Health care workers answer questions about the COVID-19 vaccines.
Latinx health care workers discuss their Catholic faith, community and getting vaccinated.
I was raised Catholic. My parents were devout Catholics. You know, tremendous faith, which they instilled in us and quite frankly, I saw their faith in action through some hard times.
For me, my religion at this point in time has been solidified in the sense that I view protecting myself and my community and my fellow human beings as part of my duty and my mission as a Catholic, as a Christian, as a person of faith.
And having that to hold on to gives us more hope, gives us more strength. And it gives us a sense of being able to know that this will be over.
I have total confidence in the vaccines that exist today. One of the first thing I can tell the community is I wouldn’t ask them to do something that I wasn’t already doing myself or with my family. Fortunately, now my daughter and her mom are also immunized. So it starts with my family.
The Pope himself has said, we live at a time of a pandemic where the most important thing is to protect each other and to protect community.
When somebody is going to get the COVID vaccine and they’re that afraid, and they feel that they want to say a prayer, or they want to hold the rosary. And I tell them, “Yes, we can do that. If you want us to take a couple of minutes and do a nice little prayer so that you feel more comfortable, I’m happy to do that with you. If you want to borrow my rosary, I always have one in my pocket. I’m happy to share it with you.”
I’ve been telling my families, “Listen, peace of mind. Let’s think about that. Peace of mind. Let’s think about that protection for yourself and for your family.
I took that appointment as soon as I could get it. No questions asked because I knew that this was going to be a way for me to help our public. And again, to be able to go back to what normalcy we’ve all known.
I’m a people person. And so getting together with family, I miss that. But to me, my community is my family too. And so being able to immerse myself in the community is something I really sorely missed.
I want to be able to go to mass and sit next to someone and pray together with someone and hold hands like we used to hold hands and pray for our futures together without worrying about this virus.
