As a few Catholic leaders across the country express hesitation or outright disavow the newly approved Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine, the head of the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City said Thursday that the church encourages Oklahoma Catholics to get any of the currently approved vaccines as soon as they can.
"Given the current pandemic and public health crisis that we're living through, the moral cooperation in receiving the Johnson & Johnson vaccine is so remote that it does not outweigh the public health need," said Archbishop Paul Coakley.
At issue for some Catholic leaders, including the Archbishop of New Orleans and the Bishop of Tyler, Texas, is the fact that the Johnson & Johnson shot was developed and produced using cells derived from those of a fetus aborted in the 1980s. The Moderna and Pfizer vaccines used those cell lines as well, but only for testing efficacy of the vaccine.
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, citing a ruling from the Vatican, issued a statement Tuesday saying Catholics should avoid the Johnson & Johnson shot if possible, but that it is morally acceptable to take it if it's the only shot available.
"While we should continue to insist that pharmaceutical companies stop using abortion-derived cell lines, given the world-wide suffering that this pandemic is causing, we affirm again that being vaccinated can be an act of charity that serves the common good,” the bishops wrote.
Coakley said he agreed with the guidance from the conference, noting that he, for instance, was given no choice of which vaccine he received when he had his administered.
A spokesperson for the Diocese of Tulsa directed Public Radio Tulsa to a statement of support for the conference's position from Bishop David Konderla, who also wrote that "[i]t remains very important that we contact the pharmaceutical companies and insist that they develop cell lines that have no connection to abortion."
Coakley said local pastors should look to guidance from their Diocese's bishop, the Vatican, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, and the National Catholic Bioethics Center before discouraging congregants from receiving any particular vaccine.
"I don't necessarily fault a local pastor. They're probably trying to make the best moral analysis that they can, but there's a lot of conflicting evidence. I would just ask that people consult the bona fide authorities," Coakley said.
Coakley said the Archdiocese has not been spared from harm during the pandemic.
"It's been very challenging. Every community -- every family probably, by now -- has had somebody that's been infected by the virus. We have had members of our clergy who have died from the virus in our Archdiocese, so it's affected us greatly," Coakley said.
"My heart goes out to everybody in our communities," he said. "I just continue to urge people to pray and to stay safe and to follow guidelines and hope that we get the vaccine so that we move past this as soon as possible."