The Society of Jesus Calls forJustice in the Global Allocation of COVID-19 Vaccines

As COVID-19 vaccination campaigns accelerate in the world’s wealthiest countries, the Society of Jesus joins the calls for concrete efforts to ensure an equitable and just vaccine allocation framework. Currently, 87% of administered vaccines have gone to high-income or upper-middle income countries while low-income countries have received only 0.2% of available vaccines.

In the encyclical Fratelli Tutti, Pope Francis invites us to realize that we are all in the same boat, but emphasizes the existing inequalities exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. He highlights how the world’s nations have failed to cooperate in ensuring a just distribution of resources, especially among our least advantaged sisters and brothers. He urges us to ensure that all people have equal access to care.

Fr. Arturo Sosa, Superior General of the Society of Jesus, affirms: “COVID-19 is showing us that we are one humanity and how overcoming a crisis is possible when we become aware of the importance of looking after the common good and taking seriously our own individual responsibility. We can only live as one body.”

The Society of Jesus supports the following actions:

• Urge those countries still blocking the proposal for a temporary waiver of patent rights to support it so as to expand and speed up the production and distribution of life-saving technologies, medication and vaccines
• Encourage all countries to prioritize distribution of vaccines to the most vulnerable among their own citizens
• Urge wealthy countries to fill funding gaps for the COVAX initiative and to share surplus vaccines from their own stockpiles
• Call on International Financial Institutions and private creditors to cancel the debts of low and middle income countries to allow them to respond to and recover from the pandemic

Click here to read the the full statement