Get jabbed or stop work, Catholic priests told

Priests must be vaccinated within a month under a precedent-setting directive that will inflame tensions with traditionalists.

Archbishop of Brisbane Mark Coleridge. Picture: Richard Walker

Catholic priests must be double vaccinated against Covid-19 within a month under a precedent-­setting directive by Archbishop of Brisbane Mark Coleridge that is set to inflame tensions with church traditionalists.

In an ultimatum this week, he warned that unvaccinated clergy “present a risk” to parishioners and faced being stood down if they were not fully immunised by the December 15 deadline.

Conscientious objection would not be accepted as grounds for exemption, he said.

In addition to heading one of the nation’s largest Catholic dioceses, Dr Coleridge is also president of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference, adding heft to his decision to mandate the jab for the 200-odd priests under his control. No other church leader has gone that far.

In a strongly worded letter on Monday he wrote that priests and deacons who failed to comply would have to show cause why they should not be immediately suspended.

Although Dr Coleridge recognised that vaccination was a “matter of personal choice”, this was outweighed by legal obligations to civil law, state health directives, occupational health and safety requirements and the duty of care owed to parishioners.

“A pastor or assistant pastor in parish ministry is to know the faithful, visit families, care for the faithful strengthening them in the Lord and refresh the faithful with the sacraments,” he wrote.

“Diligently, he is to seek out the poor, the afflicted, the lonely and the exiled. He is to support spouses and parents in fulfilling their proper duties and to foster growth of Christian life in the family.

“That means that clergy engaged in parish ministry must be close to people. In the circumstances of the pandemic, clergy ­engaged in pastoral ministry who are not doubly vaccinated put the faithful of the parish at risk. They present a risk to the faithful to whom they minister, as well as to their families.

“Clergy not doubly vaccinated are failing in their duty of care for the faithful.”

Dr Coleridge’s hard line will anger conservatives in the church who are dismayed by the use of human foetal cell lines – often derived from foetuses aborted decades ago – in research and development of some Covid vaccines including the Pfizer and ­Moderna mRNA formulations. No foetal cells, however, are present in any of the vaccines.

The Vatican intervened last December to declare it was morally acceptable for Catholics to be immunised in the “certain knowledge” this did not condone abortion. In August, Pope Francis voiced his full-throated support of vaccination as an “act of love”. But a minority of anti-vax priests in Australia continue to hold out, their resistance strengthened by an unrelated decision by Francis to reimpose restrictions on celebrating the Latin Mass, a breach of faith for some traditionalists.

The Archbishop of Melbourne Peter Comensoli, heading Australia’s largest Catholic community, said about 5 per cent of clergy there were not fully vaccinated. While “strongly encouraging” priests to get the Covid shots, he had stopped short of mandating it.

“I have strongly encouraged vaccination for our clergy in order that they can fully minister to our people in all circumstances – most particularly for the care of the most vulnerable in hospitals and aged care,” Archbishop Comensoli told The Australian. “To date, around 95 per cent have achieved their double vaccination.”

A spokesman for Anglican Primate Geoffrey Smith said the archbishop had “made his position very clear” that everyone should be vaccinated. But it is understood no Anglican diocese in Australia had made this compulsory.

Dr Coleridge was not available for comment on Wednesday. His directive means all clergy involved in religious services or pastoral ministry in an archdiocese that takes in 97 parishes must produce evidence of double vaccination within four weeks. Exemptions would be limited to those with a recognised medical condition preventing vaccination, backed by a medical certificate. But Dr Coleridge warned: “A medical contraindication against one Covid-19 vaccination does not necessarily translate to a contraindication against all vaccines.

“I will not consider conscientious objection to receiving the vaccination as a valid exception to the provisions set out here. I fully respect the right of conscience, especially when properly formed in the Catholic understanding. But I too have a conscience; and it is not just legal obligation but consciences which has led to my decision.”