Page 18 - Vaccines

Vaccines and Catholic morality

common good, solidarity, subsidiarity, the preferential
option for the poor, justice in the distribution of the
vaccine),⁴ but this in the light of a Declaration on vaccines
derived from the tissues of aborted foetuses from the
Pontifical Academy for Life in 2005,⁵ the doctrinal text of
the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith of 2008,
Dignitas personae,⁶ and the Note of the same Congrega-
tion released in late 2020 on the Coronavirus, and a
statement of the Pontifical Academy for Life from earlier
in 2020. The clear condemnation of directly procured
abortion and of the indiscriminate use of 'biological
materials' derived therefrom by the Declaration of 2005
and by the Instruction of 2008 provides the background
to the more recent statements. These two texts con-
demned all formal cooperation with directly procured
abortion, as well as direct, immediate material coopera-
tion, but noted that merely material cooperation, if it
were remote and passive and if there were a proportion-
ately grave reason for engaging in it, such as being
vaccinated with a vaccine derived even from such an
immoral source in the absence of other effective alterna-
tives, could be morally legitimate, provided opposition
to abortion were made clear and provided efforts were
made to urge the production of effective vaccines from
sources which were not morally compromised.⁷

⁴ Cf. Pontifical Commission on Covid-19, in collaboration with
the Pontifical Academy for Life, Nota Vaccino per tutti: 20 punti
per un mondo più giusto e sano, 29ᵗʰ December, 2020.
⁵ Cf. Pontifical Academy for Life, Declaration: Riflessioni morali
circa i vaccini prerparati a partire da cellule provenienti da feti umani
abortiti, 5ᵗʰ June, 2005.
⁶ Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Instruction, Dignitas
personae, 8th September, 2008, nn. 34–35.
⁷ Cf. ID., Note on the Morality of using some anti-Covid-19
Vaccines, 21ˢᵗ December, 2020.

6