Page 54 - Vaccines

Vaccines and Catholic morality

Nevertheless, even in this latter case, where the
principle of subsidiarity would justify State intervention
in this field, this does not legitimate any action whatso-
ever by the government. Nothing whatsoever in what
has just been said would ever justify the perpetration of
what is intrinsically immoral. Thus, the presupposition
of what has just been said, from which there can be no
derogation, is that what is done to produce and to use
the vaccines for the public health of the country must not
be in itself immoral. Where, as in the case envisaged here,
at least some vaccines have been produced from the cells
of aborted human foetuses and, to a lesser extent, with
those not produced from such cells, but which have been
tested using biological material derived from aborted
human foetuses, then the parents would have every right
in principle to object to the imposition of those vaccines
on their children; they would have the right to exercise
conscientious objection.

e. Casuistry
The question of merely material cooperation, as well as
that of the doubt of conscience involved, inevitably
requires some attention to casuistry. One of the weak-
nesses of pre-Conciliar moral theology was the focus on
“cases”, to which “laws” would be applied through
reference to “authority”, namely to the probable opinions
of approved or respected authors. All of this seemed far
removed from the Bible, from following Christ and from
the vocation and the commandment to love. It explains
also the impression easily given, and the reality regretta-
bly at times to be found, that this is all some “game”, a
matter of “tricks” or of sophistry, designed to circumvent
the proper demands of the moral law. That this danger
exists can hardly be denied; that it was operative in some

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