VATICAN CITY — Catholic parents should vaccinate their children for
the good of their children and the community, and they can do so with a
“clear conscience” that “the use of such vaccines does not signify some
sort of cooperation in voluntary abortion,” said the Pontifical Academy
for Life.
In July 2017, the Vatican-related academy issued updated
moral considerations on vaccinations given that many of the most common
vaccines for measles, rubella and chickenpox are prepared from cell
lines that originally were developed from a female fetus aborted in 1964
and a male fetus aborted in 1966.
The Academy for Life sent
Catholic News Service a working translation of the 2017 document March
20 (2019) after U.S. news media reported on a Kentucky Catholic family
suing the local health department for measures it took in response to an
outbreak of chickenpox at Assumption Academy in Walton, Kentucky, a
Catholic K-12 school affiliated with the traditionalist Society of St.
Pius X.
The health department, which has posted its letters to parents online,
first wrote to the parents of children at the school Feb. 5, informing
them of the outbreak and urging them to make sure their children’s
vaccinations were up to date. With the outbreak continuing, the
department sent another letter Feb. 21 canceling sporting and other
school events where Assumption students would be in contact with
students from other schools.
Then, March 14, the department
informed parents of a “concerning increase in the number of infected
students at Assumption Academy.” Thirty-two students, 13 percent of the
student body, had contracted the disease, the letter said.
In
response, the health department said that as of March 15, “all students,
grades K-12, without proof of vaccination or proof of immunity against
varicella virus will not be allowed to attend school until 21 days after
the onset of rash for the last ill student or staff member.”
Jerome
Kunkel, 18, a senior at Assumption, and his family filed a lawsuit
March 14 in the Boone County Circuit Court alleging that the health
department violated Kunkel’s First Amendment rights, according to the
Washington Post. The newspaper said they believed using the vaccine
would be “immoral, illegal and sinful” according to their Catholic
faith.
The Assumption Academy handbook, posted on its website,
informs parents that state law requires either vaccination or a written
declaration of conscientious objection.
“Schools of the U.S.
District of the Society of St. Pius X comply with vaccination policies
of local health and education authorities while adhering to moral
principles of the Roman Catholic Church,” the handbook said.
“The
Catholic Church does not oppose vaccinations in principle, but it does
consider as morally illicit the development of vaccines from aborted
fetal tissues,” the handbook continued. “In 2005, the Vatican clarified
the proper position of all Catholics on this matter, and the SSPX
adheres to that declaration.”
The 2005 declaration urged parents
to ask their physicians to use vaccines not derived from the cell lines
of the fetuses aborted in the 1960s if such vaccines exist and, if they
don’t, to write to pharmaceutical companies urging the development of
alternate vaccines.
Nevertheless, it said, the Church affirms it
is morally licit to use the vaccines “in the meantime insomuch as is
necessary in order to avoid a serious risk not only for one’s own
children but also, and perhaps more specifically, for the health
conditions of the population as a whole, especially for pregnant women.”
The
Pontifical Academy of Life’s updated statement, issued in July 2017
after a World Health Organization study showed a “progressive trend”
against vaccinations in Italy, said that “the cell lines currently in
use are very distant from the original abortions and no longer imply
that bond of moral cooperation indispensable for an ethically negative
evaluation of their use.”
“The technical characteristics of the
production of the vaccines most commonly used in childhood lead us to
exclude that there is a morally relevant cooperation between those who
use these vaccines today and the practice of voluntary abortion,” the
statement said.
On the other hand, the academy said, there is a
“moral obligation to guarantee the vaccination coverage necessary for
the safety of others.”
For an in-depth St. Louis Review report on ethical vaccinations, see www.bit.ly/2W7pWeo