“No one should be forced to receive a COVID-19 vaccine if it would violate the sanctity of his or her conscience,” Timothy Broglio, archbishop for the military services, said in a statement.

military said on Tuesday that Catholic troops could refuse the mandated Covid vaccine on religious grounds.

“No one should be forced to receive a COVID-19 vaccine if it would violate the sanctity of his or her conscience,” Timothy Broglio, archbishop for the military services, said in a statement.

Since Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin issued a military-wide vaccine mandate this summer, Broglio said, some service members have requested a religious exemption through the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

“This circumstance raises the question of whether the vaccine’s moral permissibility precludes an individual from forming a sincerely held religious belief that receiving the vaccine would violate his conscience,” he wrote