REPORT: Boston College rejects vaccine exemptions for Catholics

Citing Pope Francis, Boston College has mostly denied religious exemptions for Catholics who don’t want to get the COVID-19 vaccine.

The Boston Herald reports that the Jesuit college is maintaining, officially, exemptions for medical and religious exemptions. However, the college has refused exemptions to many Catholics that oppose the use of “aborted fetal tissue” during the vaccine research stage. 

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A spokesman for the college told the newspaper that “Given that Pope Francis, Cardinal Sean (O’Malley), and millions of Catholics worldwide have been vaccinated, it is difficult for Catholics to make an argument against a COVID-19 vaccination.”

Thomas Sarrouf, a Catholic Student at Boston College, told Campus Reform that he disagrees with school’s policy. 

”Catholics should be as eligible for exemption as any other religion that allows it,” Sarrouf said. “The decision to not allow Catholics to be exempt from the vaccine mandate for conscientious religious reasons is dead wrong.”

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According to the report, Boston College further defended its removal of catholic religious exemptions by citing Pope Francis, who has stated, “I believe that morally everyone must take the vaccine,” as well as calling it a “moral choice because it is about your life but also the lives of others.”

Furthermore, Sarrouf points out that although the Pope called it a moral obligation, “there is a clear difference between the Pope speaking personally in an interview, and official teaching, and for a Catholic school to miss that distinction is pretty stunning; and they have the teaching dead wrong.”

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