San Antonio Catholic Archbishop Gustavo Garcia-Siller wants parishioners to get vaccinated against the coronavirus.
The archbishop posted a letter earlier this month on the archdiocese website addressing the “moral permissibility” of the COVID-19 vaccines.
Garcia-Siller said misinformation about the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines includes claims that cells taken from fetal tissue were used in vaccine development or production.
“There has been some confusion about these vaccines, with some asserting that if the vaccine is connected in any way with tainted cell lines, that it is immoral to be vaccinated with them. That is an inaccurate portrayal of Catholic moral teaching,” he said in avideo posted to Facebook.
Garcia-Siller says the cell lines involved in the yet-to-be-approved AstraZeneca vaccine are of moral concern. However, Garcia-Siller wrote in the letter, “it is also acceptable to receive this vaccine if it is the only one available to our people, according to Catholic moral teaching.”
Thousands of doses of the Pfizer vaccine are currently being distributed throughout Texas, and Gov. Greg Abbott said he expects to hit 1 million inoculations by the end of the month once the Moderna vaccine is deployed.
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