Vaccine Follow-Up I received my first dose of the Pfizer COVID vaccine a few weeks ago. Since I had written a bulletin article a few months ago expressing some moral concerns with the vaccines available, I thought it would be worthwhile to write about why I chose to receive it. In the article a few months ago I discussed the moral concern that all the COVID vaccines approved in the US have at least some connection to fetal cell lines derived from an aborted baby several decades ago. The basic message of the article was that, while the use of these fetal cell lines in vaccine development is very unfortunate, a Catholic may still receive one of these vaccines. This is because: First, the cooperation with abortion in this case is only remote material cooperation. Note: Remote means distant from the evil act itself (e.g., the abortion happened years ago) and material cooperation means cooperating in some sense without intending the evil act (e.g., receiving a vaccine does not mean intending an abortion). -and- Second, the benefits of receiving the vaccine could be argued to outweigh the degree of material cooperation involved. The reason I chose to be vaccinated was because I really do think that the benefits outweigh the relatively small degree of material cooperation. In the case of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, the fetal cell lines were used only during testing many months ago early on in their development process. It was a once and done thing and they have not made their way into these vaccines themselves. While using these cells for testing is not good, I don’t think this is sufficient reason to forever regard these vaccines as untouchably tainted. After all, if a road was unjustly built using slave labor do we refuse to drive on it? I am grateful that we have at least two effective vaccines that do not rely in any ongoing way on fetal cell lines right now (Pfizer and Moderna). I should note here, however, that I would still advise against receiving the Johnson & Johnson vaccine due to its ongoing use of fetal cell lines in its vaccine production process. This is a more significant form of material cooperation. Not only would I argue that the material cooperation is relatively small (in the case of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines), I would also argue that the benefits of getting vaccinated are quite significant. As a priest, I don’t want to potentially endanger anyone I might visit or minister to. This is a weighty reason in itself. But even if I were not to infect anyone, I would still have to quarantine if I were to get sick. This obviously has a large impact on ministry as we experienced when Fr. Stiles had to quarantine during Holy Week. There is an additional reason unrelated to priestly ministry that persuaded me to get vaccinated. This is that every time someone gets infected, the virus has an opportunity to mutate into a more dangerous variant. This gives a certain urgency for us to limit its spread before even more of these variants develop. I understand that some may wish to not be vaccinated as a protest against the vaccine industry’s use of aborted fetal cell lines. I don’t blame those who do this, but I am not persuaded that this is a successful strategy in this case. I think we are too late in the game for that and that it would be better to save our ammo for stronger cases. The remote material cooperation is not significant enough in this case to be taken seriously, especially when we have done little to protest this issue prior to the pandemic. It is likely to appear that we are doing so for merely political reasons. Anyway, these are my thoughts. It still remains the case that each Catholic can weigh the options and decide for him or herself, but this is why I chose to get vaccinated. -Fr. Sandquist