Only Slovakians who have taken a Covid-19 vaccine can see Pope Francis when he visits the country, despite the fact that many vaccines were tested on or developed using fetal cell lines.
This, of course, goes against traditional Catholic anti-abortion teachings if the cell lines are from an elective abortion.
“The Pope will visit four cities in Slovakia Sept. 12-15, after traveling to Budapest in neighboring Hungary to celebrate the closing Mass of the International Eucharistic Congress,” reported the National Catholic Register. “According to Slovakian media, Health Minister Vladimír Lengvarský said at a news conference on July 20 that ‘the condition for participation in Holy Masses and other events will be full vaccination.’”
“Lengvarský said that this decision was established in cooperation with the Slovakian bishops’ conference.”
Many of the vaccines, however, were tested on or developed using fetal cell lines that were either known or believed to be from an elective abortion, says a report by the Children of God for Life.
Slovakia is primarily using the Pfizer/BioNTech, Moderna and AstraZeneca vaccines, according to local media.
Of the three, both the Pfizer/BioNTech and the Moderna shots weren’t developed from fetal cell lines, although both were tested on HEK-293 cells which are believed to have originated from a voluntary abortion in the early 1970s.
“In examining the issue further, it appears that in all probability
the cells were obtained from the embryo of a willfully induced abortion,” wrote Alvin Wong, M.D. in a 2006 article for The National Catholic Bioethics Center. “Not only is it easier administratively to receive cells from induced abortions of normal pregnancies than from spontaneous miscarriages, it may also be scientifically more advantageous to use tissue from induced abortions, which are ‘healthier,’ since the majority of fetuses are usually genetically normal and aborted for social reasons.”
As can be gleamed from Wong’s article, the use of HEK-293 has been a point of contention among Catholics, with some believing even using the cell line for testing is immoral.
One archbishop even said vaccines made from fetal issue are a “human sacrifice of innocent victims offered to Satan.”
“…Through the pharmaceutical companies that use fetal tissue from abortions to manufacture a so-called vaccine that is presented in the delirium of Covid-19 as a sacrament of salvation by which one is incorporated into the ‘mystical body’ of Satan, the globalist anti-church,” Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò wrote.
It’s worth noting that vaccine manufacturers say that human-derived cells are filtered out of the final product; fetal cell lines, if used, are treated as “tools” in the manufacturing or testing process.
The AstraZeneca shot was manufactured using HEK-293 and was also tested on MRC-5 cells which were originally developed from a 14-week-old aborted fetus.