The Pontifical Academy for Life has said that Catholics should advocate for ethically-produced vaccines which do not use cell lines of aborted babies. Zalot noted that Catholics who do choose to receive the Johnson & Johnson vaccine ought to inform the manufacturers of their opposition to the use of abortion-derived cell lines.
Several bishops have echoed the USCCB’s March 2 statement with statements of their own.
The bishops of Pittsburgh, St. Augustine, and St. Louis are among those bishops who have affirmed the USCCB statement to their own flocks.
“I have received both doses of a vaccine and have encouraged our priests to get theirs as soon as their age or risk group is able to do so. You should not delay getting your vaccine. Moderna or Pfizer vaccines are preferable. When there is no choice, you may receive the Johnson & Johnson vaccine,” archbishop Gregory Hartmayer of Atlanta said March 3.
The Archdiocese of New Orleans, while not prohibiting Catholics from receiving the Johnson & Johnson vaccine if no other ethical alternative is available, advised Catholics to seek out the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines if possible.
Bishop Michael Duca of Baton Rouge also weighed in on the matter this week in a March 1 letter to the faithful.
“[M]y guidance to the faithful of the Diocese of Baton Rouge is to accept as your first choices the vaccines created by Pfizer and Moderna, but if for any reasonable circumstance you are only able to receive the vaccine from Johnson & Johnson, you should feel free to do so for your safety and for the common good,” Bishop Duca wrote.
Some bishops, such as Bishop Robert McElroy of San Diego, have released statements encouraging people not to delay in accepting any vaccination available to them.
“[O]n the concrete moral and pastoral question of receiving the Pfizer, Moderna, Johnson and Johnson or Astra-Zeneca vaccines...in the current pandemic moment, with limited vaccine options available to achieve healing for our nation and our world, it is entirely morally legitimate to receive any of these four vaccines, and to recognize, as Pope Francis has noted, that in receiving them we are truly showing love for our neighbor and our God,” McElroy wrote March 3.
McElroy’s statement did not reference any obligation to avoid certain versions if given a choice.
Bishop Robert Deeley of Portland, Maine, while echoing the USCCB and Vatican statements, similarly encouraged people to accept the vaccinations they are given.
"When it is your turn to receive a vaccine, you can receive the one that is offered to you without moral reservation,” Deeley wrote in part March 4.
The diocese of Syracuse, led by Bishop Douglas Lucia, said in a statement to local news that all individuals may not have the ability to pick and choose a vaccine, so “therefore what is most important is the duty to protect one’s own health and that of their neighbor by being vaccinated.”
Bishop Shawn McKnight of Jefferson City, Missouri said March 4: “In the current situation of a pandemic, Catholics may in good conscience utilize any of the vaccines currently available, even those derived in an unethical manner, to protect themselves, as well as to avoid the serious risk to vulnerable persons and to society resulting from remaining unvaccinated. If a person concludes he or she cannot be vaccinated, whether for health reasons or if their own moral analysis is different from the Church, they are morally obliged to do everything they can to prevent transmission of the coronavirus and avoid any risk to the health of those who cannot be vaccinated.”
At least one U.S. bishop has specifically advised his flock against receiving the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.
Bishop David Kagan of Bismark, North Dakota released a statement March 2 which took a harder line than the USCCB at large, effectively prohibiting Catholics in the diocese from accepting the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.
“This Janssen/Johnson & Johnson vaccine is morally compromised and therefore unacceptable for any Catholic physician or health care worker to dispense and for any Catholic to receive due to its direct connection to the intrinsically evil act of abortion,” he wrote.
“No one should use or receive this vaccine but there is no justification for any Catholic to do so. Two morally acceptable vaccines are available and may be used. As always, no one is bound to receive this vaccine, but it remains an individual and informed decision.”
One other prelate, Bishop Joseph Strickland, has publicly expressed his personal opposition to receiving any of the approved COVID-19 vaccines, while not prohibiting his flock from doing so.
“I will not accept a vaccine whose existence depends on the abortion of a child, but I realize others may discern a need for immunization in these extraordinarily hard times,” Strickland said on Twitter late last year.
Strickland has not issued a statement or letter to his flock directly addressing the issue since an April 2020 letter in which he encouraged Catholics to pray and demonstrate for ethical COVID-19 vaccines.
Strickland has since called the situation with COVID-19 vaccines a “lost opportunity” to voice opposition to medical treatments with connections to abortion.
“It’s not up to me to tell people whether or not to take the vaccine, but to be informed, and to make their own informed conscience decision. That’s really what the Catholic church teaches,” Strickland told local news station KETK March 3.
The Janssen/Johnson & Johnson vaccine makes use of PER.C6— a proprietary cell line developed from retinal cells from a fetus aborted in 1985— in design and development, production, and lab testing.
In contrast, mRNA vaccines available from Pfizer and Moderna have an extremely remote connection to abortion in the design and testing phases, leading ethicists to judge those vaccines “ethically uncontroversial.” Similar testing is performed on many contemporary prescription and over-the-counter medications.
A spokesperson for Johnson & Johnson issued a statement March 3 saying there is “no fetal tissue” in their vaccine.
Jonah McKeown is a staff writer and podcast producer for Catholic News Agency. He holds a Master’s Degree from the University of Missouri School of Journalism and has worked as a writer, as a producer for public radio, and as a videographer. He is based in St. Louis.