Story at a glance:
- Getting a COVID-19 vaccine is about loving your neighbor, Pope Francis said.
- The campaign is aimed at a global audience and meant to increase confidence in the vaccine.
- “Thanks to God’s grace and to the work of many, we now have vaccines to protect us from COVID-19,” Pope Francis said.
Getting the COVID-19 vaccine is “a simple yet profound way to care for one another, especially the most vulnerable,” Pope Francis said in a new public service announcement.
The PSA is part of a partnership with COVID Collaborative and the Ad Council. The pair is also working with Telemundo, Universo, WarnerMedia, Facebook and Google, among other platforms, to stream the PSA, according to the Ad Council.
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The campaign is “designed for and distributed to” a global audience and meant to increase confidence in the vaccine, with translations in English, Spanish and Portuguese.
“Getting the vaccines that are authorized by the respective authorities is an act of love,” Francis said.
The pope spoke in Spanish with English subtitles and was accompanied by church leaders from around the world, including Archbishop Jose Horacio Gomez from the U.S., Cardinal Carlos Aguiar Retes from Mexico, and Cardinal Cláudio Hummes from Brasil.
“Thanks to God’s grace and to the work of many, we now have vaccines to protect us from COVID-19,” Pope Francis said. “They bring hope to end the pandemic, but only if they are available to all and if we collaborate with one another.”
In the U.S., support for vaccines among Catholics and other Christian dominions is relatively high and in line with the overall number of Americans who have at least one dose of the vaccine. Seventy percent of Americans above the age of 12 have at least one dose, and almost 60 percent are fully vaccinated.
Catholic Hispanic Americans are increasingly getting the vaccine, with the number rising from 56 percent to 80 percent in June, according to the Public Religion Research Institute. Seventy-nine percent of white Catholic Americans have the vaccine, and 77 percent of Americans from other Christian dominions have the vaccine.
“Getting the vaccines that are authorized by the respective authorities is an act of love. And helping the majority of people to do so is an act of love,” the Pope continues. “Getting vaccinated is a simple yet profound way to care for one another, especially the most vulnerable.”
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