Vatican employees could lose their jobs for rejecting the COVID vaccine

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Rome – The Vatican has taken a hard line against employees who refuse to be vaccinated against COVID-19, warning that there is a risk of losing their jobs.

According to a decree by Cardinal Giuseppe Bertello, whose role as chairman of the Pontifical Commission for the State of Vatican City makes him the top administrator of the territory, employees who reject the vaccine “without proven health reasons “face sanctions that may include” termination of employment relationship. ”

Vaccination at the Vatican
A photograph provided by Vatican Media shows a room in the public atrium of Paul VI, prepared for a vaccination campaign against COVID-19 in the Vatican City State, on January 13, 2021 in the City of the Vatican.

Vatican Media / Getty


Vatican City is the smallest independent state in the world, located in the heart of Rome. It employs several thousand people, most of whom actually live outside the 100-acre walled territory and inside Italy.

Those who reside on the Vatican walls are usually elderly, such as 93-year-old retired Pope Benedict XVI and 84-year-old Pope Francis. pontiff was vaccinated against COVID-19 last month and has been a strong advocate of inoculation in the global fight against coronavirus.

“It’s an ethical choice because you play with your health, with your life, but you also play with the lives of others,” Francis told an Italian television network last month.

Vatican Christmas
Pope Francis celebrates Mass on Christmas Eve in St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican on December 24, 2020.

Vincenzo Pinto / AP


Bertello, who practices day-to-day work in the Vatican City, tested positive for coronavirus in December. Less than 30 people in the Vatican have contracted the disease.

Last month the Vatican began vaccinating homeless people cared for in the territory’s health and food facilities.

Under Francis, the Vatican has created several facilities to help Rome’s homeless population, offering areas for bathing and cutting their hair, as well as food and health care. This winter he began offering free COVID tests to migrants and the homeless, just below the window where the pope makes his Sunday Angelus prayer in St. Peter’s Square.

The Vatican begins vaccinating the homeless in Rome against COVID-19
A group of homeless people cared for in structures run by the office of papal charities are expected to receive the first dose of the coronavirus disease vaccine (COVID-19) at the Vatican on January 20, 2021.

Vatican Media / Brochure / REUTERS


Italy, formerly the epicenter of the global pandemic, is now struggling with a second wave worse than the first, as well as new variants of the virus such as the first discovery in the UK, which now accounts for one in five new cases.

More than 94,000 deaths have been blamed on the virus in Italy, the second highest death toll in Europe behind the UK.

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