Bishop Joseph Brennan with the Diocese of Fresno is calling on Catholics to wait– and not jump on the COVID-19 vaccine bandwagon.

“I don’t want to rain on anyone’s parade,” Brennan said Wednesday. “But from my point of view, a Catholic point of view, some [vaccines] could be truly problematic on an ethical, moral level for a Catholic Christian.”

Brennan says he has some real concerns over how the vaccines are being developed — and tested– and he’s calling on people to do their research, too.

“I won’t be able to take a vaccine, brothers and sisters, and I encourage you not to, if it was developed with material from stem cells from a baby that was aborted or material that was cast off from artificial insemination,” he said.

His words come as the race is underway to test and mass-produce a safe, COVID-19 vaccine, in what’s known as “Operation Warp Speed.”

Bishop Brennan, who oversees a Diocese with 1.2 million faithful across eight counties, emphasized he is not against vaccines. “In a sense, I’m putting it out there that maybe we need to slow down this warp speed, this frenetic pace, and do good science because I don’t know if good science is hasty,” Brennan says.

When asked whether waiting could lead to more lives lost to the virus, Brennan said, “That could happen. And there again, of course, we all want health for ourselves and for others. We want to promote that, but never at the expense at the life of another. We can take life to defend ourselves if it comes to that, God-forbid, we have the right of self-defense, even to the ultimate degree. We don’t have a right to preserve ourselves, self-preservation, we don’t have a right to take someone’s life to make my life better, healthier, or to potentially prevent my getting a disease. It can’t involve the loss of a life of another.”

Full story at FOX26 News.