Getting vaccinated is “an act of love,” Pope Francis said in his latest urgent appeal, after more than a year of insisting COVID-19 vaccines be equitably available worldwide for everyone to get inoculated. Nonetheless, some Catholics have been wondering if they should seek a religious exemption from an immunization requirement with vaccines tested or produced with cell lines originally derived from aborted fetuses more than 50 years ago. Individuals are free to make a decision on getting the vaccine. Some, like the Archdiocese of New York, have said for Catholics, refusing the vaccine would be based on a personal belief, not Catholic teaching, as the Vatican and pope have made it clear some vaccines for COVID-19 are permissible and it’s a moral duty to get vaccinated. Because there has been “overwhelming consensus within the Catholic magisterium” for years on the permissibility of using such vaccines in the absence of alternatives, “to counsel people that it is legitimate to refuse the vaccines on religious grounds — and, in fact, to facilitate it — is to actively assist people in mal-forming their consciences,” said M. Therese Lysaught, a corresponding member of the Pontifical Academy for Life.
Not me: The moral dilemma of seeking vaccine exemptions – The Catholic Sun
Not me: The moral dilemma of seeking vaccine exemptions – The Catholic Sun
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