a July 30 phone interview with CNS.
The CMA's poll found that unvaccinated members were bothered by the lack of conscience protections, Parker said. "Even the people who had gotten the vaccine had some concerns about the background and ethical testing" issues, he added. Parker said he has been vaccinated.
Millions of Americans have resisted getting vaccinated for reasons wholly unrelated to conscience or religious concerns.
"They have to weigh their risk-benefit for themselves and what the consequences for them are, and whether they're willing to tolerate the outcomes," Parker said.
"Any vaccination should be voluntary and not mandated, and there's no moral obligation to get a vaccine," he said. "But they do have some responsibility to the common good to take steps to avoid transmission of the disease."
Medical workers, Parker said, go beyond the social distancing dictum to prevent COVID transmission.
"If we're in with a patient who's COVID-positive, we wear N-95 masks and goggles and making sure that we have negative air flow in the room for those patients if we possibly can and disposing of our PPE equipment in a proper manner," said Parker, an OB-GYN. "We get screened every time we walk into the hospital for COVID."
Between the doctrinal congregation's declaration from last December and the two U.S. Catholic groups' July statements, U.S. bishops and scholars made known in March their positions on the permissibility of receiving the available vaccines.
Bishop Kevin C. Rhoades of Fort Wayne-South Bend, Indiana, chairman of the U.S. bishops' Committee on Doctrine, and Archbishop Joseph F. Naumann of Kansas City, Kansas, chairman of the bishops' Committee on Pro-Life Activities, in a March 2 joint statement, noted the Johnson & Johnson vaccine was made with the help of abortion-derived cell lines, but "given the worldwide suffering that this pandemic is causing, we affirm again that being vaccinated can be an act of charity that serves the common good."
On March 4, a YouTube video featured Bishop Rhoades saying, "There's no moral need to turn down a vaccine, including the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, which is morally acceptable to use." He cited an earlier Vatican statement that "has made clear that all the COVID vaccines recognized as clinically safe and effective can be used in good conscience."
A group of eight Catholic scholars issued a joint statement March 5 through the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington in which they said: "Catholics, and indeed, all persons of goodwill who embrace a culture of life for the whole human family, born and unborn, can use these vaccines without fear of moral culpability" for abortion.
— Mark Pattison, Catholic News Service
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Two Catholic organizations issued statements in July urging against imposing a coronavirus vaccine mandate without conscience, religious or medical exemptions.