Bishop Joseph Strickland of Tyler, Texas has taken a strong stand on the possibility of a coronavirus vaccine containing fetal cell lines of aborted babies, according to a report from LifeSiteNews.
As many COVID vaccines are beginning to be rolled out or have been already, His Excellency continued to caution Catholics in his diocese and elsewhere to look into these morally objectionable vaccines. In the latest episode of The Bishop Strickland Show, as well as in recent tweets, he addressed these concerns.
“The bottom line for me is, does it [the vaccine] actually contain the markers, the DNA, of aborted children? If it does, I’m not going to accept it,” he declared.
He expressed encouragement for others who will not accept such a vaccine either, given that it violates Church teaching.
His Excellency further said that everyone, especially Catholics, should be more informed on the morality of vaccines. He directed them to a group called Children of God for Life.
“Children of God for Life…gives you lots of information and it lists the vaccines that are ethically produced that do not contain the DNA of children and the vaccines that do.”
Strickland also noted the involvement of Planned Parenthood in this “atrocity.”
Bishop Strickland further discussed several points of a recent letter he wrote to his diocese, in which he said that the cause of division in America today is that “as a nation, we have rejected the idea that we are under God.”
(Wanderer Editor’s Note: Readers may also wish to consult the Charlotte Lozier Institute, www.lozierinstitute.org, 202-223-8073, for more information on the vaccines.)
In a related development, Bishop Kevin C. Rhoades of Fort Wayne-South Bend, chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ (USCCB) Committee on Doctrine, and Archbishop Joseph F. Naumann of Kansas City in Kansas, chairman of the USCCB’s Committee on Pro-Life Activities, on December 14 issued a statement on the new COVID-19 vaccines. In their statement, the bishops address the moral concerns raised by the fact that the three vaccines ready for distribution in the United States all have some connection to cell lines that originated with tissue taken from abortions.
With regard to the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, they concluded:
“In view of the gravity of the current pandemic and the lack of availability of alternative vaccines, the reasons to accept the new COVID-19 vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna are sufficiently serious to justify their use, despite their remote connection to morally compromised cell lines.
“Receiving one of the COVID-19 vaccines ought to be understood as an act of charity toward the other members of our community. In this way, being vaccinated safely against COVID-19 should be considered an act of love of our neighbor and part of our moral responsibility for the common good.”
The text of the bishops’ statement says:
“Neither Pfizer nor Moderna used morally compromised cell lines in the design, development, or production of the vaccine. A confirmatory test, however, employing the commonly used, but morally compromised HEK293 cell line was performed on both vaccines. Thus, while neither vaccine is completely free from any connection to morally compromised cell lines, in this case the connection is very remote from the initial evil of the abortion.”
With regard to the AstraZeneca vaccine, the bishops found it to be “more morally compromised” and consequently concluded that this vaccine “should be avoided” if there are alternatives available. “The HEK293 cell line was used in the design, development, and production stages of that vaccine, as well as for confirmatory testing.”
At the same time, the bishops also warned that Catholics “must be on guard so that the new COVID-19 vaccines do not desensitize us or weaken our determination to oppose the evil of abortion itself and the subsequent use of fetal cells in research.” (See www.usccb.org for more information.)
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