By Dr. Jeff Mirus ( bio - articles - email ) | Mar 09, 2021 On March 5th, the Ethics and Public Policy Center issued a statement by pro-life Catholic scholars to clarify the The Moral Acceptability of Receiving COVID-19 Vaccines. The strength of this statement lies in its clear presentation of the exact nature and extent of the (very remote) connection of the vaccines with abortion. The weakness is that the statement chooses not to address the moral obligation, if one chooses to be vaccinated, of making clear one’s opposition to the use of immorally-derived cell lines. I want to emphasize that the EPPC statement does not contradict anything taught on this matter by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and, through that Congregation, authorized by the Pope. The purpose of the EPPC statement is to emphasize how very remote is the material cooperation with evil in the decision to accept one of these vaccines. For those who are troubled about this because of potential guilt, it is valuable reading. At the same time, the EPPC’s statement does not have exactly the same scope as the documents of the Ordinary Magisterium on this question.