Vincentian Family Resolution about the Lack of Vaccines to Eradicate COVID-19

We, members of the International Vincentian Family Executive Committee, representing leaders of 160 branches of the Vincentian Family Movement, express our deep concern about the lack of vaccine to eradicate COVID-19, especially in poor countries.

We know that COVID-19 has claimed millions of lives. The health and economic wellbeing of millions more have been compromised. Many businesses, both large and small, have gone bankrupt creating havoc in the job market. And governments have needed to allocate millions of dollars to combat all aspects of this disease.

A comprehensive international program of mass vaccination against COVID-19 would necessarily diminish and eventually eliminate its impact upon us.

The Vincentian Family, which is composed of over 4 million men and women living in 161countries, works to help vulnerable individuals, especially the infirm, refugees, children, the elderly and the unemployed. We are inspired by Saint Vincent de Paul who taught us to how to serve our sisters and brothers as did Jesus, the evangelizer of the poor.

Today, we lift our voice and ask the countries of the world, those who have more vaccines and more economic resources, to open their hearts and donate some of their vaccines to the countries which are most in need of them. At the present time, only 1% of the people living in developing countries have been vaccinated.

27 September 2021

* This resolution, drafted by Father Andrés Motto C.M. (CGI’s spiritual advisor), was put forward upon the suggestion made by the SSVP’s Council General International to the International Vincentian Family’s Executive Committee.