San Diego Bishop Robert McElroy said this week “God has brought us vaccines,” insisting it is “vitally important that all of us receive the Covid Vaccine.”
In a pastoral letter to the people of San Diego, Bishop McElroy said the “Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson and Johnson vaccines are safe and effective” and are “fully approved for use at this moment by the teachings of our Church.”
As Pope Francis has so clearly taught, the bishop asserts in the March 17 text, “receiving the vaccine is not only for ourselves as individuals.”
McElroy notes that he has already received the vaccine, along with his fellow San Diego bishops Dolan and Bejarano.
“The sooner we are all vaccinated, the sooner we will be able to return to the many joys of our lives that we have missed during this past year of suffering,” he declares.
A pathway for emerging from the Covid pandemic “is now clear for our nation,” he states. “The love of God has accompanied us throughout this painful year of sickness, death and isolation, and now God has brought us vaccines that can heal us and heal our world.”
The bishop notes that a number of parishioners have shared with him their fears of taking the vaccine, while insisting that “so many” of these fears are “rooted in misinformation.”
“In the coming months, the vaccine will be available for every member of our society, including those without documents, and no one who cannot afford it will have to pay,” he states.
“The vaccines, with our continued masking and social distancing during the coming months, will bring this hateful pandemic to an end,” he concludes.