In a letter to his followers who are praying for him, Burke says he is experiencing difficulty in recovering from Covid-19 and is challenged to regain certain fundamental physical skills for daily living; among them, he lists general fatigue and difficulty in breathing.

He told his supporters that he's pleased a secretary from Rome has moved in with him to help him with his rehabilitation and to catch up on his work.

He says he cannot predict when he will be able to return to his normal activities.

Discharged from the hospital on September 3, he is living in a house near his family.

On August 10, the 73-year-old Cardinal tweeted he had contracted the disease, and six days later, his staff tweeted he was on a ventilator.

Before being admitted to the hospital, Burke warned that governments were using fear of the pandemic to manipulate people.

In a homily given at the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in December 2020, Burke referred to Covid-19 as the "mysterious Wuhan virus" warning "it has been used by certain forces, inimical to families and to the freedom of states, to advance their evil agenda."

In May 2020, Burke said while the state can provide reasonable regulations for the safeguarding of health, it is not the only one and that the ultimate provider of health is God.

He accused the state of dictating to and manipulating its citizens through what they label as the 'new normal'; recipes for fear and ignorance.

Speaking out against mandatory vaccinations, he said some in society want to implant microchips in people.

Earlier this month, Pope Francis said he doesn't understand why people refuse to take the COVID-19 vaccine, acknowledging that "even in the College of Cardinals, there are some negationists."

In a possible reference to Burke, he said one of the cardinals, a "poor guy", had been hospitalized with the disease, adding: "Well, the irony of life."

Until Francis removed him, Burke was a very powerful cardinal overseeing the Vatican's supreme court and also a member of the Congregation of Bishops and Congregation for Divine Worship.

Burke says he is offering up his sufferings and prayers for the many intentions of his followers.

Sources

• NCR
• Wikipedia
• USNews
• CNN
• National Catholic Register

Our freedoms are a precious commodity.

Society must not become the domain of permanent policing and it is to the credit of democracy that these debates are allowed.

Nevertheless...

There is something worrying about the conjunction of opposition coming from all walks of life on the issue of vaccination.

No, individual freedom cannot be the only criterion to be taken into account in public health matters. It never has been.

Otherwise, we would all be dead — of polio or, even before that, of the plague!

It is also surprising to see how much reluctance there is in the ranks of ecologists, who are so concerned about protecting us with regulatory bans on pollution from cars, pesticides from farmers or fuel from aeroplanes, towards mandatory vaccination.

Any health decision requires ethical discernment. And ethics cannot stop at our person. We are beings in relationship with others, and this is the meter we must use to examine such measures.

In Christian theology, we speak of concern for the "common good".

Health is a matter of collective responsibility, especially for those who are most at risk. There is a form of "preferential option for the weakest".

It is not a question of blindly accepting just any scientific advance from a society ready to throw itself into the arms of transhumanists.

But it is up to us to show reason, to examine if, in the current state of knowledge, the medical or biomedical proposals are indeed at the service of the human being, a human being in relationship.

Discernment is the duty of every citizen.

This is not about getting vaccinated just so it will be easier to go to the movies.

As France's chief of defence, General François Lecointre, has noted: Fraternity is arguably the most beautiful but most misunderstood part of the French Republic's motto.

• Isabelle de Gaulmyn is a senior editor at La Croix and a former Vatican correspondent.
• First published in La Croix International. Republished with permission.

He's also insisted that the world and the societies that gave rise to this pandemic must "heal globally".

To help in the effort towards developing a global response, the pope set up the Vatican COVID-19 Commission last April, involving various institutions of the Holy See.

This commission, in collaboration with the Pontifical Academy for Life, published a seven-page note on December 29 that deserves to be known for its reasonable and audacious ethical balance.

Its title sets the tone: "Vaccine for all. 20 points for a fairer and healthier world".

The "anti-vaxxers" were no doubt waiting for the "Vatican" to find something to say about the advisability of getting vaccinated, especially since some American Catholics say the vaccine must be rejected because of its use of abortion byproducts.

But the Vatican note rejects this argument.

"The criteria that would make ethically illicit the decision to vaccinate are non-binding (sic.)," it says.

The pope went even further during an interview aired on January 9th in Italian TV when he spoke of the "suicidal negationism" of the "anti-vaxxers".

In other words, even though the expression is no longer found in the final version of "Vaccine for all", it is not a "prophetic position" to oppose the vaccine.

This is also true for those self-proclaimed experts who do not follow the rules of scientific research but are predicting the apocalypse.

The seven-page Vatican note sets the tone right from the introduction.

It says it is a question of combining immediate measures with long-term ones; favouring "a global cure, with local flavour"; and considering both the individual and the collective, in order to respond not only to the immediate hic et nunc, but by aiming for "a global and regenerative 'healing'".

Throughout, one sees at work the famous principle Francis evokes so often: "everything is connected".

The incentive to get the vaccine incentive does not come from coercion, but through reasoned argument.

Everyone has the personal responsibility to seriously consider the data, because refusal to get the vaccine puts at risk, not only oneself but also our loved ones and those who cannot be vaccinated because of other conditions.

In short, not getting the vaccine endangers public health, the health system and our hospitals.

We are all interdependent! Vaccination is therefore a true moral responsibility that everyone must personally choose to assume.

Finally, the Vatican note commits the Church to carry out a six-point "action plan".

The Holy See offers itself as a platform for partnership and participation that involves the local churches, collaborates with the large global structures, and participates in the shared evaluation, all in the "service of healing the world" and taking "care of the common home".

No recent ethical text has taken this perspective of global bioethics so far. Moreover, it constitutes one of the fields of research at the world level for the Pontifical Academy for Life.

For all that, this is no pipe dream. The analysis and the proposals are eminently realistic. It is normal that laboratories seek a commercial return, but this cannot be the only objective!

The entire vaccine cycle must be considered from its conception to its manufacturing and its distribution.

As a "common good", the vaccine must also be shared with the least developed countries. This is a question of justice, solidarity, subsidiarity and fraternity.

We cannot say it enough: only together will humanity win the battle against COVID-19.

• Marie-Jo Thiel is professor of Catholic theology at the University of Strasbourg in France and a member of the Pontifical Academy for Life.

Caused by a virus, smallpox was a serious disease which killed about three in ten of the people who contracted it and left many others with severe scars.

Smallpox was mainly spread by direct, lengthy face-to-face contact between people.

Virus from an infected person spread to another when they coughed or sneezed. Over the centuries, smallpox killed literally millions of people.

Jenner observed that milkmaids who became infected with cowpox, did not subsequently contract smallpox.

In 1796, Jenner inoculated a young child with cowpox, and demonstrated that the child had developed immunity against smallpox.

It is said that through this discovery, Jenner saved more lives than anyone else has ever done.

Through ongoing vaccination programmes, smallpox was eradicated in 1979.

Vaccination has also greatly reduced the risk of infection for many other diseases for much of the world's population, including rubella, polio, whooping cough, diphtheria, mumps, chickenpox, measles, and tuberculosis.

Although these diseases are still present in some parts of the world, many parents today have the great gift of not worrying when the next outbreak might ravage their local neighbourhood and their children.

The COVID-19 pandemic

This year, 2020, on March 11, a pandemic was declared by the World Health Organisation. There has not been such a world pandemic since the Spanish Flu just over one hundred years ago.

Coronavirus 19 or COVID-19 has caused havoc across the world. Infections and deaths are occurring at a disturbing rate.

COVID-19 belongs to a family of viruses which includes the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) virus (as well as several bat coronaviruses).

The Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) virus, another coronavirus, appears more distantly related.

In the seventeen years since the SARS outbreak of 2003, no vaccine has become available.

COVID-19 is a highly infectious virus spreading between people when an infected person is in close contact with others.

Transmission can occur through saliva, respiratory secretions or secretion droplets, which can be released from the mouth or nose when an infected person coughs, sneezes, speaks, or sings.

Uninfected people who are in close contact (within 1 metre) with an infected person can be infected with COVID-19 when those infectious droplets get into their mouth, nose or eyes.

Transmission can also occur through touching objects or surfaces contaminated with COVID-19.

The COVID-19 pandemic now poses a significant threat to global public health, economic stability and growth, food security and environmental issues.

As seen so far, the pandemic has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives with the potential to claim many more.

It is placing, and will continue to place, an enormous strain on global health care systems.

Social distancing and different levels of lockdown can help to reduce the spread of COVID-19. However, these measures come at enormous social and economic costs to all aspects of society.

Human cell lines are one type of cell line that supports the growth of COVID-19.

One of the sources used for these cell cultures is tissue from deliberately aborted foetuses.

This can pose a significant moral quandary for Catholics and others. Catholic teaching upholds the principle of the inviolability of human life and forbids direct abortion.

Some of the major challenges of this pandemic are the lack of a safe and effective vaccine and a lack of treatments in lieu of a vaccine.

Scientific knowledge is growing daily to understand more fully the transmission of infection, including the potential for transmission by asymptomatic infected people, the disease trajectory, who is more susceptible to infection, and the longer-term health implications of a COVID-19 infection.

The long-term protection provided by the immune response either from a COVID-19 infection or potential vaccine is still unknown.

The requirement for boosters if a vaccine is developed is yet to be determined.

Vaccination is considered one of the best exit strategies for fighting the COVID-19 pandemic, and a race has begun to develop an effective vaccine.

As of 10th August 2020, there are 28 candidate vaccines in clinical evaluation, and 139 in pre-clinical development.

The origin and development of vaccines

Vaccines can be produced by growing the virus in a cell line or another substrate.

They can also be developed through replicating viral vectors, subunit vaccines, mRNA and DNA techniques, as well as through the production of a non-replicating viral vector.

Companies in the race to develop a vaccine are utilising one or more of these techniques. (It should be noted that no commercial vaccine has yet been licensed utilising mRNA, DNA or non-replicating viral vector techniques. COVID-19 may be the first.)

Human cell lines are one type of cell line that supports the growth of COVID-19.

One of the sources used for these cell cultures is tissue from deliberately aborted foetuses.

This can pose a significant moral quandary for Catholics and others. Catholic teaching upholds the principle of the inviolability of human life and forbids direct abortion.

What is more, Catholic teaching opposes the use of tissue from deliberately aborted foetuses.

On this matter, it is also worth noting that the use in medical research of human foetal tissue from elective abortions was restricted in the United States last year.

Vaccines which have been produced using cell lines from deliberately aborted foetuses are often known as ethically compromised vaccines.

...someone who refused an ethically compromised COVID-19 vaccine could catch the virus, have the potential to be asymptomatic, and infect others, who could become seriously ill with the possibility that they may die. By refusing a vaccine when available, one could therefore perhaps be directly responsible for the death of another.

Two cells lines derived from elective abortions are PER.C6 and HEK-293.

Both these cell lines are being utilised by a small number of research facilities who are in the process of developing a COVID-19 vaccine.

HEK-293 is a kidney cell line widely used in research and industry. The foetus was aborted in about 1972. PER.C6 was developed from retinal cells from an 18-week-old foetus aborted in 1985.

The cells used today in the potential vaccine manufacture are cells that are descended from the cells that were originally sourced from the foetal material. Thus, while their lineage can be traced back to the foetuses, the cells in use today are not the cells from the aborted foetus.

Further, if a COVID-19 vaccine is produced through the use of these cell lines, the vaccine will not contain cells or DNA pieces that are recognisably human. The cells are killed as the virus grows in them, usually bursting the cell membrane. The process of vaccine purification removes cell debris as well as any growth reagents.

Catholic teaching and ethically compromised vaccines

The Vatican has issued a number of documents to guide Catholics in their response to ethically compromised vaccines.

In 2005, the Pontifical Academy for Life issued Moral reflections on vaccines prepared from cells derived from aborted human foetuses.

The issue of ethically compromised cells is also considered in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith's 2008 Instruction Dignitas Personae on certain bioethical questions.

The Pontifical Academy for Life dealt with this issue again in its 2017 Note on Italian vaccine issue.

All these documents apply a Catholic principle called the principle of cooperation to the issue of the production and utilisation of ethically compromised vaccines.

The Catholic Church is not dismissive of the problem of ethically compromised vaccines.

To the contrary, the Church has a clear and consistent position which includes three important points:

• First, when a choice exists between an ethically compromised, we have a grave responsibility (all other things being equal) to use the latter vaccine.
• Second, when only ethically compromised vaccines are available, we should make known our moral objection to these vaccines, lobbying governments and healthcare systems to prepare and make available vaccines that are not ethically compromised.
• Third, until ethically uncompromised vaccines are developed, we can and should use ethically compromised vaccines to prevent serious health risks both for ourselves and for everyone. The Pontifical Academy for Life stated this third point very clearly in 2017. It said that "we believe all clinically recommended vaccinations can be used with a clear conscience ... the moral responsibility to vaccinate is reiterated in order to avoid serious health risks for children and the general population."

The 2005 document from the Pontifical Academy for Life contained a noteworthy footnote.

It noted that rubella can cause "grave congenital malformations in the foetus when a pregnant woman enters into contact, even if it is brief, with children who have not been immunised and are carriers of the virus.

In this case, the parents who did not accept the vaccination of their children become responsible for the malformations in question, and for the subsequent abortion of foetuses, when they are discovered to be malformed."

Parents in this situation are of course only indirectly responsible for these abortions.

Ethically compromised COVID-19 vaccines and moral responsibility

However, someone who refused an ethically compromised COVID-19 vaccine could catch the virus, have the potential to be asymptomatic, and infect others, who could become seriously ill with the possibility that they may die.

By refusing a vaccine when available, one could therefore perhaps be directly responsible for the death of another. If only an ethically compromised vaccine is available, the truly pro-life decision is to vaccinate with that vaccine, not infect others, and save lives.

The World Health Organisation in 2019 listed "Vaccine Hesitancy" as one of the ten major global threats.

If someone chooses not to be vaccinated, they are instead reliant on others to be immunised so that a society can reach a sustainable level of herd immunity through which transmission is interrupted. In this situation, an unimmunised person may be protected against COVID-19 through the acceptance of vaccination by others.

However, there are both practical and ethical problems with this. John Grabenstein reported that sociologists refer to those who do not vaccinate as "free-riders" or "free-loaders."

He added that such behaviour is "inequitable and uncharitable".

Further, "if enough people ‘free-load', then the community's collective immunity dissipates and disease outbreaks resume."

To refuse a COVID-19 vaccine would therefore be "a morally wrong act contrary to the common good".

The World Health Organisation in 2019 listed "Vaccine Hesitancy" as one of the ten major global threats.

First, when a choice exists between an ethically compromised vaccine and another vaccine which is not

Dr Helen Watt, a senior research fellow with the Anscombe Endnotes Bioethics Centre in Oxford wrote a briefing paper in April 2020.

The paper admits that there is "no absolute duty" to boycott a COVID-19 vaccine developed using a cell line derived from an aborted foetus.

However, it argues that "some will feel, whether rightly or wrongly, called to a boycott [of such a vaccine] even if no alternative vaccine is available to them."

We believe that this comment is not pro-life and potentially dangerous as it may encourage people not to vaccinate.

While Dr Watt may be pressuring vaccine companies to utilise ethical methods for vaccine production, encouraging the boycotting of an ethically compromised COVID-19 vaccine is quite dangerous.

In this pandemic, could Catholic researchers or a Catholic research institution use ethically compromised cell lines for development of a COVID-19 vaccine?

There may indeed be proportional reasons for doing so. Some compromised vaccines have been used effectively for many years.

Researchers may be very familiar with these cell lines, know the techniques of using them, and know the outcomes which are most likely.

In this crisis, they may reasonably decide that they do not have either the time or the financial resources to develop and adequately characterise ethically uncompromised cell lines or to utilise other techniques to develop a vaccine.

They may also belong to an international consortium in which they have little influence on the cell line used for vaccine development. They should not forget about the need to develop uncompromised cell lines, but they may reasonably not seek to do so during this time of crisis.

If they do use ethically compromised cell lines, they should recognise the ethical problems with them, and also state their proportional reason for using them during the pandemic. As the Code of ethical standards for Catholic health and aged care services in Australia states, we minimise the risk of scandal by "explaining clearly ... the reasons for one's cooperation [i.e. in this case, the use of a cell line derived from an historical abortion] and why the ... cooperation is permissible according to Catholic principles."

Conclusion

Developing ethically uncompromised cell lines and vaccines is important.

In the crisis of this pandemic, developing and using an effective vaccine to save lives is even more important.

If a COVID-19 vaccine is developed using a cell line derived from an aborted foetus, the Catholic Church would surely permit the use of this vaccine, and Catholics should not hesitate to use it. Saving lives was just what Edward Jenner set out to do, and saving lives is still very important.

• Kevin McGovern is a Catholic priest. He is a former Director of the Caroline Chisholm Centre for Health Ethics in Melbourne, Australia. He is an adjunct lecturer at both Australian Catholic University, and Catholic Theological College within the University of Divinity.
• Kerri Anne Brussen has worked as a medical scientist and is a former Researcher at the Caroline Chisholm Centre for Health Ethics.
• First published in The Nathaniel Report. Republished with permission.

But to ensure vital health information reaches everyone in our community, we need a range of spokespeople, including religious and community leaders.

However, church leaders have expressed concerns some Christians may face an "ethical dilemma" over Australia's COVID-19 vaccination plans.

Sydney's Catholic and Anglican Archbishops and the leader of Australia's Greek Orthodox church told Prime Minister Scott Morrison that the University of Oxford's candidate vaccine, set to be given to Australians if it proves successful, is potentially problematic because its production method relies on cell lines from an electively aborted foetus.

There are many examples of religious community leaders helping vaccination programs.

I experienced this first-hand in 2013, when I supported a catch-up immunisation clinic at a large Samoan church in Western Sydney, which aimed to reduce the measles risk among the Pacific Islander community.

One community member who participated told me: "Most Pacific island people go to church. Maybe this is one of the best channels to go through. Ministers, because their job is spiritual health as well, will give out information for the health of their people."

That was the first time an Australian church had hosted an immunisation clinic. But the idea of religion crossing over with immunisation is not new.

The earliest recorded example of "variolation" (or inoculation) was an 11th-century Buddhist nun's innovative practice: She ground scabs taken from a person infected with smallpox (variola) into a powder, and then blew it into the nostrils of a non-immune person to induce immunity.

Several centuries on, things are more vexed.

While major faith traditions endorse the principles supporting the public health goals of vaccination, hesitancy has been documented at an individual clergy level, and concerns have been raised at an organisation level from time to time.

The church leaders who wrote to Morrison have asked the government not to pressure Australians to use the vaccine if it goes against their religious or moral beliefs.

Sydney's Catholic Archbishop Anthony Fisher called on the government to pursue arrangements for alternative vaccines that do not involve the foetus-derived cell lines.

What's a cell line anyway?

A cell line is a population of cells that is grown continuously in the laboratory for extended periods.

Once established, cell lines have an unlimited lifespan and so are a renewable and reliable system for growing viruses.

Some cell lines, called human diploid cell lines WI-38 and MRC-5, came from three abortions performed for medical reasons (including psychiatric reasons) in the 1960s.

These abortions were not done for the purpose of harvesting the cells.

Cells taken from these cell lines are used to grow the virus, but are then discarded and not included in the vaccine formulation.

In Australia, several licensed vaccines have been manufactured using cell lines that originally came from this foetal tissue from the 1960s. This includes the vaccines against rubella, hepatitis A, varicella (chickenpox), and rabies.

The Catholic church has previously grappled with this issue.

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, ethicists at the National Catholic Bioethics Center and the Vatican's Pontifical Academy for Life declared the abortions from which the cell lines were derived were events that occurred in the past.

Most importantly, they acknowledged the intent of the abortions was not to produce the cell lines, and therefore being immunised is a morally separate event from the abortions themselves.

In 2017, the Pontifical Academy for Life reiterated this stance, stating: …we believe that all clinically recommended vaccinations can be used with a clear conscience and that the use of such vaccines does not signify some sort of cooperation with voluntary abortion.

Moreover, it concluded there is a "moral responsibility to vaccinate […] to avoid serious health risks for children and the general population".

Health comes first

Supporting public health goals is the key principle previously applied by major faith institutions in situations where ethical issues around vaccination have been raised.

One previous example is the use of gelatin - which is made from pig skin or bones and is forbidden as a food by some religions - in vaccine and medicine capsules.

After reflecting on the issue, the Kuwait-based Islamic Organization for Medical Sciences declared in 1995: …the gelatin formed as a result of the transformation of the bones, skin and tendons of a judicially impure animal is pure, and it is judicially permissible to eat it.

The Grand Mufti of Australia released a letter in 2013 supporting this judgement, ruling it is acceptable for Australian Muslims to take vaccines containing pork-derived gelatin.

In the case of both gelatin and human cell lines, religious organisations have called on vaccine manufacturers to use alternative methods where possible.

Yet given the urgency of the COVID-19 pandemic, it may not be feasible or ethical to delay or seek alternative vaccines.

This sentiment was outlined by Reverend Kevin McGovern, a Catholic priest and adjunct lecturer at the Australian Catholic University and the Catholic Theological College, in a recent piece for the ABC: Developing ethically uncompromised cell lines and vaccines is important. In the crisis of this pandemic, developing and using an effective vaccine so as to save lives is even more important.

While this article is reflecting on religious organisations and vaccination, at an individual level it's important to note that people who profess to decline vaccines for religious reasons may, in fact, be motivated not by theological concerns but by their own personal views about vaccine safety, perhaps influenced and echoed by others in their clustered social networks.

For example, US-based studies have suggested some parents circumvent vaccine requirements by claiming religious exemptions, in the absence of a personal belief alternative.

To move forward, it's important public health officials work with religious leaders to ensure they are equipped with accurate information about the potential COVID-19 vaccine, its development process and the rationale for its use. Engaging these leaders and building trust are crucial steps into the intersection of religion and vaccination.

• Holly Seale is a Senior Lecturer at UNSW. She has previously received funding from NHMRC and from vaccine manufacturers for investigator-driven research. She is Deputy Chair of the Collaboration on Social Science and Immunisation. She does not hold any religious affiliation or funding, nor endorse any religious organisation.
• The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of CathNews.