"Even in the College of Cardinals, there are some negationists," Francis said Wednesday, en route home from Slovakia.

He noted that one of them, "poor guy," had been hospitalized with the virus. That was an apparent reference to U.S. Cardinal Raymond Burke, who was hospitalized in the U.S. and placed on a ventilator last month after contracting the virus.

Francis was asked about vaccine skeptics and those who oppose vaccine mandates by a Slovakian reporter, given that some events during his four-day pilgrimage to the country were restricted to people who had gotten COVID-19 jabs. The issue is broader, however, as more and more governments adopt vaccine mandates for certain categories of workers, sparking opposition.

"It's a bit strange, because humanity has a history of friendship with vaccines," Francis said, noting that children for decades have been vaccinated against measles, mumps and polio "and no one said anything."

He hypothesized that the "virulence of uncertainty" was due to the diversity of COVID-19 vaccines, the quick approval time and the plethora of "arguments that created this division," and fear. Medical experts say vaccines have been tested and used on tens of millions of people and have been proven to be effective in reducing serious hospitalizations and deaths.

Significantly, Francis didn't cite the religious objection used by some who refuse the vaccines. Some conservatives have refused to get the shots citing the remote and indirect connection to lines of cells derived from aborted fetuses. Continue reading

The policy was announced during a Saturday vigil Mass Sept. 11 that Bishop Stowe celebrated at the Cathedral of Christ the King in Lexington.

At the end of the liturgy, Deacon Tim Weinmann read a statement from the cathedral's rector, Father John Moriarty, that both Fr. Moriarty and Father David Wheeler, the parochial vicar, have not been vaccinated.

"The bishop has asked that Fr. David and I, Fr. John - I'm speaking for Fr. John - make an announcement that we are not vaccinated, so people can decide if they wanted to attend Mass where they were celebrating," the deacon read, according to a video of the Mass posted by the Cathedral of Christ the King. Continue reading

Our freedoms are a precious commodity.

Society must not become the domain of permanent policing and it is to the credit of democracy that these debates are allowed.

Nevertheless...

There is something worrying about the conjunction of opposition coming from all walks of life on the issue of vaccination.

No, individual freedom cannot be the only criterion to be taken into account in public health matters. It never has been.

Otherwise, we would all be dead — of polio or, even before that, of the plague!

It is also surprising to see how much reluctance there is in the ranks of ecologists, who are so concerned about protecting us with regulatory bans on pollution from cars, pesticides from farmers or fuel from aeroplanes, towards mandatory vaccination.

Any health decision requires ethical discernment. And ethics cannot stop at our person. We are beings in relationship with others, and this is the meter we must use to examine such measures.

In Christian theology, we speak of concern for the "common good".

Health is a matter of collective responsibility, especially for those who are most at risk. There is a form of "preferential option for the weakest".

It is not a question of blindly accepting just any scientific advance from a society ready to throw itself into the arms of transhumanists.

But it is up to us to show reason, to examine if, in the current state of knowledge, the medical or biomedical proposals are indeed at the service of the human being, a human being in relationship.

Discernment is the duty of every citizen.

This is not about getting vaccinated just so it will be easier to go to the movies.

As France's chief of defence, General François Lecointre, has noted: Fraternity is arguably the most beautiful but most misunderstood part of the French Republic's motto.

• Isabelle de Gaulmyn is a senior editor at La Croix and a former Vatican correspondent.
• First published in La Croix International. Republished with permission.

The head of WHO, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, underscored the fact that millions of doses had been received by higher-income countries, while many of the world's poorest countries go without - resulting in overwhelming sickness and death among the poorest.

A tragic and preventable example is that "Only 1 percent of the 1.3 billion vaccines injected around the world have been administered in Africa".

In India, which in April broke the world record for new COVID cases in a single day - surpassing 330,000 - only 3 percent of the population has been vaccinated.

The editor of Indian Catholic Matters, Verghese V. Joseph, told me that while the number of new COVID cases is now declining, Indians are still very vulnerable since the supply of vaccinations is nowhere near matching the demand.

But the hardest-hit country is Peru. According to Johns Hopkins University data, Peru has the highest death rate per capita from COVID in the world.

St. Michael Catholic Church in Prior Lake, Minnesota, where I serve as pastoral care minister, has a sister parish relationship with Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Chimbote, Peru.

In an email to me, Friends of Chimbote Executive Director Todd Mickelson wrote, "The deadlier Brazilian COVID variant is spreading through Peru. Medical systems have collapsed with no hospital beds available and severe shortages of oxygen and treatments.

"The economy is in failure with no government funds reaching the poor we serve who do not have bank accounts to receive assistance.

"Education for the children of the poor cannot occur with no access to electronics or the internet.

"It is essential to humanity and the health and prosperity of the world that global leaders of the wealthiest nations immediately provide vaccines, funding, logistical support and leadership to developing countries.

"Dedicating resources and expertise to vaccinate the world expeditiously is not only the just and humane thing to do but the only way to stop this pandemic and the risk of continuous mutations and devastation."

U.S. President Biden's decision to send 500 million COVID vaccinations to poor nations and the offer from the other G-7 nations to send an additional 500 million doses is certainly a good step in the right direction.

But buying these doses from a very small group of patent holders like Pfizer-BioNTech will take far too long - into 2024 - to safely reach the nearly 6 billion remaining unvaccinated brothers and sisters whose lives are unnecessarily on the line.

Over 170 former world leaders and Nobel laureates have urged President Biden to support a waiver of profit-motivated intellectual property rules for COVID vaccines and related treatments, thus allowing many other companies around the world to produce the life-saving vaccines.

Weighing in on this, Pope Francis said we need "a spirit of justice that mobilises us to ensure universal access to the vaccine and a temporary suspension of intellectual property rights".

• Tony Magliano is an internationally syndicated Catholic social justice and peace columnist. He is available to speak at diocesan or parish gatherings. Tony can be reached at tmag6@comcast.net.

As reported recently by CathNews, church leaders met, March 11, with Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, Social Development Minister Carmel Sepuloni and Housing Minister Megan Woods to discuss issues of mutual concern.

The churches' position papers have just been released.

"We seek tika me pono (truth and justice) to right wrongs in our history that continue to lead to disparities which see poorer health outcomes for Maori and Pasifika. We cannot be healthy unless all are healthy", the church leaders said.

Acknowledging the impact of COVID-19, the church leaders said the virus has exposed new forms of inequality and thrown new light on old and ongoing injustices.

"Many want to get back to ‘normal', but we don't want a ‘normality' that returns to an everyday life which is indifferent to the poor and to the environment, and just exposes us again to the next pandemic."

During the pandemic, church and state cooperation has ensured wide-ranging support - from connecting with kaumatua/isolated elderly people, finding accommodation, providing necessities, supporting migrant workers and temporary visa holders.

"We seek ongoing engagement in this regard," New Zealand's church leaders said.

Two issues — housing and welfare — "have been priorities for decades in these meetings of Church Leaders and Government, but remain urgent and pressing issues in the context of the pandemic."

COVID vaccinations

Confirming their support for vaccinations, the church leaders offered to:

• Contribute to public messaging about Covid-19 as an ethical choice for the common good.
• Support and encourage church members to be vaccinated.
• Provide access to church facilities as vaccination centres.

They asked for:

• Information about the vaccination priority settings for church workers like hospital chaplains.
• Clarity around the process of setting priorities for border entry for non-citizens and residents.
• Recognition that there are circumstances in which church workers are essential workers for immigration purposes.
• Recognition of family reunification as a priority when border restrictions can be relaxed.

Welfare, Income and Wellbeing

The church leaders said they want:

• To provide input into policy and programmes that support New Zealanders making significant permanent changes to work and careers because of Covid-19 outcomes, including retraining and psychosocial support.
• To work with Government and other agencies to provide access to psychosocial services for those affected by COVID-19 health or economic effects.
• Government to recognise the benefit levels do not meet basic needs and should be lifted.
• To continue the dialogue about addressing food insecurity.
• To encourage the Government to continue to push a wellbeing approach to better integrate social, economic and environmental dimensions to grow inter-generational wellbeing and resilience.

Housing

The church leaders would like to see:

• A long-term balanced policy approach to the housing crisis is needed. The pressure is building as homeownership reduces, and rent increases.
• The Government partnering more and sharing development investments with community housing providers.
• The Government committing to a balanced tenure policy of social housing, secure renting and affordable homeownership, with access for lower-income households.
• Priority access for Maori and Pasifika households.
• Housing support assistance reviewed so lower-income households are realistically better off and can afford essential housing costs.

Source

• Church Leaders meet with PM and Ministers (PDF)
• Image: BBC

Why did some U.S. Catholic leaders rush to issue warnings about this vaccine even though the Vatican has already said that it can be morally acceptable to receive it?

Most importantly, why did these statements not start, as would be entirely compatible with Catholic moral teaching and the Vatican guidance, with a summary that said:

"All of these vaccines are safe, effective and morally acceptable under present circumstances, even if not perfect. Solidarity, especially with those at increased risk from Covid-19, calls us to cooperate in getting as many people vaccinated as soon as we can"?

Caveats, of course, must follow immediately: The actual statements were more nuanced than the headlines; the statements in question were issued by individual dioceses and chairs of committees at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, and other bishops and dioceses have not universally adopted this approach; and the statements, properly understood, only counsel avoidance of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine relative to other options.

Nonetheless, the headlines these statements drew make the risk and cost of such statements clear:

• "Covid-19 Vaccines Draw Warnings From Some Catholic Bishops";
• "Catholic Archdiocese Bans COVID Vaccine Over Tenuous Link to Abortion";
• "U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops says to avoid Johnson & Johnson vaccine if possible."

Compare the impression those headlines give with the Vatican guidance on this issue: "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" (emphasis in original).

Recent statements from some U.S. bishops, properly understood, only counsel avoidance of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine relative to other options.

If you have been following these issues closely and are carefully focused on the caveats, then you already know how to explain the nuance that is missing from most of the headlines. (The corollary, of course, is that if—like most Catholics—you are not thoroughly well-versed on the technicalities of these issues, you are more likely to just be confused.)

There is a moral difference between the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, which only used cell lines derived decades ago from abortions for tests during their development process, and the new Johnson & Johnson vaccine, which uses such cell lines as part of its production.

That difference means that the new vaccine is less remotely connected to the evil of abortion than other currently approved vaccines—though, as the Vatican guidance makes clear, still morally acceptable when "ethically irreproachable" vaccines are not available.

There is no fundamental disagreement between the Vatican's guidance and the recent statements within the U.S. church on the underlying moral teaching, and certainly no formal theological error in any of them.

Instead, the confusion around this recent vaccine guidance arises from differing priorities given to the various parts of the moral calculus outlined in the Vatican's guidance, combined with what seems to be a pastorally irresponsible failure to plan for the predictable ways a Catholic recommendation to "avoid the Johnson & Johnson vaccine" would be covered and communicated in the secular press. Continue reading

He made the claims in America Magazine.

Egan's irritation is that just one day before the US Food and Drug Administration granted emergency authorisation to a Johnson & Johnson vaccine, the Archdiocese of New Orleans published an unsigned statement on its website saying the vaccine was "morally compromised".

The archdiocese is recommending Catholics be leery of the new vaccine, pointing to the manufacturer's use of fetal cell lines with distant connections abortions.

Given a choice, the Archdiocese is asking Catholics to avoid using the Johnson & Johnson vaccine saying it was developed, tested and produced with abortion derived cell lines.

Egan notes that in South Africa, which has been hard hit by a more aggressive variant, the Johnson & Johnson vaccine is the only available option.

Egan says that in these times when people are anxious the archdiocese's statement is confusing people and it is pastorally unhelpful.

"I think it's pastorally dangerous because people are dealing with all kinds of crises—people are faced with unemployment, people are faced with disease, people are faced with death—and to make this kind of statement just adds to the general feeling of unease, a general feeling of crisis," Egan said.

"I think it's irresponsible to make a claim that you must absolutely not or absolutely must take the drug", he said.

The view of the New Orleans diocese has been backed up by chairmen of the US Bishops Conference committees responsible for doctrine, Bishop Rhoades, and pro-life causes, Bishop Naumann.

Asked about the USCCB guidance, a spokesperson for Johnson & Johnson clarified:

"There is no fetus tissue in our Janssen COVID-19 vaccine.

"Our COVID-19 vaccine is an inactivated/non-infective adenovirus vector (similar to a cold virus), which codes for the coronavirus ‘spike' (S) protein.

"We are able to manufacture hundreds of millions of doses using our engineered cell-line system that enables the rapid production of new viral vaccines to combat many of the most dangerous infectious diseases."

The Johnson & Johnson vaccine is heralded for its practical advantages over Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech's vaccines.

Unlike its competitors, which require two doses, Johnson & Johnson's vaccine only requires one. It can also be stored in a refrigerator, making it easier to distribute.

The Catholic Governor of Louisiana, John Bel Edwards joined the conversation, urging Louisianans to consider "the common good" in accepting vaccines.

Edwards said that in Lousiana, vaccine providers receive only one kind of vaccine at a time.

No reason for controversy

The controversy surrounds the use of what is referred to as HEK293 cells whose origins are reportedly traced back to an aborted fetus in the 1970's.

However, scholars and ethicists note, the HEK293 cell lines are clones, not the original tissue.

In December the Vatican issued general guidelines regarding vaccines saying it is morally acceptable for Catholics to receive vaccines that used the research cell lines.

In January, Pope Francis and Emeritis Pope, Benedict XVI were inoculated and the Vatican has made Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine available for all citizens of the city-state.

"We have to keep in mind that more than 500,000 people are dead, and the urgency to establish widespread vaccination is extreme," Lisa Fullam, who teaches moral theology at the Graduate Theological Union, told America.

"That doesn't mean anything goes, but it does mean the situation we're facing is really serious and will continue to cost more lives unless people step up to get vaccinated."

"This kind of moral scare-mongering can cost lives, especially among people who might not have access to the vaccine otherwise," she said.

Sources

• America Magazine
• America Magazine
• New Orleans Archdiocese
• Nola
• RNS

Conference President Cardinal Dew says the bishops took their advice about vaccines from reputable doctors, scientists and the bishops' own bioethics agency, the Nathaniel Centre.

"Everyone, including Catholics, has a moral responsibility to protect themselves and others by getting a Covid-19 vaccine as soon as they become eligible for it under the Government's planned vaccine programme."

Dew is also making it clear that the Conference rejects the false information circulating on the internet and elsewhere claiming vaccines should not be used.

He is also reminding everyone of what can happen when people don't take advantage of vaccination. The 2019-20 New Zealand measles epidemic happened because only about 80 per cent of the population were vaccinated, he said.

It then spread to Samoa where over 80 people died, most of them babies and children.

"To protect everyone against a disease, it is vital that most people in a country be vaccinated," he says. Vaccinations work.

The pope is lamenting choices made by those refusing vaccination, saying: "I believe that morally, everyone must take the vaccine. It is the moral choice because it is about your life [and] the lives of others."

In relation to the moral implications associated with the vaccine, Dew says Francis has clarified that there is no religious reason to reject vaccination. This includes vaccines created with cell lines originating from tissue from human foetuses aborted several decades ago.

While Catholic teaching opposes abortion, the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith says the "grave danger" of spreading Covid-19 outweighs those concerns when "ethically irreproachable vaccines are not available."

It was "morally acceptable to receive Covid-19 vaccines that have used cell lines from aborted fetuses in their research and production process." Pope Francis endorsed that statement on 17 December.

Pope Francis and his predecessor Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI were both vaccinated against Covid-19 this week at the Vatican.

Source

• NZ Catholic Bishops Conference
• National Catholic Reporter

Caused by a virus, smallpox was a serious disease which killed about three in ten of the people who contracted it and left many others with severe scars.

Smallpox was mainly spread by direct, lengthy face-to-face contact between people.

Virus from an infected person spread to another when they coughed or sneezed. Over the centuries, smallpox killed literally millions of people.

Jenner observed that milkmaids who became infected with cowpox, did not subsequently contract smallpox.

In 1796, Jenner inoculated a young child with cowpox, and demonstrated that the child had developed immunity against smallpox.

It is said that through this discovery, Jenner saved more lives than anyone else has ever done.

Through ongoing vaccination programmes, smallpox was eradicated in 1979.

Vaccination has also greatly reduced the risk of infection for many other diseases for much of the world's population, including rubella, polio, whooping cough, diphtheria, mumps, chickenpox, measles, and tuberculosis.

Although these diseases are still present in some parts of the world, many parents today have the great gift of not worrying when the next outbreak might ravage their local neighbourhood and their children.

The COVID-19 pandemic

This year, 2020, on March 11, a pandemic was declared by the World Health Organisation. There has not been such a world pandemic since the Spanish Flu just over one hundred years ago.

Coronavirus 19 or COVID-19 has caused havoc across the world. Infections and deaths are occurring at a disturbing rate.

COVID-19 belongs to a family of viruses which includes the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) virus (as well as several bat coronaviruses).

The Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) virus, another coronavirus, appears more distantly related.

In the seventeen years since the SARS outbreak of 2003, no vaccine has become available.

COVID-19 is a highly infectious virus spreading between people when an infected person is in close contact with others.

Transmission can occur through saliva, respiratory secretions or secretion droplets, which can be released from the mouth or nose when an infected person coughs, sneezes, speaks, or sings.

Uninfected people who are in close contact (within 1 metre) with an infected person can be infected with COVID-19 when those infectious droplets get into their mouth, nose or eyes.

Transmission can also occur through touching objects or surfaces contaminated with COVID-19.

The COVID-19 pandemic now poses a significant threat to global public health, economic stability and growth, food security and environmental issues.

As seen so far, the pandemic has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives with the potential to claim many more.

It is placing, and will continue to place, an enormous strain on global health care systems.

Social distancing and different levels of lockdown can help to reduce the spread of COVID-19. However, these measures come at enormous social and economic costs to all aspects of society.

Human cell lines are one type of cell line that supports the growth of COVID-19.

One of the sources used for these cell cultures is tissue from deliberately aborted foetuses.

This can pose a significant moral quandary for Catholics and others. Catholic teaching upholds the principle of the inviolability of human life and forbids direct abortion.

Some of the major challenges of this pandemic are the lack of a safe and effective vaccine and a lack of treatments in lieu of a vaccine.

Scientific knowledge is growing daily to understand more fully the transmission of infection, including the potential for transmission by asymptomatic infected people, the disease trajectory, who is more susceptible to infection, and the longer-term health implications of a COVID-19 infection.

The long-term protection provided by the immune response either from a COVID-19 infection or potential vaccine is still unknown.

The requirement for boosters if a vaccine is developed is yet to be determined.

Vaccination is considered one of the best exit strategies for fighting the COVID-19 pandemic, and a race has begun to develop an effective vaccine.

As of 10th August 2020, there are 28 candidate vaccines in clinical evaluation, and 139 in pre-clinical development.

The origin and development of vaccines

Vaccines can be produced by growing the virus in a cell line or another substrate.

They can also be developed through replicating viral vectors, subunit vaccines, mRNA and DNA techniques, as well as through the production of a non-replicating viral vector.

Companies in the race to develop a vaccine are utilising one or more of these techniques. (It should be noted that no commercial vaccine has yet been licensed utilising mRNA, DNA or non-replicating viral vector techniques. COVID-19 may be the first.)

Human cell lines are one type of cell line that supports the growth of COVID-19.

One of the sources used for these cell cultures is tissue from deliberately aborted foetuses.

This can pose a significant moral quandary for Catholics and others. Catholic teaching upholds the principle of the inviolability of human life and forbids direct abortion.

What is more, Catholic teaching opposes the use of tissue from deliberately aborted foetuses.

On this matter, it is also worth noting that the use in medical research of human foetal tissue from elective abortions was restricted in the United States last year.

Vaccines which have been produced using cell lines from deliberately aborted foetuses are often known as ethically compromised vaccines.

...someone who refused an ethically compromised COVID-19 vaccine could catch the virus, have the potential to be asymptomatic, and infect others, who could become seriously ill with the possibility that they may die. By refusing a vaccine when available, one could therefore perhaps be directly responsible for the death of another.

Two cells lines derived from elective abortions are PER.C6 and HEK-293.

Both these cell lines are being utilised by a small number of research facilities who are in the process of developing a COVID-19 vaccine.

HEK-293 is a kidney cell line widely used in research and industry. The foetus was aborted in about 1972. PER.C6 was developed from retinal cells from an 18-week-old foetus aborted in 1985.

The cells used today in the potential vaccine manufacture are cells that are descended from the cells that were originally sourced from the foetal material. Thus, while their lineage can be traced back to the foetuses, the cells in use today are not the cells from the aborted foetus.

Further, if a COVID-19 vaccine is produced through the use of these cell lines, the vaccine will not contain cells or DNA pieces that are recognisably human. The cells are killed as the virus grows in them, usually bursting the cell membrane. The process of vaccine purification removes cell debris as well as any growth reagents.

Catholic teaching and ethically compromised vaccines

The Vatican has issued a number of documents to guide Catholics in their response to ethically compromised vaccines.

In 2005, the Pontifical Academy for Life issued Moral reflections on vaccines prepared from cells derived from aborted human foetuses.

The issue of ethically compromised cells is also considered in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith's 2008 Instruction Dignitas Personae on certain bioethical questions.

The Pontifical Academy for Life dealt with this issue again in its 2017 Note on Italian vaccine issue.

All these documents apply a Catholic principle called the principle of cooperation to the issue of the production and utilisation of ethically compromised vaccines.

The Catholic Church is not dismissive of the problem of ethically compromised vaccines.

To the contrary, the Church has a clear and consistent position which includes three important points:

• First, when a choice exists between an ethically compromised, we have a grave responsibility (all other things being equal) to use the latter vaccine.
• Second, when only ethically compromised vaccines are available, we should make known our moral objection to these vaccines, lobbying governments and healthcare systems to prepare and make available vaccines that are not ethically compromised.
• Third, until ethically uncompromised vaccines are developed, we can and should use ethically compromised vaccines to prevent serious health risks both for ourselves and for everyone. The Pontifical Academy for Life stated this third point very clearly in 2017. It said that "we believe all clinically recommended vaccinations can be used with a clear conscience ... the moral responsibility to vaccinate is reiterated in order to avoid serious health risks for children and the general population."

The 2005 document from the Pontifical Academy for Life contained a noteworthy footnote.

It noted that rubella can cause "grave congenital malformations in the foetus when a pregnant woman enters into contact, even if it is brief, with children who have not been immunised and are carriers of the virus.

In this case, the parents who did not accept the vaccination of their children become responsible for the malformations in question, and for the subsequent abortion of foetuses, when they are discovered to be malformed."

Parents in this situation are of course only indirectly responsible for these abortions.

Ethically compromised COVID-19 vaccines and moral responsibility

However, someone who refused an ethically compromised COVID-19 vaccine could catch the virus, have the potential to be asymptomatic, and infect others, who could become seriously ill with the possibility that they may die.

By refusing a vaccine when available, one could therefore perhaps be directly responsible for the death of another. If only an ethically compromised vaccine is available, the truly pro-life decision is to vaccinate with that vaccine, not infect others, and save lives.

The World Health Organisation in 2019 listed "Vaccine Hesitancy" as one of the ten major global threats.

If someone chooses not to be vaccinated, they are instead reliant on others to be immunised so that a society can reach a sustainable level of herd immunity through which transmission is interrupted. In this situation, an unimmunised person may be protected against COVID-19 through the acceptance of vaccination by others.

However, there are both practical and ethical problems with this. John Grabenstein reported that sociologists refer to those who do not vaccinate as "free-riders" or "free-loaders."

He added that such behaviour is "inequitable and uncharitable".

Further, "if enough people ‘free-load', then the community's collective immunity dissipates and disease outbreaks resume."

To refuse a COVID-19 vaccine would therefore be "a morally wrong act contrary to the common good".

The World Health Organisation in 2019 listed "Vaccine Hesitancy" as one of the ten major global threats.

First, when a choice exists between an ethically compromised vaccine and another vaccine which is not

Dr Helen Watt, a senior research fellow with the Anscombe Endnotes Bioethics Centre in Oxford wrote a briefing paper in April 2020.

The paper admits that there is "no absolute duty" to boycott a COVID-19 vaccine developed using a cell line derived from an aborted foetus.

However, it argues that "some will feel, whether rightly or wrongly, called to a boycott [of such a vaccine] even if no alternative vaccine is available to them."

We believe that this comment is not pro-life and potentially dangerous as it may encourage people not to vaccinate.

While Dr Watt may be pressuring vaccine companies to utilise ethical methods for vaccine production, encouraging the boycotting of an ethically compromised COVID-19 vaccine is quite dangerous.

In this pandemic, could Catholic researchers or a Catholic research institution use ethically compromised cell lines for development of a COVID-19 vaccine?

There may indeed be proportional reasons for doing so. Some compromised vaccines have been used effectively for many years.

Researchers may be very familiar with these cell lines, know the techniques of using them, and know the outcomes which are most likely.

In this crisis, they may reasonably decide that they do not have either the time or the financial resources to develop and adequately characterise ethically uncompromised cell lines or to utilise other techniques to develop a vaccine.

They may also belong to an international consortium in which they have little influence on the cell line used for vaccine development. They should not forget about the need to develop uncompromised cell lines, but they may reasonably not seek to do so during this time of crisis.

If they do use ethically compromised cell lines, they should recognise the ethical problems with them, and also state their proportional reason for using them during the pandemic. As the Code of ethical standards for Catholic health and aged care services in Australia states, we minimise the risk of scandal by "explaining clearly ... the reasons for one's cooperation [i.e. in this case, the use of a cell line derived from an historical abortion] and why the ... cooperation is permissible according to Catholic principles."

Conclusion

Developing ethically uncompromised cell lines and vaccines is important.

In the crisis of this pandemic, developing and using an effective vaccine to save lives is even more important.

If a COVID-19 vaccine is developed using a cell line derived from an aborted foetus, the Catholic Church would surely permit the use of this vaccine, and Catholics should not hesitate to use it. Saving lives was just what Edward Jenner set out to do, and saving lives is still very important.

• Kevin McGovern is a Catholic priest. He is a former Director of the Caroline Chisholm Centre for Health Ethics in Melbourne, Australia. He is an adjunct lecturer at both Australian Catholic University, and Catholic Theological College within the University of Divinity.
• Kerri Anne Brussen has worked as a medical scientist and is a former Researcher at the Caroline Chisholm Centre for Health Ethics.
• First published in The Nathaniel Report. Republished with permission.

For now, we must try to contain the spread of Covid-19 through physical distancing and face-covering.

But we will reach another turning point when a vaccine to prevent the disease has been developed. As the Catholic Health Association of the United States said in a July 27 statement, "it is essential to thoughtfully consider how to ethically develop and equitably distribute" a vaccine.

A persistent anti-vaccination minority in the United States, along with many people's unwillingness to adopt simple measures to prevent spreading the virus, underscores the challenges ahead.

A vaccine program is concerned with the health of the community, and that should be important for any Christian.

Humans are essentially social animals, whose well-being is dependent upon a vibrant and healthy community.

We see evidence of this in the anxiety and depression affecting so many during the stay-at-home orders enacted to fight the pandemic.

Americans often focus on individual health, but vaccines are essential for our health, for the good for the community.

So once a vaccine is developed, how should we distribute it?

The obvious answer is that everyone should receive it. But given the delays and long lines for Covid-19 testing, we can imagine the potential for chaos once a vaccine becomes available.

We will need a strategy.

We use a market approach to distribute most goods in our society, which means that those able and willing to pay more for a product can get it first.

But medicine, because it is a basic good that we endeavour to make available to everyone, is not really distributed that way.

Until we have enough for general distribution, prioritizing who receives a vaccine dose will require a concerted effort among government and health officials.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and an advisory panel have developed a preliminary plan for distributing the vaccine.

There must also be procedures for ensuring compliance by manufacturers and by state and local health agencies.

In line with the C.D.C. recommendations, it is important to begin vaccine distribution with the first responders and those on the front lines of health care, since they are both most at risk and are doing a great service for others.

To restart the economy, we should then think about workers who cannot work remotely, like factory or warehouse employees, but who provide essential services.

After that, we should prioritize workers who are in close proximity to large numbers of people (like teachers).

Then the vaccine should be targeted to those who are vulnerable to Covid-19 because of pre-existing conditions and the elderly.

A more controversial option would be to expedite distribution of the vaccine in populations, like Blacks and Hispanics, who have had higher rates of Covid-19 infection. Continue reading