Vatican: Virus vaccine is ‘morally acceptable’
Some concerned over abortion cell lines use
VATICAN CITY — The Vatican on Monday declared that it is “morally acceptable” for Roman Catholics to receive COVID-19 vaccines based on research that used cells derived from aborted fetuses, guidance that came after some churchmen in the United States argued that such products were immoral.
The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican’s watchdog office for doctrinal orthodoxy, said it had received several requests for guidance during recent months.
The doctrinal office pointed out that bishops, Catholic groups and experts have offered “diverse and sometimes conflicting pronouncements” on the matter.
Drawing on Vatican pronouncements in past years about developing vaccines prepared from cells derived from aborted fetuses, the watchdog office’s statement was examined by Pope Francis, who ordered it to be made public.
The Catholic Church’s teaching says that abortion is a grave sin.
The Vatican concluded that “it is morally acceptable to receive COVID-19 vaccines that have used cell lines from aborted fetuses” in the research and production process when “ethically irreproachable” vaccines aren’t available to the public. But it stressed that the “licit” uses of such vaccines “does not and should not in any way imply that there is a moral endorsement of the use of cell lines proceeding from aborted fetuses.”
Getting vaccinated against the coronavirus “ought to be understood as an act of charity toward the other members of our community,” the U.S. bishops conference officials said.
Weeks earlier, two U.S. bishops, one in Texas and one in California, had denounced vaccines using cell lines from the tissue of aborted fetuses as immorally produced. One of the bishops said he refused to receive such a vaccine and encouraged rankand-file Catholics to follow his lead.
The Vatican, in reassuring Catholics that getting a COVID-19 vaccine would not violate the church’s moral teaching, noted that “health authorities do not allow citizens to choose the vaccine with which to be inoculated.” Given such circumstances, it is morally acceptable to receive vaccines that have used cell lines from aborted fetuses, the Vatican said.