On Thursday, November 19th, I released a video about possible ethical issues with the vaccines that are in development to combat COVID-19. That video, along with subsequent comments to media entities that were disseminated in local, statewide, and national outlets, created some confusion among Catholics about the Church’s stance on these possible treatments. In this press release and accompanying letter to the Diocese of Fresno, I wish to clarify and correct certain aspects of my remarks, as well as to expound upon the Church’s teaching.
• Some vaccines are developed from cell lines that originated with tissue taken from aborted children. The use of such material by pharmaceutical companies and researchers is immoral. Catholics have an obligation as citizens, patients, and doctors to urge their healthcare systems and governments to provide ethical vaccine alternatives that are not made with material derived from the moral evil of abortion.
• Nevertheless, due to how relatively far removed end-users are from the original moral evil of abortion, Catholic doctors, patients, and parents may utilize such unethically sourced vaccines for serious and proportional reasons where no ethical alternatives exist, while maintaining consistent moral clarity in opposition to abortion. This was a particular point of confusion from my prior remarks that I wanted to clarify.
• I also wish to clarify information about specific vaccines that may come to the market in early 2021. The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines only utilized illicit materials to a small extent in their testing phase, not in their development or composition. Without better alternatives and following serious reflection upon the health risks and needs for oneself, one’s family, and the broader community, Catholics may ethically decide for serious reasons to utilize such vaccines. We strongly discourage Catholics from using the AstraZeneca vaccine due to its development from a morally questionable cell line.
• The Roman Catholic Diocese of Fresno and Right to Life of Central California will provide the lay faithful with ethical guidance on COVID-19 vaccines, as well as other vaccines, in ongoing educational materials. Along with this press release, I am issuing a pastoral letter to the Diocese, produced jointly with our friends at Right to Life, entitled “COVID Vaccines: A Pastoral Guide.” In this document, I explain more fully the teaching of the Catholic Church and give a more detailed assessment of the COVID vaccine options. I hope these communications bring clarity, and I apologize for any confusion my original comments caused.
The above comes from a Dec. 9 statement from the Diocese of Fresno.
Bishop Brennan’s Nov. 20 statement can be read here.
Thank you for posting this. It’s similar to a recent release from the National Catholic Bioethics Center, linked below, for those interested.
(If the link doesn’t work, you can copy and paste that into your browser.).
https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5e3ada1a6a2e8d6a131d1dcd/t/5fd3ce39e679895094dd1e49/1607716409962/NCBCVaccineStatementFINAL.pdf
Good the Bishop issued his clarification. The question is, if only an Astra Zeneca vaccine was available, would many take the risk of waiting for an alternative?
I would.
(And, I guess that as an over-60 cancer survivor, I’m at higher risk.)
And, though I can’t speak for anyone else, I know several others who would as well.
I’m hoping the more ethical vaccines get earlier and wider distribution.
For many around the world, the Astra Zeneca vaccine may be the only one they have an option of taking. It is far cheaper, far hardier, and only requires one shot.
It hasn’t been cleared yet and has a major data snafu to untangle. But it may be that some vaccines work better for some people in some places than others.
You are correct Tom, it hasn’t been cleared and they botched the first trials. They will fix it, and it will become the vaccine that most outside the first world has the possibility of receiving. Yet it could save millions of lives.
Go tell that to your CPCA comrades. Nobody in their right mind believes you. Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. We know you do not care about the people in third world countries. All you care about is that abortion, and sex change mutilations and unethical vaccines make a profit to keep up your deviant “lifestyle”, and with that you would betray to the CPCA.
My CPCA comrades? I don’t even know what you are talking about. What is CPCA?
You say, “We know you do not care about the people in third world countries.” Ummm, how exactly do you all know what I care about? I’m totally sure that I need to have greater care for the people in third world countries, but when you write things like this, my jaw literally drops at how you can make such blanket and uncharitable comments. Comments for which you have zero evidence, except that I seem to be the one advocating for COVID vaccines for the third world and you want to deny life saving vaccines for the third world.
CPCA — Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association — partially set up by Mc Carrick. Any more questions?
The very idea that you would even suggest “third world” countries should be used as Guinea pigs for testing of Astra Zenica shows your character. You have never once defended the Mexico City Policy which gives help to people in need without forcing artificial contraception, abortion and unethical vaccines down their throats. Artificial contraception and abortion eventually destroy women’s bodies and kills children.
i never said third world should be used as guinea pigs. Wherever do you get that idea? I said it might be the only option for third world situations to save millions of lives
i still have no idea what cpca has anything to do with me.
We are talking about vaccines that save lives…not aborting babies in Mexico.
YFC, using aborted baby parts in cells to use in vaccines IS about abortion, whatever country’s children are used. Encouraging their use of Astra Zeneca IS using them as guinea pigs. If you cannot see the connection, you are spiritually blind. If you really cared about the people in third world countries, you would be contributing to and encouraging ethical research, including ethical stem cell research, not always finding the “yes, buts”. You play right into the game of the Chinese Communist government, and other tyrannical governments.
There are no baby parts in these vaccines, people who take tested and approved vaccines are not guinea pigs but people awaiting life-saving treatment.
Judie Brown, of American Life League, as well as other devout Catholic pro-life leaders, say “no” to all of the current vaccines. They also say, beware of “Operation Warp Speed.”
You are willing to compromise the life of, perhaps, ten million innocent people in the third world for the sake of a cell line? You would feel morally justified in making that decision for them?
Your Fellow Catholic, don’t get too excited! Before God, make up your own mind, decide for yourself. That’s all.
YFC, probably has stock in Astra Zeneca since he has made such a “good” sales pitch for it. Why else would he say that since the Church has forbidden its use because of the aborted fetal cell line in it.
People love the name “Christian” and “Catholic”. They just do not like acting like one.
The Church has not forbidden the use of the Astra Zeneca vaccine. Please tell the truth.
Consult Prummet’s Handbook of Moral Theology. The argument Bishop Brennan uses here is ludicrous and invalid.
Tony, I agree.
Wouldn’t it have been better, considering the gravity of the matter, if Bishop Brennan had assured himself that his opinion correctly conformed to Catholic moral teaching on remote co-operation with a past moral evil, before he published? Publish in haste; repent in leisure. We deserve correct moral guidance from our bishops, first shot out of the box.
Don’t Shoot From the Hip. Great post. That’s what I believe.
There are many ethical vaccines that are being tested. Those should be given top priority. According to Dr. Diecher on the Patrick Coffin show, there is also an ethical, mostly safe, small pox vaccine, which has not been allowed in this country. That is despicable. No vaccine is totally safe, especially if it is done hurriedly, but to outlaw the ethical ones is just plain evil. Japan does some of the ethical testing. I believe this is all being done to make abortion “respectable”. It happens almost every time a vaccine for something is put out now. It is never going to stop if we put up with it.
I didn’t think smallpox vaccines were available anymore because previous vaccinations were so successful the disease has been eradicated, at least in the First World.
Correction: Dr. Diecher was talking about the measles vaccine. My apologies. My mistake. It is about at point 52:30 in the Patrick Coffin Show with Dr. Deicher on the side bar of this website.
Correction to second line of my last post. I should have written “measles” vaccine instead of “smallpox” vaccine.
If you want to vaccinate me, you’ll have to stick the needle in my cold, dead arm.
I fully understand and respect the Catholic view that use of fetal cells for the medicinal purposes is unethical. However, the article states categorically that the vaccine from AstraZeneca does in fact use said cells. In the interests of transparency and fairness, here is a rebuttal video:
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/astrazeneca-covid-vaccine-fetal/
Michael Joseph, unfortunately Snopes is not always the objective teller of truth that they claim to be.
Of course, if you check with Snopes, they’ll claim they are!
Numerous sources indicate the use of fetal material in AstraZeneca’s COVID vaccine. And, AstraZeneca acknowledges that in their own literature on the matter.
I agree with Judie Brown, of American Life League. I will not be taking any current COVID-19 vaccinations– no compromise on “Baby Murder vaccines.”
how is spreading a lethal virus not a compromise with death?
It’s like the flu; no more dangerous. All these lockdowns and distancing and mask wearing are for a flu bug. we didn’t do this for any flu before the Democrats figured out a way to make political capital from it.
Ten times more lethal, and more able to be transmitted.
310,000 dead in 2020 of Covid. Something in the 20,000s for flu.
Without masks distancing and shutdowns, could have been a million dead.
Not at all the same. Nothing to do with dems or politics or anything else.
Anonymous, don’t be ridiculous. Just make up your own mind, make your decision, before God.
You can find American Life League founder Judie Brown’s info, at http://www.all.org/covid-vaccines-to-inject-or-not-to-inject/
100% Pro Life. No Compromise !
BUT:
this is a red-herring tactic.
Even if there is a 100% non-abortion-tainted “injection”
(it’s not a vaccine by the way) the messenger RNA (mRNA)
will re-write your God-given DNA with Bill Gates’ et al molecular biology crap
and “update” your brain to his liking – just like he does his MS software.
The “spikes” on the corona virus will compromise the blood/brain barrier
so all sorts of interesting injected nano-paricles will be residing rent-free in your noggin’.
If you think taking such a noxious cocktail is moral – mazel tov !
helen, please stop making things up. No evidence that it crosses the blood brain barrier. It doesn’t re-write your DNA, Gates doesn’t design these vaccines, etc etc. People’s lives are at stake.
Anonymous– Helen is 100% correct! Educate yourself! You will be so amazed at the truth!
It looks like many in the medical field, and in medical research, are not formed in a solid Moral Conscience, anymore. Many are no longer ruled by professional Codes of Ethics. Since the immoral “hippie” era, excuses seem to be made all the time, to brazenly “do as they please,” “the end justifies the means”– and the wanton killing of unborn children, and selling their body parts, or using their body parts for experiments– shocks few of them. There is simply no decency, no respect left for God, nor for Life, among such a brazenly immoral, thoughtless, selfish, cold, heartless bunch of sick liberal-leftists! It is also totally sickening, that in cases of COVID-19 life/death situations– some of these immoral, immature medical practitioners, let the public know– that COVID-care for the elderly and disabled– is last on their lists!! They are horrible!
Bishop Joseph Strickland, of Tyler, TX, and several other prelates issued a statement that said in part, “Why did murder-based technology emerge in medicine, whose purpose is instead to bring life and health?”
Unfortunately, scientists say that most all modern vaccines today, originated from two aborted children, of the early 1960s.
“murder-based technology”
what a sad and accurate description
which Big Pharma stocks does the bishop/diocese
hold in the old portfolio ???
Shirley, you might be on to something. I wonder how many who defend Astra Zeneca here have those stocks too. California’s government is taxing us for unethical research. Can you imagine the wonderful things that could be accomplished if they put tax dollars into ethical research? They won’t. It is all about keeping abortion profitable and legal, not about saving lives, but keeping abortion profitable and legal.
Planned Parenthood — encourage the girls to have sex, give them cheap contraceptive pills that are not very effective, they get pregnant, then encourage an abortion while the father disappears.
C
where’s YOUR evidence that
there is no evidence ??
There seems to be quite a lot of confusion about the use of those vaccines which at some point in their development utilize cell lines derived from abortions performed about fifty years ago. While we are urged to use more “ethical” vaccines if they are available, not taking care of public health is clearly more morally unacceptable.
Here is what the Pontifical Academy for Life said just 2 years ago:
“It should be noted that today it is no longer necessary to obtain cells from new voluntary abortions, and that the cell lines on which the vaccines are based in are derived solely from two fetuses originally aborted in the 1960’s….in consideration of the fact that the cell lines currently used are very distant from the original abortions and no longer imply that bond of moral cooperation indispensable for an ethically negative evaluation of their use.
http://www.academyforlife.va/content/pav/en/the-academy/activity-academy/note-vaccini.html