Faith and the COVID-19 Vaccine
Myanmar says Rohingya minority will get COVID-19 vaccine
By Associated Press — August 30, 2021
BANGKOK (AP) — A spokesman for Myanmar’s military-installed government said Friday that COVID-19 vaccines will be given to members of the country’s persecuted Rohingya ethnic group.
Episcopal Diocese of Maine mandates vaccine for clergy
By Kathryn Post — August 25, 2021
(RNS) — Bishop Thomas J. Brown’s decision is one of the first vaccine mandates for clergy in the U.S.
The fundamentalist who created today’s conservative template
By Mark Silk — August 23, 2021
(RNS) — Meet a New Jersey pastor named Carl McIntire.
Jesse Jackson and wife Jacqueline hospitalized with COVID-19
By Jack Jenkins — August 22, 2021
(RNS) — The civil rights activist, who was vaccinated in January, has been a fixture at voting rights demonstrations in recent months.
‘Bracing for the worst’ in Florida’s COVID-19 hot zone
By Kelli Kennedy and Cody Jackson — August 20, 2021
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (AP) — The patients at Baptist Health’s five hospitals across Jacksonville are younger and getting sick from the virus faster than people did last summer.
Priests navigate Catholics’ fears and consciences in vaccine exemption pleas
By Alejandra Molina — August 19, 2021
(RNS) — It’s unclear how many Catholics are seeking vaccine religious exemptions, but more and more of their bishops are urging their priests to decline such requests.
As US bishops reject exemptions, Pope Francis dubs COVID-19 vaccine ‘act of love’
By Claire Giangravé and Jack Jenkins — August 18, 2021
(RNS) — The declaration comes as U.S. Catholics debate religious exemptions to COVID-19 vaccine mandates.
California Catholic bishop tells priests to decline vaccine exemption requests
By Alejandra Molina — August 13, 2021
(RNS) — San Diego Bishop Robert McElroy said Catholic social teaching doesn't justify a religious exemption to receiving the COVID-19 vaccine.
Survey: Vaccine hesitancy declines among faith groups, spurred partly by religious appeals
By Jack Jenkins — July 28, 2021
(RNS) — Rates of vaccine refusal remained constant or even increased in some groups, however.
Missouri church leaders implore congregants: Get vaccinated
By Jim Salter — July 22, 2021
O'FALLON, Mo. (AP) — ‘Vaccine hesitancy in our pews puts our congregations and communities at greater risk.’
Global interfaith prayer service advocates for vaccine equity
By Renée Roden — July 20, 2021
(RNS) – ‘The coronavirus is not the Titanic, everyone can live — there are more than enough lifeboats for every person on the planet,’ said Don McCrabb, executive director of the United States Catholic Mission Association.
Anger as French protesters compare vaccines to Nazi horrors
By Angela Charlton and Constantin Gouvy — July 20, 2021
PARIS (AP) — “I wore the star, I know what that is, I still have it in my flesh,” Holocaust survivor Joseph Szwarc said Sunday.
In many COVID hot spots, a pattern: High concentrations of white evangelicals
By Jack Jenkins — July 15, 2021
(RNS) — ‘It’s clear that the pattern is more white evangelical Protestants equals lower vaccination rates,’ said Natalie Jackson, research director at the Public Religion Research Institute.
For one LA Catholic church, meeting indoors is ‘historic’ after wave of COVID-19 deaths
By Alejandra Molina — June 21, 2021
SAN GABRIEL, Calif. (RNS) — A church that held a funeral a week during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic tentatively comes together in person again.
NIH director: We asked God for help with COVID-19, and vaccines are the ‘answer to that prayer’
By Jack Jenkins — June 15, 2021
WASHINGTON (RNS) — ‘This is about saving lives,’ NIH Director Francis Collins told RNS.