Fabrizio Mastrofini’s Oct. 26 article “No morally relevant link from abortion to vaccines” may have been intended as a further clarification to the article that I wrote in September, “Catholics have a role in demanding ethical vaccines.”

But the headline is misleading, as is the claim that “vaccines most commonly used in childhood lead us to exclude that there is a morally relevant cooperation between those who use these vaccines today and the practice of voluntary abortion” are misleading.

The 2005 Vatican document makes it clear that “the aspect of passive cooperation is that which stands out most.”

“From this point of view, the use of vaccines whose production is connected with procured abortion constitutes at least a mediate remote passive material cooperation to the abortion, and an immediate passive material cooperation with regard to their marketing.”

It is very clear that “doctors and families have a duty to take recourse to alternative vaccines (if they exist), putting pressure on the political authorities and health systems so that other vaccines without moral problems become available.” 

In fairness, it should be noted that the new Pontifical Academy for Life, following the previously constituted Academy disbanded under the current Pope, may place more emphasis on its own 2017 note, but the 2005 document on vaccinations, approved by the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, is the official stance of the Church. That document needs to be taken seriously, and at the very least Catholics should be concerned that they don’t contribute to the market demand for vaccines that use aborted fetal cells.  

Only if the health concerns are serious and no alternative can be found is it legitimate to use these vaccines, and then not without making our concerns known.

Finally, the statement that “cell lines currently used are very distant from the original abortions” may be misunderstood to mean that these lines were created several decades ago. The cell line Walwax2, derived from the remains of 9 aborted fetuses was obtained in 2015. New aborted fetal cell lines are currently being created today for use in vaccines and this needs to stop. It is an abuse that Catholics can and should help to end.

Natalie Sonnen
Natalie Sonnen is the Executive Director of LifeCanada.


Thank you for your recent letters on the subject of vaccines and their composition.

As I stated in my Oct. 26 article, the Church’s position on this theme was clarified with the 2008 Note by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and the 2017 Note by the Pontifical Academy for Life.

The vaccines referred to used fetal cells deriving from abortion in the past and obtained them in laboratories many decades ago. Therefore, there is no longer any link with their origins. However, the production of alternative vaccines must be promoted and developed.

Here I want to underline that today we are in a very different situation. The vaccine is essential to stop the pandemic and save lives worldwide. Indeed, we must understand that not the whole world is like the U.S., Canada, and Europe. In Africa, Asia, and Latin America, there are major public health problems, differences in health systems, and economic and social conditions (lack of electricity, for example) that slow down and complicate the distribution of vaccines, so that they are not readily available and affordable to anybody. Inequalities must be overcome.

 The Church reaffirms the importance of working for the common good with its Social Doctrine. And common good, today, means health for all and equitable access to vaccines. These are the issues at stake today: it is therefore very important for us to intervene as Catholics, as people of good will.


Fabrizio Mastrofini
Pontifical Academy for Life - Vatican City


Re “Proud to be a Single Issue Voter” by Colleen Roy (B.C. Catholic, Oct. 26):

A pro-life single-issue voter tends to vote for the Conservative Party in Canada or the Republican Party in the U.S. But if you are indeed a pro-life single issue voter, you cannot vote for either of those parties. 

The Conservative Party of Canada in the past has halted debate on pro-life issues in the House of Commons. During the past election, the Conservative leader said he was personally pro-life but he wasn’t going to change any abortion laws.

The Republican Party in America hasn’t changed the abortion law, even though they have had control of the Senate, the presidency, and Congress. Nominating conservative judges is good, because perhaps they will overturn abortion laws, but if this issue really is imperative, then it is an issue not only for the future, it is for now.

The current president, in the first debate, even said that abortion is not on the table this election. His vice-president, in the vice presidential debate, was asked directly if he wanted to overturn Roe v Wade. He did not answer the question. He meandered away from it and finished by saying he was pro-life.

I worry the pro-life movement is too timid, too blinded, and cannot see the actual values of the political parties of today, and because they cannot see it no real progress in pro-life issues will occur. At best the issue will be put to some future time for some future judge to decide. 

I conclude that the Conservative Party in Canada and the Republican Party in America are pro-choice parties and if you vote for either them, while claiming to be a pro-life single issue voter, you are a hypocrite. This statement is not politically correct. But it sounds like from your article I don’t have to be. In fact I shouldn’t be politically correct if I want to seek and find the truth.

Ian Kent
Vancouver


Re “An overpopulation campaign during a pandemic?” (B.C. Catholic, Oct. 19):

The article on an overpopulation advertising campaign in Vancouver, a campaign whose proponents look to China’s one-child policy as an example, underscores a much more serious underlying problem we have in democratic societies like Canada and the United States, namely, a new attraction, especially among young people, towards socialism and even Marxism.

A recent overpopulation ad campaign in Vancouver has parallels with China’s one-child policy, a writer says. (B.C. Catholic)

Author and political scientist Paul Kengor, who penned the book The Devil and Karl Marx, warns of the danger of this “romance” with left-leaning thinking. In a recent interview with Raymond Arroyo on EWTN’s The World Over, the writer pointed out, and I’m paraphrasing, that never in American history has there been such a significant number of young people praising socialism and Marxism.

Kengor said that, when pressed further, these same young people would view socialism as being about “sharing,” about “being kind to one another.” One byproduct of such thinking to me has been a radical racialization of anything and everything around us, especially in the United States, where statues and any symbol of mainstream culture are slowly being deconstructed or destroyed.

This, I believe, is a result of the failure of schools in teaching history with a proper perspective. History classes have now become so politicized that only one perspective can be tolerated, and anyone holding or teaching a different viewpoint would be shouted off the podium.

Make no mistake, socialism and communism are about many things, but kindness and sharing are not among them. An even casual reading of history would tell us that such political movements – in China today, the Soviet Union, and Cambodia, just to highlight a few of the usual suspects – have been responsible for some of the bloodiest massacre in recent history.

Rather than focusing on whom to blame in recent history, can we please start teaching history with a balanced perspective, looking at issues not only from all sides, but objectively and dispassionate, allowing for scholars to examine history from all angles?

Patrick May
Vancouver


I have been reading with interest your series on forced adoptions. It is quite refreshing to see a Catholic publication giving readers true versions of what really happened in our past.

In the article “‘Perfect storm’ forced 300,000 mothers to give up their babies,” you mention the term “illegitimate” being used frequently in documents. Another example comes from the Prince Edward Island Government archives, where illegitimate births are actually a column in the records of the adoption statistics for the years 1953-1970.

Charlotte MacAulay
Surrey, PEI