Vatican City, Feb 18, 2021 / 08:30 am (CNA).- In a decree issued earlier this month, the cardinal who heads the Vatican City State said that employees who refuse to receive the COVID-19 vaccine when deemed necessary for their work could face penalties up to termination of employment.
The Feb. 8 decree from Cardinal Giuseppe Bertello, president of the Pontifical Commission of Vatican City State, gave Vatican employees, citizens, and officials of the Roman Curia regulations to follow intended to control the spread of the coronavirus on Vatican territory, such as wearing masks and maintaining physical distancing.
Failure to follow the regulations could result in fines.
“The health emergency must be addressed to ensure the health and well-being of the working community while respecting the dignity, rights and fundamental freedoms of each of its members,” the document, signed by Bertello and Bishop Fernando Vérgez Alzaga, states under article 1.
One of the measures included in the order is the Vatican’s COVID vaccine protocol. In January, the city state began offering the Pfizer-BioNtech vaccine to employees, residents, and Holy See officials.
According to Bertello’s decree, the supreme authority, together with the office of health and hygiene, “assessed the risk of exposure” to COVID-19 and its transmission to employees in carrying out their work activities and “may deem it necessary to launch a preventative measure which provides for the administration of a vaccine to protect the health of citizens, residents, workers, and the working community.”
The decree states that employees who cannot receive the vaccine for “proven health reasons” may be temporarily given “different, equivalent, or, lacking that, inferior duties” which present less risk of contagion, while maintaining their current salary.
The order also says that “the worker who refuses to undergo, without proven health reasons,” the administration of the vaccine “is subject to the provisions” found in article 6 of 2011 Vatican City norms on the dignity of the person and their fundamental rights regarding health checks in the employment relationship.
Article 6 of the norms says that a refusal can result in “consequences of various degrees that can go as far as the interruption of the employment relationship.”
Other than vaccination, the measures contained in the decree include limitations on gatherings of people and movement, the requirement to properly wear a mask and to maintain physical distancing, and to observe isolation if required.
The fines for failure to observe these measures mostly range from 25 to 160 euros ($30 to $193).
If someone is found to have broken a legal order to self-isolate or quarantine due to either having COVID-19 or having been exposed to it, the fine ranges from 200 to 1,500 euros ($242 to $1,812).
The decree deputizes the Vatican Gendarmes to intervene when they see noncompliance with the measures and issue the fines.
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I am not going where it will probably be considered too far in this venue, but Francis is not being moral here. Since at least Pope Leo XIII the Catholic Church has taught that a person has a natural right to work. In addition, I have read information to the effect that vaccine mandates were considered controversial when they first came out (early 20th century?). This was because a vaccination is a purposeful violation of one’s bodily integrity. As such, it appears that it was recognized that a person couldn’t be required to have this procedure performed on him, because it would be violating a natural right.
To subject anyone to punishment for asserting his rights is WRONG. It is a form of the vice of injustice.
While I don’t have any formal training in theology, my thoughts above (based on my reading) appear to be novel in the history of moral theology. Medical ethics if taught or considered by the Catholic Church up through the pontificate of Pope Pius XII didn’t appear to have issues with measures such as quarantines. Perhaps theologians didn’t think critically about these issues, but accepted what appeared to be sound arguments from the culture around them.
Health is wealth. Life is a precious gift. Taking care of one’s health and the health of the others is a moral responsibility. Mask and vaccine are helps to combat and defeat the corona virus.
You obviously don’t know very much about science doctor. There is no scientific basis whatsoever for your contentions. And the serum is not even proper to label a vaccine. And it is obvious that your moral thought makes no allowance for the lives sacrificed to create the serums.
No monkey pox for Papa!
Considering Biden and Fauci, both vaxxed and boosted, contracted Covid anyway, vsn we admit now the Branch Cobidian ideology is propahanda and stop forcing people to take it?