Washington Cardinal Wilton Gregory has reassured the faithful that the vaccines currently available to combat COVID-19 are morally and ethically acceptable to use, and urged people to get the vaccine as soon as it is made available to them.
“Given the severity the coronavirus has imposed,” Cardinal Gregory said, both the Vatican and the U.S. bishops “have all validated the moral and ethical appropriateness of using these vaccines.”
Cardinal Gregory made his remarks in a March 12 teleconference with Archdiocese of Washington employees that also included Father Carter Griffin, the rector of the archdiocese’s Saint John Paul II Seminary; Dr. Kenneth Lin, a physician with MedStar Health and a professor at Georgetown University who has been advising the Archdiocese on COVID-19 related issues during the pandemic; and Father Daniel Carson, vicar general and moderator of the Curia for the archdiocese.
Noting that the “preparation and production of certain vaccines, occasionally have used some (genetic) material” from a fetus aborted 50 years ago, Cardinal Gregory said that “while certainly not in keeping with what the Church would require, the remote cooperation (with that abortion) would be acceptable in using those vaccines.”
“The Holy See and the U.S. bishops have both judged the vaccines to be ethically acceptable,” Cardinal Gregory said. “It would certainly be our hope that in the future, the preparation of medical resources would adhere to acceptable practices of medical production.”
Currently there are three vaccines available to combat COVID-19: the two-dose Moderna and Pfizer vaccines and the one-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine. The Moderna and Pfizer vaccines were tested using tissue derived from the HEK 293 cell line that was created from the kidney cells of an aborted child in the Netherlands about 50 years ago. Johnson & Johnson used that cell line in the creation of its vaccine.
In stressing the “moral appropriateness” of the vaccines, Cardinal Gregory reiterated what a team of eight scholars from the Ethics and Public Policy Center said March 5, when they issued a statement that assured “Catholics, and indeed, all persons of goodwill who embrace a culture of life” that they “can use (all available COVID-19) vaccines without fear of moral culpability.”
The statement said the COVID-19 vaccines currently available can be received with a clear conscience because they offer the “greatest possible protection for the most vulnerable among us.” It also noted that the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine – expected to be approved by the Food and Drug Administration in the next few weeks – also would be a morally acceptable vaccine to receive.
Father Griffin said that Ethics and Public Policy Center statement was signed by “big names, prominent scholars who are extremely pro-life” and who stressed the remoteness of the evil of abortion from the benefits of the vaccine.
“These vaccines are morally acceptable for just cause, they are clearly saving lives and protecting the vulnerable,” Father Griffin said. “Abortion is always a grave evil and nothing downstream can ever make that a good. The abortion (from which the cell line was derived) was not for the sake of providing biological research material to scientists.”
He stressed that “no part of aborted tissue (is) in the vaccine itself” and “there is no ongoing use of aborted tissue, so there is in some sense no incentive for other abortions to take place.”
He noted that the same HEK 293 cell line has been used in the development of other medicines, cosmetics and even many processed foods.
Dr. Lin stressed the safety of the vaccines saying they “protect you from getting sick, and protect you from spreading the virus and making other people sick.”
He said the studies have proven it is “very rare to see a severe allergic reaction” to the vaccines. He said the most common reaction to the vaccine is a sore arm for a day or so after receiving the shot.
He added that in addition to the unlikelihood of getting a severe allergic reaction to the vaccines, studies have also shown that a person cannot get COVID-19 from a vaccine, the vaccines do not alter or change a person’s DNA or genetic code, and do not cause infertility or miscarriages.
“We know that millions of people have received these (vaccines) without any discernable side effects,” he said.
Father Carson hosted the teleconference “to clear up a lot of misinformation out in the public and on social media.”
He pointed out that the Archdiocesan Pastoral Center and local Catholic churches and schools were shut down due to the coronavirus pandemic one year ago, in mid-March 2020.
Since the vaccines have become more and more available, he said local clergy, Catholic school teachers, parish staff and some people in the central administration offices have either been vaccinated or are scheduled to be vaccinated. “Our goal is to keep you and your family safe,” he said. “I feel very hopefully that the return to normalcy will begin to happen gradually.”
In addition to addressing the moral and ethical questions surrounding the vaccines, Cardinal Gregory spoke about “the hesitancy in some communities” not to avail themselves of the vaccines.
The cardinal noted that in the African American community there is a mistrust and suspicion of available COVID vaccines due to “a residual mistrust of medical science because of the past,” including African-American women who were forcibly sterilized and unconsented medical tests performed on African American men as part of the Tuskegee medical examinations for syphilis.
“They were awful events, and we shouldn’t deny that they took place. We shouldn’t deny that were completely unethical,” he said.
He also noted that within the immigrant community – especially among the undocumented – “people are afraid to fill out information to receive the vaccine because they are afraid of legal ramifications.”
He urged members of those communities to move beyond their mistrust because “in receiving these vaccines you protect not just yourself, but your family and your community.”
“It is an action to promote the common good. The more people who receive these vaccines, the safer we all will be,” Cardinal Gregory said. “This is an action that is intended to protect the common good, and I would certainly urge all of you to take advantage of receiving these vaccines.”
Cardinal Gregory said the purpose of the teleconference was to look at “medical and ethical and moral wisdom” thereby “helping us face this together as a community of believers and servants of this local Church.”
The Archdiocese of Washington is comprised of the District of Columbia and five Maryland counties: Montgomery, Prince George’s, Charles, Calvert and St. Mary’s.
In the District of Columbia, as of March 10, 42,128 people have contracted COVID-19 resulting in 1,038 deaths.
In the state of Maryland, there have been nearly 390,500 confirmed cases of COVID-19 resulting in slightly more than 7,800 deaths.
Prince George’s County has the highest number of reported COVID-19 cases in the state. As of March 12, Prince George’s County has reported 74,851 cases. Montgomery County had the second highest reported cases with 64,300. As of March 12, Charles County has reported 9,158 cases of COVID-19, St. Mary’s County has reported 5,248 cases, and Calvert has reported 3,736 cases.
Earlier this week, Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan decreed that as of March 12, religious facilities and certain retail and dining establishments and other businesses throughout the state of Maryland could operate without capacity restrictions. However, the jurisdictions that comprise the Archdiocese of Washington are operating under varied capacity regulations.
Prince George’s County Executive Angela D. Alsobrooks said she is easing capacity restrictions in the county, but not at the rate of the state. Capacity limits in Prince George’s County will be increased from 25 percent to 50 percent for businesses and religious institutions.
On March 12, the Montgomery County Board of Health said it would propose to the county council that it “continue restrictions greater than the governor’s restrictions but loosen the restrictions imposed by the local order currently in effect.” It would allow religious facilities to operate at 50 percent capacity.
As of March 11, St. Mary's County and Charles County officials have said they plan to follow state guidelines on lifting restrictions. Officials in Calvert County have yet to announce their plans.
Meanwhile, District of Columbia Mayor Muriel Bowser said earlier this week that next week she would begin to consider easing COVID-19 restrictions in Washington, D.C.
In a March 10 email to priests of the Archdiocese of Washington, Father Carson said that “although the state and county limits on building capacity are lifted, the archdiocesan guidelines have not changed… In particular, facilities will still need to maintain masking and six-foot social distancing rules, as well as follow all other archdiocesan guidelines.”
As of March 12, more than 29.3 million people nationwide have contracted COVID-19, resulting in 530,351 deaths. The total number of new cases of COVID-19 reported each day nationwide has dropped by 18 percent over the past two weeks.
According to the Washington Post, as of March 12, 64.1 million people in the United States have received one or both doses of a COVID-19 vaccine, including 10 percent of the U.S. population that is fully vaccinated and 19.3 percent who have received at least one dose.
The Washington Post also tracks the number of vaccinations in each state, and it reported that as of March 12, 1.2 million people in Maryland had received one or both doses of a COVID-19 vaccine, amounting t0 20 percent of the state's population. The Post reported that in the District of Columbia, 108,700 people had received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine by March 12, amounting to 15.4 percent of the city's population.
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