A December 2 webinar, “Building trust: religious leaders’ engagement in vaccine confidence,” highlighted the voices of global religious leaders who are listening with a keen ear in their communities – and leading by example.

Sister Agatha O Chikelue, executive director of the Cardinal Onaiyekan Foundation for Peace, said that if we really want our neighbours to stay healthy, we should take the vaccine. “As people of faith, we believe in collective responsibility,” she said. “We believe that we are responsible for each other. We believe that we are each other’s keeper.”

Dr Manoj Kurian, co-ordinator of the World Council of Churches Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance, reflected on building trust in vaccines, touching upon what helps strengthen trust and what tears it down.

Faith communities, he said, excel at carrying “value-based messages which bring hearts, hands and minds together.”

Thinking about what erodes trust in vaccines, Kurian cited “superstitious and harmful theologies,” and also underscored how vaccine inequity undermines trust.

“While 74% of the administered Covid-19 vaccines worldwide have been given in high, upper and middle-income countries, only 0.7% of doses have been administered in low-income countries,” he said. “The delay in the rollout is not only a moral failure, but also devastating public health, leading to the evolution of mutations, which may substantially reduce the usefulness of current vaccines.”

He also emphasised that we are part of an interconnected whole – one body – and we need to see the presence of the divine in the other, however different or distant they may be.

“To build trust we have to overcome injustice and inequality with love, compassion and empathy,” he said.

The webinar was part of a conference, “Strengthening national responses to health emergencies: WHO, Religious Leaders, Faith-based Organisations, Faith Communities and National Governments,” that is being co-organised by the World Health Organisation and Religions for Peace. It was also addressed by leaders from the Jewish and Islamic faiths, as well as Priestess Beatriz Schulthess, president of the Indigenous Peoples Ancestral Spiritual Council. (WCC)

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