DUBUQUE, Iowa (KCRG) – Archbishop Michael Jackels of Dubuque has issued a statement to help answer questions Catholics in eastern Iowa may have about whether they are, in good conscience, taking the COVID-19 vaccine developed by Johnson & Johnson pharmaceutical companies Janssen.
The statement reads as follows:
Originally, it did not seem necessary to make a statement about the Johnson and Johnson (Janssen) vaccine; any message would be essentially the same as what was said about the other vaccines in December 2020.
However, some Catholics are a bit confused as to whether they should get the Johnson and Johnson vaccine. So some clarification is needed:
If Catholics are given a choice of which COVID vaccine they receive, they must choose the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines over the Johnson and Johnson vaccine. Why?
Because Johnson and Johnson used cell lines from the fetal tissue of an aborted baby in the production of the vaccine, while Pfizer and Moderna used them only for laboratory testing.
It’s a subtle distinction. All three companies used those ethically compromised cell lines; it’s just that because of their limited use, the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are further from the harm of abortion than the Johnson and Johnson vaccine.
However, if Catholics are not given a choice of which vaccine to receive, it is morally acceptable for them to use the Johnson and Johnson vaccine against the serious health risk of the coronavirus.
In this regard, it seems that at this time and for the foreseeable future, no one is being offered the choice of vaccines.
In addition, as noted above, there is currently no COVID vaccine available that did not use these abortion-derived cell lines in design, development, manufacturing and / or laboratory testing.
So if Catholics are given the opportunity to get vaccinated, and not given a choice of vaccines, they should be grateful for what is available; the sooner the better.
The public interest in protecting public health from a contagious and potentially deadly virus takes precedence over any concerns Catholics might have about treatment with any of the available vaccines.
Michael Jackels
Archbishop of Dubuque ”
Copyright 2021 KCRG. All rights reserved.