Four Catholic students are suing Creighton University over its requirement to be vaccinated against COVID-19 in order to remain enrolled, arguing that some of them “feel coerced” to violate their religious beliefs against abortion.
The lawsuit, which was filed on Sept. 8 in Douglas County, Nebraska District Court, also alleges that some of the four students have medical conditions that if subjected to the vaccines could be hazardous for their health.
The Omaha-based university is affiliated with the Jesuit order of the Catholic Church. It mandated that all students get vaccinated in August, after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration granted full approval to a vaccine mandated by Pfizer, according to local news reports.
The Catholic university had previously allowed medical exemptions to its vaccine requirements, but not religious ones.
The lawsuit says all four students have “religious objections” to COVID-19 vaccines because “the vaccines were developed and/or tested using abortion derived fetal cell lines.” (…)
Lauren Ramaekers is a Creighton student named as a plaintiff in the lawsuit. A press release from a local PR firm identified her as the president of the university’s pro-life group Students for Life. In the release, Ramaekers said she is opposed to taking the vaccine “because of the use of abortion-derived fetal cells in the research and development of the vaccines.”
Read the full article on CBN news: https://www1.cbn.com/cbnnews/us/2021/september/four-creighton-students-sue-catholic-university-for-refusing-religious-exemptions-for-vaccine-mandate
Even though the Pope seems to personally approve covid vaccinations and recommends taking them, Catholics are not obliged to get the jab, nor can they be forced against their will or conscience.
The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issued a Note on the Morality of Using Some Anti-Covid Vaccines. Paragraph 5 mentions:
“…practical reason makes evident that vaccination is not, as a rule, a moral obligation and that, therefore, it must be voluntary.”
See the full note here: https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20201221_nota-vaccini-anticovid_en.html