The Vatican’s doctrinal note of December 17, 2020, approving the use of COVID-19 vaccines has Papal authority. (https://www.vaticannews.va/en/vatican-city/news/2020-12/vatican-cdf-note-covid-vaccine-morality-abortion.html, March 19, 2021). As I pointed out in my last post, this approval stretches back to the Pontificate of St. John Paul II, at least. The authentic teaching of the Church can be summed up in this manner: (1) Use of a vaccine tainted by connection to abortion, when there are no vaccines that are not connected to abortion, is remote material cooperation and the threat of serious illness and protection of the common good are sufficiently weighty reasons to use the vaccines without committing moral evil. (2) Vaccination is not morally required and one must use one’s own considered (prudential) judgment, in consultation with one’s physician, in the decision about the use of the vaccine. (3) In conscience one may refuse to use abortion-tainted vaccines but must take precautions to protect others in a manner that compares with the threats posed by non-vaccination.

All along Church authorities have stated that we should campaign for pharmaceutical companies to produce vaccines untainted by abortion until we force them to provide morally acceptable vaccines. This sounds like a good idea, alright. It is something that I have advocated in the past. But is it really effective? Are there any real consequences if the companies do not? I do not think so, frankly. It is not difficult to understand why that is. In reality, there are relatively few of us who care enough about this to raise much of a concern for the pharmaceutical companies. I do not mean to say that others do not care about the dignity of life.

The practical realities involving disease and vaccinations are overwhelming to us as individuals dependent on medicine’s modern miracles. Those who rule the pharmaceutical companies know, not only what is practical for the production of these vaccines, they also know that the desire for survival is strong enough that, at the end of the day, there are very few people who would endanger their children or themselves over a moral objection that is difficult to sell to most people. The use of cell lines produced from fetal tissue obtained 40 years ago is not a burning issue.

Bishop Athanasius Schneider has called for a new dimension of the Pro-Life Movement, saying: “The hour has now come that all people of goodwill, especially believing Catholics, all pro-life organizations have to stand up and make a fiery protest with one voice and say, ‘We will never agree [with], we will never admit [into our lives] these evils.’” (https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/catholic-bishop-calls-for-new-pro-life-movement-to-protest-abortion-tainted-medicines-like-covid-vaccine. March 19, 2021)

Other persons, as well, have raised the objection that the position that the vaccines can be used without committing moral evil amounts to a grave scandal. Perhaps the most telling case is that of a person who wishes to object to the vaccination, but whose employer can point to a Church document wherein the Church says that the vaccine can be used. While the Church says that vaccination must be voluntary and that one can object, how much weight does that teaching carry when a person is forced to choose between taking the vaccine and losing employment? There does seem to be scandal involved since the person objecting is doing so on the basis of his or her conscience that will be violated by force. (“Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.” Matt. 18:6)

Convincing an employer that the vaccine is both morally acceptable and can be refused on the basis of conscience presents a major hurdle for the average employee. In the Crisis Magazine article, “Awakening Consciences about Abortion-Tainted Vaccines,” the author, Stacy Trasancos, writes of a case in which a priest refused to write a letter in support of a parishioner who wished to refuse the vaccine being required by an employer of its employees. The priest allegedly told her that she was morally obliged to take the vaccine. This was clearly erroneous and a scandal in itself. (https://www.crisismagazine.com/2021/awakening-consciences-about-abortion-tainted-vaccines. March 19, 2021)

As a moral theologian, and one who seeks to understand and present the truth upheld in the Magisterium, I cannot but ask if there is not something here that we have simply not recognized. I certainly trust the Church to guide me. We can be sure that, in essence, the statements of the Church on these matters are correct, the developments of the principles in specific situations are thoughtfully considered, and we are right in following these determinations. Should we not ask, however, in this complex situation if the Holy Spirit is not leading the Church to further clarify and define our teaching in light of current conditions? Perhaps, there is development in the principle of cooperation. Or, perhaps there is a need to identify sins other than the sin of abortion when considering with what sin the taking of a vaccine one cooperates.

Regarding the principle of cooperation, one would be reasonable in suggesting that the principle must now include the factor of the very wide dimensions of the cooperation, though passive and remote. We already evaluate the degree of cooperation on the basis of nearness to the act, on the basis of whether one’s cooperation is necessary or not, and whether or not one knows one is cooperating. But these factors apply, generally, to a single individual in an isolated situation. I would suggest that, in our age of global communication, we need to include the collective extent of the cooperation, looking not at a single individual, but at the whole mass of cooperators. One could argue that this is what the call for the campaign with the pharmaceutical companies is about. We can and should recognize that the evil is greater simply due to the widespread usage of the vaccines.

One of the aspects of this widespread usage is the fact that the acceptance of the vaccines in those circumstances does tend to influence or suppress the expression an individual’s conscience. What can one individual do to stand up against such vast numbers? Another aspect is that the acceptance of the cooperation on this wide scale appears as though it is a plan for material cooperation. Church moralists will recognize that this is problematic because it is difficult to distinguish this concession from acquiescence or an agreement of sorts. In other words, it begins to look more like implicit formal cooperation. I do not agree with what you are doing, but want its benefits. (Formal cooperation involves agreeing with the sin of the principle actor either in itself or for its benefits.) It would not be cooperation in abortion, obviously. But is that the only thing we should be concerned about? This leads to the other point about looking at what sin is actually the basis for cooperation.

There is a sin here that is regularly overlooked. That sin is the exploitation of human tissue for profit. The key to understanding this problem is that without the exploitation of the fetal tissue, there would be no for-profit exchanges developed involving these cell lines. The Church has clearly expressed its opposition to human organ trafficking. One cannot sell and buy human organs without being involved in moral evil. The Church has condemned commercial trafficking of human fetuses. The following statement is taken from Donum vitae, issued in 1987 by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, approved and ordered published by Pope St. John Paul II: “The corpses of human embryos and fetuses, whether they have been deliberately aborted or not, must be respected just as the remains of other human beings. …Furthermore, the moral requirements must be safeguarded, that there be no complicity in deliberate abortion and that the risk of scandal be avoided. Also, in the case of dead fetuses, as for the corpses of adult persons, all commercial trafficking must be considered illicit and should be prohibited.” (I.4)

While it is conceivable that, almost without exception, the recipient of a COVID-19 vaccine is not formally complicit in abortion, can the same be said about commercial trafficking? What exactly does illicit commercial trafficking mean where vaccines are concerned? There is a great deal of commerce taking place involving cells derived from a dead fetus. This is something worthy of further study.