Abstract
This article reports that institutional religious voices in Canada, Germany, Ireland/Northern Ireland, and Poland conceived of public health as a common good during the COVID-19 pandemic, offering almost unqualified support and advocacy for vaccination. Discourses of the Polish Autocephalous Orthodox Church and the Anthroposophical Society in Germany differed from this norm. In these contexts, Christian institutions’ use of secular/scientific justifications alongside moral/theological ones represented a positioning of numerically large and previously powerful religions as still-important societal actors that were rational and reasonable, as well as ethical. Yet this positioning did not fully overcome dissenting religious voices, which vied for attention in these public spheres.
1 Introduction
During the COVID-19 pandemic, religious voices spoke up about public health, including vaccination (Levin 2020). Some of those voices raised concerns about the use of fetal cells in vaccine development and asserted that God would protect believers from illness (Goshadze 2021). Other voices strenuously promoted vaccination as a means to love one’s neighbor, to save humankind, or to achieve the common good (Kim 2024; VanderWeele 2020). Some studies demonstrated a negative relationship between religiosity and COVID-19 acceptance (Linke and Jankowski 2022), while others found that religion affected vaccination rates positively (Freeman et al. 2020; Kilic et al. 2021).
This article contributes to knowledge about the relationship between religion and vaccine acceptance, hesitancy, and resistance by analyzing how religious groups in Canada, Germany, Ireland/Northern Ireland, and Poland framed their contributions to public discussions about COVID-19 vaccination between March 2020 and February 2023. I contextualize the research with a brief discussion of international studies of relationships between religion and vaccine hesitancy/resistance, noting that some studies identify links between expressions of Christianity and hesitancy/resistance. I note previous studies of hesitancy/resistance in each context, observing that some of these did not pay due attention to religion. I report research findings, focusing primarily on comparisons between Roman Catholic and Protestant perspectives across contexts. These institutional religious voices, which were majorities in their contexts, offered almost unqualified support and advocacy for vaccination, with Roman Catholic discourses including greater consideration of the ethics of developing vaccines using fetal cells. Among religions that were numerical minorities, discourses of the Polish Autocephalous Orthodox Church and the Anthroposophical Society in Germany (a philosophical rather than religious group) differed from this norm.
In general, official religious voices articulated both secular/scientific and moral/theological arguments encouraging vaccine uptake; they did not present science and religion as opposed. In these contexts, Christian institutions’ use of secular/scientific justifications alongside moral/theological ones represented a positioning of numerically large and previously powerful religions as still-important societal actors that were rational and reasonable, as well as ethical. As such, the pandemic was in some ways an opportunity for churches to resist secularizing trends, reasserting their social significance by modeling good citizenship and publicly advocating for the common good. At the same time, parishes and congregations did not always police their followers—for example, by checking vaccine certificates—thereby placing the responsibility to obey state-imposed limits on members, not on religious institutions. The churches also did not robustly challenge antivaccination groups or fully overcome dissenting religious voices, which vied for attention in these public spheres.
This article is based on the RECOV-19 research project.1 It draws on the most relevant data sources from this mixed-methods project, including religious organizations’ public documents, religious media, text mining, online questionnaires for leaders and members, and interviews with leaders and members. See the introduction of this special issue for details about the project’s rationale, methods, and data sources. A much fuller explanation has also been published (Radde-Antweiler et al. 2026).
2 Religions and Vaccine Hesitancy/Resistance
Vaccine hesitancy indicates uncertainty about whether to vaccinate, while resistance is a strong determination to refuse vaccination. In this article I refer to hesitancy/resistance, while recognizing that the hesitant are much more likely to be convinced to vaccinate than the resistant.
In the popular imagination, especially in the global north, there is an association between religion and vaccine hesitancy/resistance, with religious and spiritual communities portrayed as “antivaxxers demanding religious exemptions to vaccine mandates” (Lorea et al. 2024, 2). Yet hesitancy/resistance is complex and multi-causal, with differing vaccination rates across contexts explained by multiple factors. Further consideration of religions’ roles is necessary to provide a fuller explanation of vaccine hesitancy/resistance, both within religious traditions (Christianity, Islam, etc.) and national contexts.
Conceptually, trust has emerged as important in understanding vaccine hesitancy/resistance, whether that is trust in science, or political institutions. While some have juxtaposed “faith in science” with religious faith, this dichotomy is distinctly Western and does not necessarily resonate in other global regions (Lorea et al. 2024, 9). People can and do put their trust both in science and religion. People also can and do put their trust both in political and religious institutions, which can increase vaccine acceptance (Jasanoff and Hilgartner 2021).
Cross-nationally, studies of COVID-19 vaccination found that those more likely to be hesitant/resistant were women, younger people, those with lower levels of education and trust in government, and those who support right-wing political parties or believe in conspiracy theories (Desson 2022; Hyland et al. 2021; Steinert 2022). There were variations in these trends across countries, and within countries, with higher rates of vaccine acceptance in urban areas. These mixed results may be explained by the different measurements employed, with researchers using different indicators (intention to vaccinate, vaccine acceptance, or vaccine hesitancy) or drawing on surveys with limited representativeness (Trepanowski and Drazkowski 2022, 2199). The point in time at which the studies were conducted also had an impact; that is, prior to vaccine development, or during vaccine rollouts.
As for the relationship between religion and vaccine hesitancy/resistance, Martens and Rutjens’ (2022, 1) study of 195 locations found that “regions higher in spirituality and/or religiosity are regions with lower COVID-19 vaccination rates”; while a pre-COVID-19 pandemic study across twenty-four countries found that “spirituality and science literacy,” followed by religiosity, were the most reliable predictors of vaccine skepticism (Hornsey et al. 2018). Trepanowski and Drazkowski’s (2022) comparison of nine datasets encompassing ninety countries (86 percent of the world population) found that the Human Development Index was the strongest predictor of COVID-19 vaccination; unsurprisingly, richer countries had higher vaccination rates. At the same time, they found that Christianity was negatively related to vaccination, but there was no relation with Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, and nonbelief. They recommended further exploration of “specific anti-vaccination attributes of Christianity” (2205), especially given that worldwide, the official positions of major Christian denominations were provaccination. However, they acknowledged that their datasets used different methods and were collected at different points in time, “which may have influenced the results”; and that it would have been preferable to have datasets that allowed them to examine “other correlates of religious beliefs (e.g., religious conservatism)” (2208).
Roman Catholicism is a numerically large religion in all our contexts, making wider Roman Catholic debates about vaccination relevant to our analysis. Globally, some in the Roman Catholic Church (RCC) expressed hesitancy/resistance due to objections about the use of fetal cells in the development of the Johnson and Johnson and AstraZeneca vaccines (Jones 2022; Zimmerman 2021). Israel-Turim et al.’s (2023) analysis of online Roman Catholic media found that 35 percent of their sources discussed the vaccine in relation to abortion, signaling some level of controversy. In some countries, Roman Catholic Bishops urged people not to receive such vaccines, but reversed this position when Pope Francis provided qualified support for all vaccines.
There was also well-publicized hesitancy/resistance among Christian nationalists in the United States. Studies of American Christian nationalism are relevant to our analysis because there was evidence of American Christian nationalist involvement in the “freedom convoy” protests in Canada (Dick 2024). In addition, conservative Protestant evangelicalism in Northern Ireland has historically been influenced by trends in American evangelicalism (Jordan 2018). Christian nationalism is a “cultural framework that blurs distinctions between Christian identity and American identity” (Whitehead and Perry 2020, 15). Many—but not all—white evangelicals are Christian nationalists. When Christian nationalism was combined with biblical literalism, conspiracy thinking around COVID-19 vaccination increased (Walker and Vegter 2023). While not directly related to vaccination, Smith and Snider’s (2023) analysis of resistance to stay-at-home orders in the US sheds light on the types of theodicies that underpinned not just resistance to restrictions, but also to vaccination, including an emphasis on divine protection and supernatural healing. Pastors in the prominent nondenominational churches they studied claimed that prayer would keep people from catching—or help them recover from—the coronavirus. Beyerlein et al. (2021, 497) also analyzed theodicies that interpreted the pandemic, among them the idea that God would protect people from COVID-19, as “synthesized in the ‘Jesus is my vaccine’ motto seen and heard at several anti-lockdown protests in the United States.” The theodicies deployed by some American evangelicals and Christian nationalists are potentially relevant to our analysis of Canada and Northern Ireland.
Finally, some Orthodox Christian theodicies emphasized the primacy of God’s protection from the coronavirus, particularly around the practice of receiving Holy Communion via communal spoon. Studies of Orthodoxy are relevant to our analysis due to its presence in Poland (Mandes et al., this issue). A comparative study of Orthodoxy in twelve European countries analyzed the negotiation of Holy Communion practices and other Orthodox rituals during COVID-19, reporting varying and at times ambiguous public discourses around lockdown restrictions, relationships with the state, vaccinations, and conspiracy theories, depending on the context (Metreveli 2024).
3 Religions and Vaccine Hesitancy/Resistance across Contexts
Sixty-seven percent of the world’s population has received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine (WHO 2023). COVID-19 vaccination has been affected by: (1) availability, including the ability of governments to procure doses and of citizens to access vaccination centers; (2) by incentives, such as government-imposed vaccine mandates that allowed citizens to return to work and leisure activities; and (3) by citizens’ attitudes about vaccination, which included acceptance, hesitancy, and resistance. The population that has received at least one dose is higher in Canada (90 percent), the Republic of Ireland (81 percent)/Northern Ireland (89 percent),2 and Germany (77 percent) than in the world (71 percent), North America (76 percent), and Europe (70 percent). Poland sits at 60 percent. Except for Poland, vaccine acceptance is higher than the world average in all our contexts (WHO 2024).
Now, I consider each context in our study, from lowest to highest rate of vaccination. Multiple factors account for varying degrees of hesitancy/resistance. Religion, which differs in societal importance across these contexts, does not always feature prominently in these studies. Yet there are hints that religion is a variable that deserves further attention.
3.1 Poland
Poland is part of a cluster of Central and Eastern European countries with lower vaccination rates than the rest of Europe, corresponding to former Communist regimes with low levels of trust in governments and authorities (Walkowiak and Walkowiak 2021; Raciborksi et al. 2021). A tendency to believe conspiracy theories, religiosity, social deprivation, and education levels contributed to vaccine hesitancy (Walkowiak and Walkowiak 2021). There were regional differences, with some having almost full vaccination, and others only about 10 percent (Walkowiak et al. 2022, 2). Sowa et al. (2021, 12) found that the most important contributors to hesitancy were concerns about side effects, believing in conspiracies, higher religiosity, and fitness (healthier people were more likely to be hesitant/resistant). Other factors included lower levels of education, living in less populous areas, and struggling with finances (14). Raciborski et al. (2021) linked hesitancy/resistance with support for right-wing political parties, having three or more children, living in a rural area, youth, and being an internet user. Voting for a right-wing political party was the strongest predictor of vaccine unwillingness. Walkowiak et al. (2022, 8) also emphasized that “support for parties willing to directly challenge the establishment and the prevailing narrative” was “a good predictor of vaccine hesitancy.” They argued that vaccine hesitancy related to Poland’s lack of social capital, manifested in low levels of trust and greater focus on family than the common good.
For Marchlewska et al. (2022, 3), “national narcissism,” an identity “characterized by a grandiose appraisal of one’s national group that is contingent on the external acknowledgment of its worth,” was related to belief in COVID-19 conspiracy theories and vaccine hesitancy. Roman Catholicism has long been an important aspect of Polish national identity, so it is unfortunate that Marchlewska et al.’s analysis did not include religious attitudes or behaviors or consider whether religion contributed to narcissistic nationalism. As we have seen in the USA, Christian nationalism is a predictor of vaccine hesitancy/resistance. In contrast, Raciborski et al. (2021, 4) found a relationship between “passivity towards participating in religious practice” and hesitancy/resistance. But their measurement of “passivity” is far from ideal, with the options for participation in religious practices being once a week, several times a year, and not at all. They admitted that “it is not possible to unequivocally explain this observation,” and noted that “the positive stance of religious authorities on vaccination against COVID-19 may encourage participants of religious practice to vaccinate” (8).
In sum, studies hint that there is some relationship between religion and vaccine hesitancy/resistance in Poland. It is one factor among many and may be related to belief in conspiracy theories and/or support for right-wing political parties.
3.2 Germany
Vaccination coverage in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland lagged behind the rest of Western Europe (Desson et al. 2022). As in Poland, there was significant regional variation in vaccination, from a high of 77 percent in Bremen to 56 percent in Saxony. States that were part of the former East Germany had lower rates, which may be related to a mistrust of government common in post-Communist societies. Vaccine hesitancy also corresponded with support for right-leaning political parties; including the Alternative for Germany, whose campaign included an antivaccination strand (6). Desson et al. also claimed that lower vaccination rates could be related to less directive government policies, including less stringent vaccine mandates or other incentives, although from March 2022 there was a vaccine mandate for healthcare and some social workers. A Ministry of Health survey on reasons for not receiving vaccination did not mention religion (Forsa Gesellschaft für Sozialforschung und Statistike Analysen 2021).
Steinert et al.’s (2022) study of vaccine hesitancy in eight European countries included both Germany and Poland. They did not report any findings of significance around religion or religiosity. Similarly, Fobiwe et al. (2022) found that trust in institutions and democracy contributed to vaccine acceptance in Germany, alongside other predictors such as previous (positive) experience with vaccinations, gender, age, number of children, and degree of life satisfaction. Only 34 percent of Alternative for Germany supporters were willing to receive the vaccine. Fobiwe et al. found no difference in willingness to be vaccinated between “people who claimed to be religious and those who did not” (5).
I could find no studies that analyzed the link between anthroposophy and COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy in Germany. As Van Wees et al.’s (2023) systematic review of anthroposophy and vaccination admitted, during COVID-19 popular media in Germany and Sweden labeled anthroposophic communities antivax. However, their study was more concerned with anthroposophic hesitancy around vaccination in general, not exclusively COVID-19 vaccination (Sander, this issue).
In sum, religious factors did not receive much scrutiny in studies of vaccine hesitancy/resistance in Germany. There are low levels of religiosity in Germany (Pew Research Center 2018) so it may be that religion was not an important factor. Yet there is room for further exploration of potential links between right-wing political parties, conspiracy theories, and some expressions of religion.
3.3 Ireland/Northern Ireland
There were fewer studies of vaccine hesitancy/resistance in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland than in our other contexts. As a small nation, the Republic of Ireland is not always considered or highlighted in cross-national surveys, and as a small nation within the UK, results from Northern Ireland are often not collected, or sample sizes are so small as to be insignificant. Murphy et al. (2021) compared vaccine hesitancy/resistance in the Republic of Ireland and the UK, finding that 35 percent (Ireland) and 31 percent (UK) of their populations could be classified as such. They noted that religiosity appears to be a factor among several explaining vaccine hesitancy/resistance. Strikingly, Northern Ireland’s rate of vaccine acceptance was the lowest among UK regions at 51 percent, making it by far the most hesitant region on the islands—although ultimately its vaccination rate proved higher than other UK regions (BBC News 2022). Northern Ireland is also the most religious region in terms of affiliation and attendance at religious services; about one-fifth of its population identify as practicing evangelical Christians (Ganiel and Soye 2024). However, Murphy et al. did not present data on religiosity and vaccine hesitancy/resistance in Northern Ireland, and the sample size was very small—just forty-six participants. Hyland et al. (2021) recognized that religion was a factor in Murphy et al.’s research but did not discuss religion when presenting the results of their study. Rather, they reported that Irish “deniers” were significantly associated with not living with other adults, low income, conspiracy mindedness, lower levels of trust in scientists and doctors, and negative attitudes toward migrants. Walsh et al.’s (2022) research, conducted during the vaccine rollout, found that 23 percent of Irish and 26 percent of UK respondents were vaccine-hesitant/resistant. However, their sample size was small (Ireland N = 500; UK N = 579) and not representative (80 percent female). Walsh et al. did not mention religion, rather emphasizing that vaccine hesitancy/resistance was found among those with less positive vaccination attitudes in general, and those who perceived higher vaccination risks. In sum, studies of COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy/resistance on the island of Ireland were limited. Given the island’s relatively high levels of religiosity, we would expect there to be some relationship, but this has not been thoroughly explored.
3.4 Canada
A report by the Royal Society of Canada observed that “in Canada formal religious concerns have not been especially prominent in vaccine acceptance survey data” (MacDonald et al. 2021, 15). Yet the report noted that in March 2021 the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops advised parishioners not to take vaccines that had been developed using fetal cells and expressed concerns that evangelicals in Canada who are “anti-science, anti-government, and believe in conspiracy theories about COVID-19” might follow American trends of pushing back against restrictions (15). The report also recommended that religious leaders be engaged in vaccination campaigns.
Reasons for vaccine hesitancy largely followed international trends, albeit often without presenting or considering religious factors. Cénat et al.’s (2022, 3, 23) systematic review of thirty studies (twenty-four quantitative) found that the pooled prevalence of COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy was 42 percent, while the pooled prevalence of unwillingness was 20 percent. The most important explanatory factors were age (younger people more hesitant/resistant), sex (females more hesitant/resistant), level of education (those with a high school education or lower more hesitant/resistant), race (nonwhites more hesitant/resistant), and socioeconomic status. As in Poland and Germany there were regional variations, with people in Quebec and the Atlantic provinces most likely to accept vaccination (Lavoie et al. 2022, 4).
Lavoie et al.’s (2022) analysis of five cross-sectional surveys (April 2020–March 2021) found that about 42 percent of Canadians were vaccine-hesitant. They tended to be:
women, those aged 50 and younger, non-white … with high school education or less … with annual incomes below the poverty line … essential health care workers, parents of children under the age of 18, those who do not get regular influenza vaccines [and] … having high personal financial concerns.
Lavoie et al. 2022, 1
They also found variation over time, with vaccine hesitancy highest during pandemic wave two (just before vaccine approval) and lowest during waves one and three. Benham et al.’s (2021, 13) cross-sectional survey, conducted October/November 2020 (prior to vaccine approval), found that about 64 percent of Canadians were hesitant. Vaccine hesitancy was associated with younger age (18–39 years), lower education, and non-Liberal political leaning. The hesitant also tended to believe that the vaccine would not end the pandemic, were concerned about side effects, were less influenced by peers or health-care workers, and had less trust in government.
Capurro et al.’s (2022) qualitative study of COVID-19 vaccine uptake in Manitoba’s Southern Health Region (SHR) found that “religious and conservative views” were one of three drivers of hesitancy—the others being “risk perceptions about COVID-19” and “distrust in government and science” (7280). The SHR is Manitoba’s Bible Belt and includes strict religious communities such as Mennonites and Hutterites. In their online focus groups, most participants were vaccine accepting and discussion of religion was mainly about their perceptions of others’ vaccine hesitancy/resistance, not their own. Some participants had concealed their intentions to receive the vaccine from religious relatives. Participants also “expressed frustration with local religious groups who do not comply with public health guidelines … [and] noted Christian leaders were influencing the wider population to not follow preventive measures” (7286).
Relatedly, some participants in the freedom convoy protests (January–February 2022) in the capital, Ottawa, and other major cities invoked Americanized discourses of religious freedom and Christian persecution. Cross-border truck drivers and sympathizers objected to vaccine mandates for entering the USA, with protests expanding to encompass all COVID-19 restrictions. Protesters used symbols like Gadsden flags, Confederate flags, the Star of David, and images of Donald Trump, as well as slogans such as “Unvaccinated lives matter” and “The un-vaxxed are Rosa Parks” (Dick 2024, 10). These symbols and discourses convey a sense of white superiority and persecution, as well as an appropriation of the struggles of African Americans. One of the Canadian organizers’ messages was that “Our leaders have forgotten that this country recognizes God as supreme … Even our Charter of Rights acknowledges the supremacy of God. And so our presence here is a way of reminding them of that” (Dick 2024, 6). Dick called this “a distinctly Canadian form of Christian nationalism, rooted in the Charter and its preamble” (6).
In sum, while many quantitative studies of vaccine hesitancy/resistance in Canada did not consider religious factors, some qualitative studies recognized the potential relationship between vaccine hesitancy/resistance and conservative Christianity (Protestant and Roman Catholic). As in Germany, there is more room for investigation of links between religion, belief in conspiracy theories, and support for right-wing politics.
4 Methods
RECOV-19 is a multi-method study, with different methods providing diverse perspectives on the research questions. This article discusses results obtained through qualitative content analysis of public documents produced by religious institutions and by religious media, text mining of public documents, leaders’ and members’ questionnaires, and interviews with leaders and members.3
This article is concerned with how (primarily) Christian groups presented their perspectives on vaccination. This is not only because previous research has noted links between Christianity and vaccine hesitancy/resistance, it is also because our methods yielded quite limited data from numerically smaller groups. However, the Anthroposophical Society in Germany is included, even though it is a philosophical rather than religious group. One of our main reasons for including the Anthroposophical Society was our awareness of public perceptions in Germany, which associated the group with antivaccination views and conspiracy theories. At the same time, it can be argued that the Anthroposophical Society is an institutionalized spiritual tradition which, like the churches in Germany, is involved in the health and education systems. As such, it is worth considering alongside religious groups.
Most of the findings in this article are drawn from qualitative content analysis of public documents (1,318 across all contexts) and religious media (800 across all contexts). Public documents were sourced from official websites and included press releases, official statements, news reports, and so on. The goal was to capture the official positions of high-level religious leadership. Religious media documents were sourced from the most important and widely circulated religious journalism sources in each context. The goal was to capture less institutionalized and more diverse internal discourses within religious groups. Examples in this article draw from data assigned to an “attitudes towards vaccination” code, which included pro, mixed, and antivaccination subcodes.
Text mining was used as a supplementary method to analyze public documents, with the aim of uncovering underlying patterns, associations, and themes, especially around vaccination discourses. The public documents were subjected to co-occurrence analysis, Word2Vec similarity scoring, and topic modeling. In this article I simply use text-mining results as a point of comparison to demonstrate the prominence of vaccination in public documents.
The article also includes results from the leaders’ and members’ questionnaires. The purpose of the questionnaires was to gain perspectives beyond official institutional positions, recognizing that both leaders (including ordained clergy) and members may disagree with their groups’ official statements and positions; we recruited both ordained and nonordained leaders. It consisted of sixty-two questions and was conducted online (Survey Monkey) between November 2023 and February 2024, with 1,333 leaders responding across contexts; it included four questions about vaccination. The members’ questionnaire had forty-five questions and was disseminated between February and September 2024, garnering 1,417 responses across contexts; it had two questions about vaccination. The results of the questionnaires are indicative rather than representative, because we relied on snowballing sampling through researcher networks and channels. Some of the most interesting insights from the questionnaire were gleaned from open-ended questions, where respondents could write in whatever they liked. This article presents some results from both questionnaires, including examples of write-in responses that revealed vaccine hesitancy/resistance.
Finally, we conducted 329 semi-structured group and one-to-one interviews (approximately eighty participants in each context), which provided more nuanced, in-depth perspectives on experiences of the pandemic than could be gleaned from our other methods. We applied the same coding framework to these interviews. Examples from interviews are included in this article to provide perspectives on ambiguities around vaccination.
5 Findings: Religions and Vaccine Advocacy
Our findings do not demonstrate a precise relationship between religion and vaccine hesitancy/resistance in each context or for different religions; rather, our findings demonstrate how different official religions position themselves on vaccination and how dissenting voices are expressed (or not).
Text mining of religious organizations’ public documents indicated that vaccination was a significant—if not dominant—topic. The percentage of public documents that included the term vaccines/vaccination at least once were Canada 20 percent, Ireland/Northern Ireland 11 percent, and Germany and Poland 10 percent. Documents were more frequent during periods of development and rollout. In Germany, the Anthroposophical Society’s total number of usages of the word vaccine and its derivatives was fifty-eight, across just forty-six public documents. One text published in 2021 used the word twenty-seven times. This indicates that the Anthroposophical Society may have felt it necessary to justify its position on vaccination.
However, qualitative content analysis of the same public documents as well as religious media indicated that discussion of vaccination was more limited. This is because many documents that mentioned vaccines/vaccination once, in passing, were included in the text mining but would not have been coded in the qualitative analysis, because the discussion was not significant. Table 1 presents the percentage of coded segments related to vaccination/vaccines in each context, demonstrating that it was a minority topic.
Table 1
Percentage of coded segments related to vaccination/vaccine
|
Public documents |
Religious media |
|
|---|---|---|
|
Canada (Roman Catholic) |
11 |
8 |
|
Canada (Protestant) |
6 |
0 |
|
Germany (Roman Catholic) |
1 |
0 |
|
Germany (Protestant) |
1 |
2 |
|
Germany (Anthroposophical Society) |
5 |
3 |
|
Ireland/NI (Roman Catholic) |
2 |
2 |
|
Ireland/NI (Protestant) |
3 |
7 |
|
Poland (Roman Catholic) |
20 |
29 |
|
Poland (Orthodox) |
0 |
3 |
Tables 2 and 3 present results from Roman Catholics and Protestants in the leaders’ questionnaire. Here I present just two descriptive examples of results of questions about vaccination, to demonstrate leaders’ own perceived role in promoting it (or not). The Roman Catholic results should be interpreted cautiously, because the number of respondents in each case was also low: 168 in Canada, 86 in Germany, 52 in Ireland/Northern Ireland, and just 33 in Poland. In contrast, for Protestant leaders there were 419 in Canada, 233 in Germany, and 190 in Ireland/Northern Ireland. Protestant leaders were less likely than Roman Catholics to think it was important to promote vaccination (Tables 2 and 3). In all contexts except Poland, 56 percent or more of Roman Catholic leaders saw their role as relaying messages from public authorities about the importance of getting vaccinated (Table 2). Similarly, in all contexts except Poland, 65 percent or more of Roman Catholic leaders felt that it was important to reassure people who were afraid of vaccination (Table 3).
Table 2
“Part of my role as a leader was to relay messages from public authorities about the importance of getting vaccinated” (% strongly agree/agree)
|
Canada |
Germany |
Ireland/NI |
Poland |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Roman Catholic |
65 |
60 |
56 |
42 |
|
Protestant |
51 |
51 |
33 |
N/A |
Table 3
“As a leader, I felt that it was important to reassure people who were afraid of vaccination” (% strongly agree/agree)
|
Canada |
Germany |
Ireland/NI |
Poland |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Roman Catholic |
67 |
70 |
65 |
48 |
|
Protestant |
51 |
66 |
46 |
N/A |
The analysis of public documents and religious media that follows provides deeper insights into how vaccine advocacy was justified. Roman Catholic and Protestant dissent from vaccine advocacy was rare and surfaced only occasionally in religious media or among some leaders’ and members’ responses to the questionnaires or in interviews.4 There were more striking variations in the discourses of the Polish Autocephalous Orthodox Church, which avoided speaking about vaccination, and the philosophical group, the Anthroposophical Society in Germany, which emphasized individual decision-making.
5.1 Roman Catholic Advocacy
Roman Catholic public documents and media offered almost unqualified support for vaccination. There were, however, initial concerns articulated by the Roman Catholic Bishops in Canada and Poland. In a document that was also signed by leaders of other denominations, the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops stated: “The subsequent manufacture of vaccines using such ethically tainted human cell lines demonstrates profound disrespect for the dignity of the human person” (CCCB 2020). In March 2021 the CCCB advised parishioners not to take vaccines that had been developed using cell lines from aborted fetuses. While the bishops clarified their comments a week later, urging vaccination, the Royal Society of Canada concluded that the impact of the bishops’ initial remarks on vaccine acceptance “is still unknown” (MacDonald et al. 2021, 15). The bishops also issued conciliatory statements that emphasized “strengthening the common good of our Canadian society” and assuring Roman Catholics that: “When no choice of vaccine is available, the AstraZeneca or Johnson and Johnson vaccine … can be used in good conscience with the certain knowledge that the use of such vaccines does not constitute formal cooperation with abortion” (CCCB 2021).
The Polish Bishops also initially signaled that Roman Catholics should not receive the AstraZeneca and Johnson and Johnson vaccines. The chairman of the Polish Bishop Conference’s (PBC) Expert Panel on Bioethics stated in April 2021: “Catholics should not accept vaccination with these vaccines, since there are others—the mRNA—that do not raise moral objections” (Konferencja Episkopatu Polski 2021).5 After objections from the Polish ministry of health, in July 2021 the PBC issued another statement supporting vaccines. The PBC described vaccines as a gift from God and urged people to receive them for the common good. Roman Catholic documents often referred to Pope Francis, who both received and promoted vaccination.
In general, the RCC’s public documents studiously ignored conspiracy theories and antivaccination campaigns. Similarly, articles in the Roman Catholic news media were almost universally positive toward vaccination and science in general. The center-right-leaning Irish Catholic published articles that related purely to scientific discussion around health and illness, with almost no discussion of religious debates. The inclusion of such articles suggests support for science, as in this pro-vaccination article from December 2020: “the scientists and the scientific world have worked hard to come up with this [vaccine]. Where is God? God is with these people at the moment” (Brady and Osborne 2020).
Likewise, in Canada’s Roman Catholic media, the use of fetal cells was discussed in some articles (slightly more than 1 percent of the segments)—a topic never mentioned in other groups’ media. The most critical articles asserted that vaccines developed using fetal cells were cooperating in evil. Articles that expressed hesitancy were more common during the first months of the pandemic, when vaccine availability was in the distant future. From 2021 onwards, articles published by The Catholic Register especially were much more positive about vaccination (about 3 percent of the coded segments) and encouraged it (Colin and Lefebvre 2023a, 12).
Similarly, Roman Catholic media in Poland and Germany were pro-vaccination, citing Pope Francis’s example, criticizing the spread of misinformation and conspiracy theories, and publishing stories about how churches and priests organized vaccine facilities in their parishes. While criticizing antivaccine standpoints, Roman Catholic media in Poland demonstrated some sympathies toward people’s doubts and concerns, particularly around fetal cells and the safety of the vaccines. German Roman Catholic media quoted theologians and church authorities who supported scientific findings and argued that those who refuse vaccination oppose faith and come near to supporting conspiracy theories. When Pope Francis and Pope Emeritus Benedict received vaccination, katholisch.de commented: “This is the right sign and a necessary signal into the church and out of it into society, because even among Catholics there are supporters of conspiracy myths and opponents of vaccination” (Hartmann 2021).
Finally, Roman Catholic media across contexts raised concerns about the inequitable distribution of vaccines worldwide.
5.2 Protestant Advocacy
Vaccine hesitancy/resistance has been observed cross-nationally within conservative evangelical subgroups, and among those who identify with Christian nationalism in the USA. Northern Ireland and Canada were the contexts most likely to contain subgroups that hold similar views. In Northern Ireland a 2023 survey, which was representative of the general population, found that 47 percent of practicing Protestant Christians and 21 percent of the population overall identified as evangelical (Ganiel and Soye 2024). This testifies to the presence of evangelicals within the three largest Protestant denominations, as well as in smaller, independent churches. Yet the public documents of the largest Protestant groups urged people to receive the vaccine, although an open letter from the General Secretary of the Methodist Church stated:
I also want to let you know that, along with the Presbyterian Church, we made a strong case that vaccination status would not be used as a criterion for attendance at church activities. It is a matter of principle for us that all are welcome because God’s love extends to all people, and that to exclude any group on the basis of their vaccination status runs counter to our theology and ethos.
Morris 2021
In Canada, documents of the United Church, Anglican Church, and Evangelical Fellowship of Canada (EFC) were provaccination. The United Church required all its ministry personnel to receive vaccination (Colin and Lefebvre 2023b, 25). The Anglican Church stipulated that baptisms, funerals, and weddings for the unvaccinated must be private. And the EFC, while making no official statements about vaccines, wrote in a letter to Ontario Premier Doug Ford that: “We remain hopeful that the vaccination of Ontarians as well as the restrictions currently in place will continue to significantly reduce the number of Covid-19 cases in our province” (Evangelical Fellowship of Canada 2020).
In Protestant media in Ireland/Northern Ireland, articles were pro-vaccination, echoing the official documents of the three largest churches. As the Methodist Newsletter stated: “We can see no moral or ethical grounds on which Methodist people should refuse the vaccine. Indeed, it is essential that there is as high an uptake as possible, in order to maximise the effectiveness of the vaccination programme at national level” (Morris 2021).
In contrast to denominations’ public documents, there was some discussion (and criticism) of conspiracy theories in Protestant media. Like in this article in the Church of Ireland Gazette, they were not discussed in detail, perhaps to avoid legitimating them:
I don’t intend to delve into the minds of anti-vaxxers—I have better things to be doing with my time than to go down that particular rabbit hole apart from praying that those who increasingly invest their time in such dangerous conspiracy theories may find a way out of the cognitive maze they find themselves trapped in—for their own good and the good of all those whom they may encounter.
O’Reilly 2022
Protestant media also informed readers of unequitable vaccine distribution across the world, with the Methodist Newsletter urging those who had received the vaccine to donate to the World Development and Relief Fund as a means of thanks.
The Presbyterian Herald discussed vaccination via coverage of motions entered at the 2021 General Assembly, the denomination’s decision-making body. The motions were that: (1) the General Assembly should speak against mandatory vaccinations at work (including health and social care); (2) there should be no vaccine passports required postlockdown (described as like living in a police state); and (3) no children should receive vaccinations without parental consent. Delegates voted down all motions. But the fact that such motions were brought indicates some opposition to the provaccination discourse of Presbyterians’ public documents. While our analysis did not include advertisements, we also noted that the Presbyterian Herald ran advertisements promoting the blog of an antivaccination advocate. The editorial decision to allow these ads further hints at some antivaccination sympathies within Presbyterianism (Ganiel and Ní Dhónaill 2024; Ní Dhónaill 2023).
In Protestant media in Canada vaccination was accepted and integrated within the discourses of religious actors and journalists. Articles in the Anglican Journal and Broadview advocated for the equal vaccine distribution among countries both as a matter of justice, and to end the pandemic as soon as possible. There was some debate about government proof-of-vaccination mandates for attending religious services. Anglican media noted division on the issue, with some church leaders willing to enforce it and others making it optional (Colin and Lefebvre 2023a). Similarly, articles in Chrismon, associated with the German Evangelical Church, presented vaccination as good, responsible, and rational behavior, and expressed concerns about unequitable vaccination across the world (Grünenthal 2023a).
5.3 Vaccine Ambiguity
The Polish Autocephalous Orthodox Church’s (PAOC) public documents do not discuss vaccination, and it was ambiguous about public health restrictions. Its documents framed the pandemic as being the result of sinful lifestyles and claimed that the best response was a renewal of faith. The PAOC also qualified its official compliance with restrictions via comments about receiving the Eucharist. The Chancery of the Holy Council of Bishops asserted that “the Holy Eucharist is the source of life, the health of soul and body, against which no disease has power” (Święty Sobór Biskupów Polskiego Autokefalicznego Kościoła Prawosławnego 2020)6 and argued that the Eucharist was necessary for those who were ill in hospitals or in home quarantine.
The PAOC monthly publication Wiadomości Polskiego Autokefalicznego Kościoła Prawosławnego acknowledged the effectiveness of vaccination. But this was mitigated by arguments that spiritual health and a relationship with God were more important than concerns about physical health. This outlet also quoted PAOC authorities who spoke metaphorically about vaccination. For example, Metropolitan Longin referred to Holy Eucharist as the “most effective and universal vaccine,” claiming that receiving the sacrament has the power “to kill sin, purify the soul, and heal and sanctify” (Ciełuszecki 2022).7 Similarly, Metropolitan Onufry called repentance the “vaccine of eternity,” stating that no matter how many vaccines one receives, everyone will eventually die (Ciełuszecki 2022).
In Germany there was a common public perception that the Anthroposophical Society was antivaccination (Sander, this issue). Its public documents addressed these accusations, claiming that this was not the case. The Anthroposophical Society is a philosophical movement. The German state does not recognize it as a religion, nor does the society wish to be recognized as such. But like churches, it is involved in the health and education systems. It had unique views on the origins and remedies for COVID-19. Its public documents explained how COVID-19 was a product of modern lifestyles, with the virus, the individual, and society as a whole depicted as one organism that affects and is affected by each other. Following the movement’s founder, Rudolf Steiner, publications recommended “spiritual-mental” remedies for the illness and expressed skepticism about science, with one text equating science with premodern trust in God:
The old faith in God of the pre-modern era is continued in the faith in science of the modern era and the present. In former times the pandemic came from God, today it comes from the virus. One is an afterlife superstition, the other is a this-world superstition … Our science-driven culture is in many ways more dogmatic and uncritical than the institutionalized Christianity to which it historically owes its existence.
Prof. Harald Schwaetzer quoted in Anthroposophischen Gesellschaft in Deutschland 20208
Although the Anthroposophical Society’s media had more direct references to vaccination than its public documents, their discussions could be ambiguous. Articles approved of vaccination for older people and at-risk groups, but they also strongly defended the freedom to decide whether to vaccinate, arguing that those who did not vaccinate should not be excluded from public life. There was almost no discussion of the social implications of vaccination: it was depicted as an individual decision, unrelated to the common good.
5.4 Hesitance/Resistance
Despite official religions’ support for vaccination, some hesitancy/resistance was expressed in interviews and answers to open-ended questions on our questionnaires. This demonstrates that the voices of official religions had challengers. It also dovetails with previous research that identifies religion as a factor in hesitancy/resistance. At the same time, not everyone who expressed hesitancy/resistance related this to their religion—they often had multiple reasons for their view.
For example, a Roman Catholic leader in the Republic of Ireland placed scare quotes around the word vaccine in his write-in response, challenging its validity and efficacy. His response is also marked by a lack of trust in the government and resentment about how the government treated religious people during the pandemic:
I believe that the mental and spiritual well-being of people was completely neglected by those in power (the Government) and I also believe there was a grave abuse of power by the Government trying to force people into taking an untested “vaccine” by basically vilifying and isolating those who took the personal decision not to get “vaccinated”—I for one (and there are many like me) will not forget how those of faith were treated during the pandemic.9
In Canada, some questionnaire responses from leaders of smaller denominations criticized government overreach and questioned the validity of vaccines, also employing scare quotes:
When I realized how foolish and dangerous masks and “vaccines” are, I didn’t cooperate anymore. I am ashamed that my denomination did not take a stronger stand against forced vaccines. I believe we were used to “police” or “enforce” what the government wanted, so they could claim it was a “choice.”10
Similarly, a pastor in the Foursquare Gospel Church of Canada complained that: “The federal government is guilty of over-reach into the personal lives of Canadians by forcing people to get an experimental vaccine which is against the Constitution of Canada” (Leaders’ questionnaire, Canada, Foursquare Gospel Church). Conversely, a Presbyterian minister in Northern Ireland complained: “I have had to contend with some very strong conspiratorial and antivaccine arguments, which I have felt very inadequate to handle” (Leaders’ questionnaire, Ireland/Northern Ireland, Presbyterian).
In Germany, a Protestant member reported that “I felt the pressure to get vaccinated due to comments made by some people … Politically, a vaccination recommendation would have sufficed here—not the condemnation of people who think differently about this” (Members questionnaire, Germany, Protestant); while a Catholic expressed skepticism about vaccination: “You don’t know whether the vaccine has left any lasting damage” (Members questionnaire, Germany, Roman Catholic).
In an interview, another Presbyterian minister in Northern Ireland described how others within his denomination “questioned the science” around face coverings and vaccination:
We did have some very public dissent, demonstrations of disquiet where individuals would have publicly refused to wear face coverings at large public gatherings … But by and large, I think there was an embracing of those measures in terms of vaccinations. We had to walk a very careful line on this.11
He concluded that the knowledge of conflicting views within Presbyterianism resulted in the denomination “not getting into” detailed debates on vaccination, so as not to unnecessarily alienate people: “The big moral issue was whether the biology that lay behind the production of the vaccines from Oxford in particular, involves the use of stem cells from unborn fetuses … And our view was—we’re not going to get into this” (Leaders interview, Northern Ireland, Presbyterian).
A Roman Catholic priest in Poland explained his own refusal to vaccinate with only limited resort to religious reasoning, although he alluded to ethical issues around the manufacture of vaccines:
Many of us [priests] were only vaccinated as newborns … So if I don’t vaccinate at all, why do I need to vaccinate now? … There were issues at least about the manufacturing of these vaccines. We discussed this—which company, whether you should or should not use that company. There were supporters of the need for vaccination. However, there were no fervent opponents … I never vaccinate myself. I’m not going to make a fool of myself this time either.12
In sum, hesitancy/resistance surfaced outside official channels and was expressed by both leaders and members. However, the relationship between religion and hesitancy/resistance is not straightforward. Respondents usually cited multiple reasons, including religious ones, for their doubts.
6 Conclusion
Previous research has indicated that in some contexts there is a relationship between religion and vaccine hesitancy/resistance. Nevertheless, worldwide, most Christian denominations advocated COVID-19 vaccination. In our study, Christian institutions in Canada, Germany, Ireland/Northern Ireland, and Poland advocated vaccination in their public documents; and Christian media largely echoed these sentiments. These sources ignored or discounted antivaccination voices and conspiracy theories. While our findings do not demonstrate a precise relationship between religion and vaccine hesitancy/resistance in each context or for different religions, our findings do confirm dissonances between official, institutionalized Christian discourses on vaccination and Christians who have religious (and other) reasons for their objections to vaccination.
Of course, what the official, public documents of churches claimed they believed about vaccination cannot be taken at face value. As results from our questionnaire indicate, some Christian leaders accepted scientific arguments about the necessity of vaccination and considered it their duty to communicate this with their followers. But we also found that a few did not accept the scientific arguments and questioned the validity of the vaccine. Others did not actively enforce state restrictions that they perceived as detrimental to religion. At the same time, by being seen to cooperate with the state by promoting vaccination, churches positioned themselves as important and responsible societal actors. In all contexts considered in our study, secularization is increasing when measured in terms of declining attendance among the largest churches, and the reduced social and political influence of institutional religions. The pandemic was in some ways an opportunity for churches to reclaim social significance by performing as model citizens, publicly prioritizing the common good.
Relatedly, Christians’ official, public discourses did not rely on biblical narratives, theodicies, or theology alone (Radde-Antweiler, this issue). Rather, they also appealed to scientific and generalized moral arguments, advocating for the common good. This likely reflects Christian leaders’ awareness that religious discourses must be moderated to be taken seriously in public spheres in secularizing, global north contexts (Ganiel and Ní Dhónaill 2024). Again, this positioned religion in public spheres as rational, reasonable, and ethical: public health via vaccination was depicted as a common good, even more important than guaranteeing religious freedom. It also suggests that in some contexts, religious institutions and leaders can be co-opted to participate in pro-vaccination campaigns.
Yet dissenting religious voices persisted, opposing vaccination on ethical grounds, including the use of fetal cells; or as a violation of religious freedom. Parishes and congregations also did not always heed instructions from their denominational leaders—for example, by not checking vaccine certificates or not enforcing social distancing restrictions. In this way, responsibility was shifted to individual members (rather than the churches themselves) to obey state directives. Finally, the churches’ relative lack of a public challenge to antivaccination voices hints that there may have been some fears that confronting those who opposed vaccination on religious grounds could have legitimized them or meant alienating and losing more followers. As such, Christian institutions’ vaccine advocacy was significant, but its impact may have been more limited than their discourses suggest.
RECOV-19 is a three-year multidisciplinary project that analyzes the roles of religions in societies emerging from the COVID-19 pandemic; specifically Canada, Germany, the island of Ireland, and Poland. It has three areas of investigation: (1) discourses about health, illness and science; (2) religions’ relationships with governments and policymakers; and (3) digital innovations.
As a region of the UK, Northern Ireland was not included in Our World in Data statistics. The figure for Northern Ireland comes from BBC News 2022.
For a detailed account of the project’s rationale, sources and methods, see Radde-Antweiler et al. 2026.
We do not provide percentages or numbers of respondents who voiced their dissent in questionnaires. Not all respondents chose to complete the write-in questions, so percentages or numbers would be misleading. What is more important here is that dissent was registered, and can be included as part of our qualitative analysis.
Translation in Rabiej-Sienicka and Kolodziejska 2023a, 17. Parts of these reports are available on request.
Translation in Rabiej-Sienicka and Kolodziejska 2023a, 19.
Translation in Rabiej-Sienicka and Kolodziejska 2023a, 26–27.
Translation in Grünenthal 2023b, 16.
Leaders questionnaire, Republic of Ireland, Roman Catholic.
Leaders questionnaire, Canada, Salvation Army.
Leaders interview, Northern Ireland, Presbyterian.
Leaders interview, Poland, Roman Catholic.
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