Page 50 - Vaccines

Vaccines and Catholic morality

be morally legitimate to make use of (at least some of)
the vaccines so far developed against the coronavirus,
when others do not. The clearest magisterial teachings
given on the matter are those of the Congregation for the
Doctrine of the Faith in the Instruction of 2008 and in the
Note of 2020, which indicate that it can be legitimate in
conscience to avail of vaccines when the various criteria
(of remote, passive cooperation) are met, but the condi-
tions under which this is so need to be verified and
observed strictly, precisely in order to avoid giving active
scandal.

iv. Scandal, cooperation and the lesser evil
All too often these days, even in “Catholic” moral theol-
ogy, there is much loose talk of the “lesser evil”, as if the
latter may be knowingly and licitly done in certain
circumstances. This grave error has become much more
widespread in the aftermath of proportionalism because
of its false and facile assumption that it may at times be
legitimate or even necessary to do a lesser evil in order
to avoid a greater one.
It must be absolutely clear that it is never permitted
to perpetrate moral wrong (evil) as such, even a lesser
one. The authentic Catholic doctrine on the lesser evil is
that it is permitted at times, but only for a proportion-
ately grave reason, to tolerate a lesser evil, perpetrated
by someone else, rather than to risk unleashing a greater
evil by trying to intervene to stop it or to prevent it (eg.
to tolerate the religion practised by many others rather
than to unleash or to risk unleashing a religious war).
Although it is stated sometimes that it is permissible to
advise someone to do a lesser evil (for example, to rob a
jeweller’s store rather than to murder the owner in the
process), in my opinion this is wrongly described and

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