I've read a lot of shocking stories lately [from Lifesitenews](https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/sweden-vaccine-passports-will-probably-be-required-for-shopping-eating-out-travel-meeting-loved-ones) and the like about the age of vaccine passports. I think they just assume that the reader will have an innate revulsion to them and don't go into whether or not a thing is morally justifiable. So for that purpose, I'm asking here. According to the constant tradition of the Catholic Church, the interpreter of the [Natural Moral Law](https://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p3s1c3a1.htm) (which is written on the hearts of all men and women and "expresses the dignity of the person and determines the basis for his fundamental rights and duties"), does a "vaccine passport" comport with human dignity?

Many Catholic friends of mine are seeking religious exemptions to the various Covid-19 mandates. Especially ones who either work from home can prove acquired immunity. For them, notwithstanding the argument against infanticide - which is very strong, the argument against reason is antecedent. When Pope John Paul II writes something like: > In the totalitarian and authoritarian regimes, the principle that force predominates over reason was carried to the extreme. Man was compelled to submit to a conception of reality imposed on him by coercion, and not reached by virtue of his own reason and the exercise of his own freedom. This principle must be overturned and total recognition must be given to the rights of the human conscience, which is bound only to the truth, both natural and revealed. The recognition of these rights represents the primary foundation of every authentically free political order > > [Centesiumus Annus p.29](https://www.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_01051991_centesimus-annus.html) It gives them pause, they are being told that they cannot use political or sociological arguments for not getting vaccinated, but this is an argument put forth by the Holy Father, promulgated to the entire world that rights of human conscience _natural_ and _revealed_ must be respected or else we're headed to ruin. It could be argued that the common good is served by standing up for reason over and above the common good of boosting numbers of vaccinated individuals. I could argue that all day long, but St. John Paul II bolsters my argument and phrases it in a perfect way I could never even dream of. I believe he was divinely inspired. Now, for the purpose of my question. Do the Popes intend the faithful to assent to the truths they speak in their encyclicals as a matter of faith or as a matter of reason?

To some it would smack of nothingburger, but it's notable enough to publish as a ["Whistleblower" report](https://dennismichaellynch.com/watch-project-veritas-releases-bombshell-interview-with-pfizer-whistleblower/) that Pfizer has been testing performing embryonic stem cell tests with more than just one line of tissues derived from an aborted baby. Lots of arguments I've seen (including one in an op ed to our local Catholic newspaper last week by a long time lay leader in the US Bishops conference office of pro-life affairs) have said that vaccines being tested on a _single_ human child aborted several decades ago were moral. A lot of the arguments were that there was just one abortion involved in the embryonic testing (which didn't pass the smell test initially for many pro-lifers) but the Veritas report confirmed the suspicions of pro-lifers who rejected the vaccine on those grounds initially. What we were told from Pfizer, not what was withheld, formed the basis for the religious acceptance of the vaccines. If we truly don't know the nature of the tests done to produce the Pfizer vaccine, does that change the rationale the CDF used for saying the vaccines were OK? > Here, our objective is only to consider the moral aspects of the use of the vaccines against Covid-19 that have been developed from cell lines derived from tissues obtained from two fetuses that were not spontaneously aborted. > https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20201221_nota-vaccini-anticovid_en.html What sort of additional information should Catholics be asking for from Pfizer to persuade vaccine sceptics jumping on this latest news to get vaccinated?

There are numerous stories on the National Catholic Register about Bishops who have decided to [prohibit priests](https://www.ncregister.com/cna/monterey-bishop-prohibits-religious-exemption-from-covid-vaccine-mandates) in their dioceses from granting religious exceptions for Covid-19 vaccines. Is there any reason that an individual Catholic shouldn't seek a religious exemption from a member of the clergy who shares their concerns with the nature of the vaccines, even if is not their parish priest?

I looked through the [CMF website](https://www.cmf.org.uk/resources/publications/content/?context=article&id=27130) at their Briefing paper [When demand outstrips supply: A Christian view of the ethics of healthcare resource allocation during the COVID-19 pandemic](http://admin.cmf.org.uk/pdf/When_demand_outstrips_supply-COVID19_briefing_paper.pdf) : > “The British Medical Association (BMA) has recently produced guidance > around the ethical issues presented by the COVID-19pandemic.8 NICE has > also produced a rapid guideline for adult critical care during the > pandemic, which includes guidance for decision-making around > escalation. 9 In addition, the Royal College of Physicians (RCP) has > issued guidance, in conjunction with other stakeholders such as the > General Medical Council, the Faculty of Intensive Care Medicine, the > Intensive Care Society, royal colleges and faculties.10 As Christian > doctors, we must consider how we can respond to the ethical challenges > posed. Here we will attempt to consider some of the issues involved, > and how to think about them biblically, using Beauchamp and Childress’ > widely recognised four pillars of medical ethics11 as a framework.” However, it must be too soon for a briefing paper on whether any of the current seven Covid-19 vaccinations produced have utilised cell-lines from aborted foetuses. The matter of demand for vaccines was not included. Then I looked at a tagged blog, posted 20 November 2020, which sounded promising, [*COVID-19 vaccines: the wider ethical questions for Christians*](https://cmfblog.org.uk/2020/11/20/covid-19-vaccines-the-wider-ethical-questions-for-christians/) . Alas, no mention was made of the ethical issue I wish to explore. Some success came via a contact working professionally in the realms of Christian ethics. He sent a pdf of an article written by a colleague of his in a Catholic journal, *Anscombe Bioethics Centre – Friends’ Newsletter, Summer 2020, Issue 47.* (His link to the pdf will not open when I copy it.) Dr Helen Watt, Senior Research Fellow of the Anscombe Bioethics Centre, wrote the article, pp 9-12. > “… Vaccines are normally, though not always,4 produced in living > cells. While they can be generated (as with some COVID-19 vaccines in > the making) in cells derived from ethically uncontentious sources such > as insects,5 tobacco plants,6 and hamster ovaries,7 they can also be > produced in cell-lines made from tissue derived from an aborted unborn > child. One such cell-line used in COVID-19 vaccine research (including > a project of the University of Oxford8 ) is the HEK 293 cell-line > modified from tissue taken from the kidney of an unborn child aborted > probably in 1972, while another is the PER C6 cell-line from the > retinal tissue of an 18-week baby aborted in 1985.” **I wish to know both ethical considerations involved and how to identify which Covid-19 vaccinations might have such ethically questionable ‘ingredients’.** I will not go to popular media outlets for this as a huge amount of disinformation is being bandied around. This question is addressed to Christians who have ethical compunctions against any use of aborted foetuses, which transcends denomination. I note this related question indicates deep concern but I seek to know how to find out if that's being used with some vaccines. Edit: this question become more important since the Church has now made a statement regarding the newest vaccine from Johnson and Johnson. See this

A friend of ours alerted us to an example (maybe there are more) of a Catholic Church (took a little checking to make sure it was really a Catholic Church) that is only allowing people who are vaccinated to receive confessions. Now, this seems like a constitutional crisis of faith to me. Does this somehow tie vaccinations to grave matter? Does it mean there are no private confessions? Is this even legal, under church law? What happens if you want to go to confession, but not get vaccinated (or you can't get vaccinated for whatever reason)?

Like most of the planet, I've been taking in gobs of information about Covid-19 and vaccinations. The latest news I read was that even the horribly [abortion tainted](https://lozierinstitute.org/update-covid-19-vaccine-candidates-and-abortion-derived-cell-lines/) Johnson and Johnson vaccine is permissible to take as long as there are no alternatives and that the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are somehow examples of the means justifying the ends because of their remoteness. So that first paragraph notwithstanding (I mean completely discounting abortion from this answer which has short circuited what I think is a more important and more imperative thing for the average Catholic to deal with), do we as Catholics need to "Trust Dr. Fauci"? Like the President implores us to? Or should we trust our consciences. Our parish priest said that if we choose to not get the vaccine we should protect society in other ways, but can that mean telling our neighbors to chill out, take off their masks and stop worrying so much about Covid-19; trusting God, if not the odds over the science? Or does it mean that we still need to believe everything else that the authorities tell us about Covid-19 and more-or-less become hermits just so we can avoid taking a vaccine?

**Obviously no one should take any medical advice from StackExchange, but from a purely theological/canon-law perspective:** What does Catholic teaching or canon law say about using medicine developed from cells taken from an aborted fetus? Is using such medication compatible with the teachings on human dignity and the origin of life? Question inspired by a recent *Guardian* article on the drug Regeneron, headlined 'Covid drug given to Trump developed using cells derived from aborted fetus' : > The stem cells used to develop the drug are known as HEK-293T cells, a line of cells used in laboratories. The cells were originally derived from an embryonic kidney after an elective abortion performed in the Netherlands in the 1970s.