Catholics are the most vaccinated religious group in the United States, according to a new national survey by the Pew Research Center.
The survey of 10,349 U.S. adults found that 82% of self-identified Catholics had received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, compared to 75% of religiously unaffiliated adults and 73% of White Protestants. Hispanic Catholics were slightly more likely than White Catholics to have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine.
Of the major religious groups in the United States, White evangelical Protestants had the lowest vaccination rate, with only 57% saying they have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine.
Pew Research Center.
The Pew Research Center conducted the survey from Aug. 23-29, more than a year and a half into the pandemic.
The figures come as U.S. Catholic bishops continue to issue policies regarding vaccine exemptions for religious reasons. Some, including Bishop Thomas Olmsted of Phoenix, have upheld the rights of Catholics to decline COVID-19 vaccines out of conscience, while also encouraging Catholics to get vaccinated. Bishop John Stowe of Lexington, meanwhile, said “[t]here is no religious exemption for Catholics to being vaccinated,” and required all diocesan employees to receive a COVID-19 vaccine as a condition of employment.
Some Catholics have raised concerns about the COVID-19 vaccines’ remote connection to aborted fetal tissue, using cell lines derived from fetal tissue of babies believed to have been aborted in the 1970s.
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has said that all three vaccines approved for use in the United States are “morally acceptable” for use because of their remote connection with abortion, but if one has the ability to choose a vaccine, the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines should be chosen over the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. The vaccines produced by Pfizer and Moderna were tested using the controversial cell lines, while the Johnson & Johnson vaccine was both produced and tested using the cell lines.
Pew’s survey also found that 73% of Americans aged 18 or older have received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. The survey found lower vaccination rates among younger adults, as well as among those with lower family incomes and those living in rural areas. Black adults are now about as likely as White adults to say they have received a vaccine, according to the survey.
Democrats were more likely to have received a vaccine than Republicans, with 86% of Democrats and left-leaning Independents having received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, compared to 60% of Republicans.
About half of vaccinated Americans surveyed said that there is too much pressure to receive a COVID-19 vaccine, and 88% of unvaccinated Americans answered the same.
About half of those vaccinated Americans who were surveyed reported difficulty in making sense of information about COVID-19 vaccines. They said they still worried about possible serious health risks from the vaccine. About half of surveyed adults said that the worst of the pandemic is yet to come.
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Denver Newsroom, Apr 29, 2020 / 08:30 pm (CNA).- The numbers of women seeking at-home medication abortions through an experimental U.S. telemedicine provider has reportedly doubled under the coronavirus epidemic, though pro-life advocates said there ar… […]
Alfred Magero, Matthew Njogu, and Edward Chaleh Nkamanyi are three Catholic fathers from Africa who recently shared insights about being a present dad, protecting their families amid threats to the African family, and being a model of family values for their children with ACI Africa, CNA’s news partner in Africa. / Credit: Photos courtesy of ACI Africa
ACI Africa, Jun 17, 2024 / 12:37 pm (CNA).
On the occasion of Father’s Day 2024, a day focused on the celebration of fatherhood, four Catholic men from different African countries recently shared their experiences of impacting the lives of their children.
The Catholic fathers — who hail from Cameroon, Kenya, and Nigeria — talk about the importance of “being present,” of protecting their families amid threats to the African family, and of being a model of family values for their children, who they believe someday will become parents as well.
Tony Nnachetta, 68: Fatherhood is a full-time enterprise
Tony Nnachetta shares a moment with Pope Francis. The married father of four is a parishioner in the Catholic Archdiocese of Onitsha. Credit: Photo courtesy of ACI Africa
Tony Nnachetta is a married father of four who attends the Church of the Assumption Parish in Nigeria’s Archdiocese of Lagos. Nnachettahas been a parishioner there for 40 years, and he was wed there 38 years ago. A member of the Grand Knights of St. Mulumba, he originally hails from the Archdiocese of Onitsha.
I got married to my friend after we dated for four years. I was looking forward to fatherhood and I was mentally prepared for it. Here are the lessons I have learned along my fatherhood journey.
First, being a father means you watch your children grow and become independent. You watch them get to a point in their lives where they can engage in a debate with you and even disagree with you.
Fatherhood is a long process. You would be fortunate to go through the entire process and maybe see your children’s children. I have seen mine achieve excellence in school and even leave home and go across the world as they sought to become independent.
Wherever your children go, what is important for them is what they take away from home — what they take from mommy and daddy. I have always told mine to “remember the child of who you are.” This means that they are not allowed to break the Christian values in our family.
I taught them to always stand for the truth and never to flow with the tide. We have encouraged them to always say what they mean. These days, they have jokingly turned around the statement and they tell me, “Remember the dad of who you are,” and we laugh about it.
You can’t always be there to take the bullet for them, but you can support them through prayers. Our family relies a lot on the intercession of the saints. We call ourselves a family of Jesuits because the school my children went to is under the patronage of St. Ignatius of Loyola.
Fatherhood is a full-time engagement. It is not like you can be a father in the morning and take a break in the evening. You worry about your children even when they are grown and have left your home. They preoccupy you everywhere. You wonder whether they are warm and if they have had their meal. But all this brings a father immense joy.
Young fathers in Africa are overburdened by poverty. Because of poverty they don’t have a way to help their families. Others are scared to enter the marriage institution. Poverty has made young men weak and helpless. Some are leaving their young families and going to faraway places outside the continent to make a living.
Poverty is eroding family values because some fathers do what they do, including stealing, for their children to survive. In doing so, they are setting a bad example for their children …
It is important for our leaders to confront this situation. They must accept that they have let us down.
Matthew Njogu, 75: Tips on being a present dad
Matthew Njogu is the moderator of the Catholic Men Association at St. Austin’s Msongari Parish of Kenya’s Archdiocese of Nairobi. His children are now adults. Credit: Photo courtesy of ACI Africa
Fathers need to be present in the lives of their children. For a long time, it was assumed that it was the mother’s responsibility to take care of the young children; fathers kept off. But being absent in the lives of your children hurts your relationship with them. They end up growing up without you having any impact on their lives.
Unfortunately, some fathers assume that fatherhood ends at providing material things… They don’t pay attention to their children’s growth milestones. And when they eventually try to establish a connection, they find that the children are already all grown without knowing anything about their fathers.
Simple things like dropping your children off at school help you connect with them. While stuck in traffic on the way to school, you can talk about things that will help you understand your child and for him to know you.
Always try as much as possible to have dinner with your children and help them with schoolwork. And always try to make up for the time you don’t spend with them.
Edward Chaleh Nkamanyi, 53: Raising a Christ-like family
Edward Chaleh Nkamanyia runs a medical college in Doula, Cameroon. He is a father of two, though he tells ACI Africa that he is “a father of many” as he takes care of several orphans and other vulnerable children. Credit: Photo courtesy of ACI Africa
Nkamanyi runs a medical college in Doula, Cameroon. He is a father of two children ages 16 and 20. He tells ACI Africa that he is “a father of many,” as he takes care of several orphans and other vulnerable children. Here are his insights into nurturing a Christ-like family.
It is the joy of every responsible young man to be called “daddy” or “papa.” Having a Christ-like family is the greatest gift for a father; a family like that of Joseph, Mary, and Jesus.
My appeal for Catholic fathers is to hold their families firmly, to provide for them, and to protect them from all dangers in the contemporary society, where values are being eroded.
I don’t believe that being a father is a challenging task. God already gave us the innate potential to be fathers. I believe that God can’t give you a role that you can’t perform.
It is unfortunate that many young men are choosing to be absentee fathers. From what I have seen, many children raised by a single parent end up adopting wayward behaviors.
Alfred Magero, 48: Being a present dad in a low-income setting
Alfred Magero belongs to the Catholic Men’s Association group of St. Joseph the Worker Kangemi Catholic Parish of in the Nairobi Archdiocese. The father of three has been married for 29 years. Credit: Photo courtesy of ACI Africa
Magero belongs to the Catholic Men’s Association group of St. Joseph the Worker Kangemi Parish of the Archdiocese of Nairobi. The father of three has been married for 29 years and shares his experience and that of other Catholic dads raising their children in a low-income neighborhood.
I am raising my children to become God-fearing adults. This is not an easy task in the community in which we live, where there is a lot of poverty, drunkenness, and other characteristics typical of a low-income [neighborhood].
Many fathers rarely interact with their children since their main focus is to provide for their families. They leave for work before their children wake up and come back at night when the children have already gone to bed.
The young men and boys we are raising are experiencing a different environment from ours when we were growing up. With the whole world brought to them on the palm of their hand by a simple tap on the phone, this generation is dangerously exposed. They need us, their fathers, to constantly give them direction. They need us to be their role models.
They need us to constantly remind them that they are in Africa and that they should not adopt alien cultures, especially those bound to destroy the family.
As fathers, we must remind our young ones to uphold African values that kept the family unit and the society glued together. Africans knew the importance of loving and caring for each other. Unfortunately, this value is being eroded, and in its place, now we have individualism. Older men in families would educate young men to be responsible adults. Unfortunately, we no longer have this kind of education.
Richmond, Va., Apr 3, 2019 / 04:06 pm (CNA).- A crowd of thousands took to the streets of Richmond, Virginia on Wednesday to participate in Virginia’s first statewide March for Life.
Speakers at the rally included March for Life President Jeanne… […]
2 Comments
“Only two things are infinite, human stupidity and the universe, and I’m not sure about the universe.” – Attributed to Einstein
So much for those darn aborted babies……“morally acceptable” for use because of their remote connection with abortion,……..not quite sure how the babies feel about being remotely murdered but hey if killing them helps us feel morally superior “who am I” to complain.
Just keep wondering what God thinks of His little girls and boys being killed to be used for lab experiments…….but when we have a group of leaders who promote pachamama, pride/clown masses, the destruction of the Traditional Mass, Uncle Ted’s nephews running the show, and baby killing catholic politicians welcomed to receive Holy Communion I can understand why they think using dead baby bodies to unite us all under one vaccine is “morally acceptable”.
And to top it all good ole Bishop John Stowe of Lexington, meanwhile, said “there is no religious exemption for Catholics to being vaccinated,” and required all diocesan employees to receive a COVID-19 vaccine as a condition of employment……so now it is required that we fill our bodies with the crushed lives of children to work for the Church……kind of an interesting thought that every employee, every single employee of the Diocese of Lexington will have the pleasure of murdered babies as the foundation of their health care.
“Only two things are infinite, human stupidity and the universe, and I’m not sure about the universe.” – Attributed to Einstein
So much for those darn aborted babies……“morally acceptable” for use because of their remote connection with abortion,……..not quite sure how the babies feel about being remotely murdered but hey if killing them helps us feel morally superior “who am I” to complain.
Just keep wondering what God thinks of His little girls and boys being killed to be used for lab experiments…….but when we have a group of leaders who promote pachamama, pride/clown masses, the destruction of the Traditional Mass, Uncle Ted’s nephews running the show, and baby killing catholic politicians welcomed to receive Holy Communion I can understand why they think using dead baby bodies to unite us all under one vaccine is “morally acceptable”.
And to top it all good ole Bishop John Stowe of Lexington, meanwhile, said “there is no religious exemption for Catholics to being vaccinated,” and required all diocesan employees to receive a COVID-19 vaccine as a condition of employment……so now it is required that we fill our bodies with the crushed lives of children to work for the Church……kind of an interesting thought that every employee, every single employee of the Diocese of Lexington will have the pleasure of murdered babies as the foundation of their health care.