Johnson & Johnson vaccine creates a week of confusion for Catholics
An attempt to clear up confusion about the moral acceptability of the vaccine only created further uncertainty. Pharmacist Madeline Acquilano draws a syringe of the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine at Hartford Hospital in Hartford, Conn., Wednesday, March 3, 2021. The first shipments of the vaccine arrived at the hospital Wednesday morning. (AP Photo/Jessica Hill)
March 5, 2021
(RNS) Catholic clerics and organizations continued to wrangle over how best to respond to a new COVID-19 vaccine this week, with bishops scrambling to make their views known on how their faithful should approach a vaccine produced by Johnson & Johnson that some say is morally tainted by a connection to a long-ago aborted fetus.
WASHINGTON: The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops on Tuesday reiterated the Vatican’s teaching on COVID-19 vaccines produced with the help of abortion-derived cell lines, after a vaccine developed by Johnson & Johnson received FDA approval over the weekend.
The bishops echoed the Vatican in stating that it is “morally acceptable” to receive COVID-19 vaccines produced using cell lines from aborted fetuses when no alternative is available, but if possible, Catholics ought to choose a vaccine with a more remote connection to abortion.
“The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has judged that ‘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 bishops wrote in a March 2 statement.
Bishops across US issue split messages on Johnson & Johnson COVID vaccine catholicworldreport.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from catholicworldreport.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Some have urged them to take any available vaccine, while others said they should avoid the newly approved Johnson & Johnson shot because it was made using abortion-derived cells.
Vatican City, Jan 15, 2020 / 11:52 am (CNA).- Cardinal Claudio Hummes, the relator general of the Amazon synod, sent a letter Monday to some ordinaries indicating that the apostolic exhortation on the synod should be promulgated this month or the next.
“The draft is currently being reviewed and corrected and then needs to be translated. Pope Francis hopes to promulgate it by the end of this month or in early February,” Cardinal Hummes, who is also president of the Pan Amazonic Church Network, wrote in a Jan. 13 letter.
Among the works of REPAM is “protection for the 137 ‘contactless tribes’ of the Amazon and affirmation of their right to live undisturbed.”