Misrepresentation in press leads Vatican official to clarify position on vaccines

Aug 3, 2005 / 22:00 pm

Msgr. Jacques Suaudeau of the Pontifical Academy for the Family has clarified the content in the recent Vatican statement on vaccines, putting to rest any misunderstandings that may have followed after a news agency misrepresented the statement and the monsignor’s comments.

Msgr. Suaudeau had spoken with a journalist from the news agency but, according to Children of God for Life, the news agency had “grossly misquoted” the monsignor’s intentions, and he “responded in his own defense.”

The Vatican’s eight-page document states that Catholics can refuse vaccines that were prepared from cells derived from aborted fetuses and must lobby at the corporate and government level for alternative vaccines that do not contain aborted fetal cell lines.

In an e-mail response to Children of God for Life's spiritual adviser, Fr. Anthony Zimmerman, Msgr. Suaudeau noted that the Vatican document “denounces the use of ‘tainted’ vaccines; it asks for alternative vaccines; it invites ... parents (and others) to put pressure on government and companies to offer alternative vaccines.

“The document speaks clearly about ‘conscientious objection’,” the monsignor continued. “This was the main point of the document.”

The monsignor said he thinks that, with the Vatican document, Children of God for Life have “a useful instrument to put pressure on local authorities in order to get exemption of vaccination for their children, in schools.

“But more important,” he added, “is the lobbying to get the alternative vaccines free entrance in the U.S."

"The restriction formula about the possible use of tainted vaccines in conditions ‘of considerable dangers’ was needed,” he said.

According to Children of God for Life, the news agency had also misquoted its executive director, Debi Vinnedge.

The Vatican document, titled “Moral Reflections on Vaccines Prepared from Cells Derived from Aborted Human Fetuses”can be read at www.cogforlife.org