Church urged to help educate people about Covid-19 vaccines
Members working in health care and schools have an opportunity to counter resistance to vaccinations
Updated: April 29, 2021 05:39 AM GMT
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A medical worker holds a syringe and a vial of the Comirnaty vaccine by Pfizer-BioNTech against Covid-19 on April 22 at the San Giovanni Addolorata hospital in Rome. (Photo: Tiziana Fabi/AFP)
Members of the Catholic Church, especially religious working in health care and schools, have an important opportunity and duty to educate people about Covid-19 and to counter resistance to vaccinations, said an expert on the Vatican s COVID-19 commission.
Women religious and Catholic organizations who serve others every day and have people s trust are our best hope for safe and fair distribution of vaccines as well as the best tool for convincing people of the safety and importance of taking the vaccines, said Sister Carol Keehan, a nurse and Daughter of Charity.
Masanga, a hilly, isolated area in northwestern Tanzania has eight villages that mostly depended on unprotected springs for their water, shared with livestock. The Daughters of Charity arrived in 2007 and started a health center, St. Catherine’s School, a vocational training center, orphanage and more. These facilities and programs relied on rain water catchments or a 10-year-old borehole, but there were often shortages, especially in the dry season. (Courtesy of the Daughters of Charity)
As my office has responded to request after request to find funds to respond to the need for water in clinics, hospitals and schools, I have been stunned by the lack of access to this most basic resource in so many locations around the world. Children scooping up muddy water to carry to their families to drink is cringe-worthy enough, but internationally, one in four health care facilities do not have sufficient water, sanitation or hygiene resources. This puts more than 1.8 bil
Nations not working together seen as biggest failure of pandemic
Sister Carol Keehan, a Daughter of Charity, who is the former president and CEO of the Catholic Health Association, is pictured in an undated photo. (CNS photo/courtesy Catholic Health Association)
By Dan Stockman • Catholic News Service • Posted April 9, 2021
The coronavirus pandemic has exposed how unprepared the world is even wealthy, technologically advanced nations to work together to stop an urgent crisis, Sister Carol Keehan said.
Sister Keehan, a Daughter of Charity, who is the former president and CEO of the Catholic Health Association, told an April 7 World Health Day symposium on health equity that if the lessons of this pandemic are not learned, more people will needlessly die in future calamities.
New book by NIU professor, former student sheds light on towering roles of Irish Americans March 9, 2021
DeKalb, Ill. Just in time for St. Patrick’s Day, NIU History Professor Sean Farrell and his former doctoral student Mathieu Billings, now a faculty associate in history and political science at the University of Indianapolis, have a new book out titled, “The Irish in Illinois.”
How did the Irish help shape the Prairie State? Who have been some of the most unheralded Irish in state history? Where does Illinois rank in terms of its St. Paddy’s Day celebrations? Farrell and Billings have the answers.
Xavier Becerra listens during a confirmation hearing to be Secretary of Health and Human Services before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, Tuesday, Feb. 23, 2021 on Capitol Hill in Washington. (Sarah Silbiger/Pool via AP)
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