Vatican City State issues decree suggesting those who refuse COVID vaccine may lose their jobs

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By Jeanne Smits, Paris correspondent

VATICAN CITY, LifeSiteNews:

The Vatican City State – the Holy See’s independent city state – recently issued a decree that includes COVID-19 vaccination among the measures its authorities can use in order to fight the current “public health emergency.” While the decree does not explicitly make taking a COVID-19 vaccine mandatory in the Vatican and attached territories, it does suggest that people employed by the Holy See or the Roman Curia could lose their job if they fail to take the jab.

The decree, available here (in Italian only) on the Vatican City State website, does not mention COVID-19 but any “public health emergency” defined, quoting the World Heath Organization’s 2001 text, as “an event or imminent threat of a disease or health condition, caused by bioterrorism, epidemic or pandemic disease, or new and highly fatal infectious agent or biological toxin, epidemic or pandemic disease that poses a substantial risk to a significant number of human resources or results in injury or permanent or long-term disability.”

In the decree’s introduction detailing the motives for its publication, vaccination receives specific and even prioritized attention.

Considering that:

– providing a health response, taking the actions immediately necessary to respond to the pandemic, while also keeping in mind its long-term effects, is important so that a global and regenerative “healing” can take place,

– it is deemed that to undergo vaccination constitutes “the taking of a responsible decision, given that the refusal of the vaccine may also constitute a risk to others” and “that such a refusal could seriously increase risks to public health,”

– there is an urgent need to issue these provisions with the force of law, pursuant to Article 7, paragraph 2, of the Fundamental Law of the State of Vatican City, of November 26, 2000. Vatican City State of November 26, 2000;

The following has been promulgated… 

This language clearly indicates that refusing the vaccine would imperil public health and that therefore the law is required to make sure that doesn’t happen. However, the decree appears to balk at calling the vaccine itself compulsory as such, insofar as its refusal is not explicitly listed among the acts that can entail an administrative fine. Fines from 25 Euros ($30) may be issued for the improper wearing of protective equipment such as masks, and fines of up to 1,500 Euros ($1,815) may be issued for failure to observe a mandated quarantine.

The decree’s seven pages mention the various measures that can and must be taken “to ensure the health and well-being of the work community while respecting the dignity, rights and fundamental freedoms of each of its members,” “according to the principle of necessity, taking into consideration the actual risk to public health and following the criteria of timeliness, appropriateness and proportionality.” These measures concern “citizens, residents in the State, (…) personnel serving in the Governorate of the Vatican City State and in the various bodies of the Roman Curia and of the Institutions linked to it.”

According to the decree, these measures include: 

·      the restriction of movement and assembly of people

·      physical distancing, isolation and quarantine

·      the adoption of special hygiene rules

·      protocols for the use of personal protective equipment (PPE

·      therapeutic protocols

·      vaccination protocols

Articles 5 and 6 of the Decree mainly regard the vaccine. Here below are their texts in full, as translated and highlighted by LifeSiteNews:

Article 5

(Biological agents)

§1. In the presence of situations of declared public health emergency, in addition to what is provided for in Article 19 of the Technical Regulations for the implementation of Law No. LIV on the protection of safety and health of workers in the workplace, the competent administration, in accordance with the opinion of the Directorate of Health and Hygiene, takes all necessary measures aimed at reducing the risk of exposure to biological agents and infection by them, including the provision and administration of vaccines scientifically considered adequate to reduce the impact of the spread and transmission of infection.

§2 The Superior Authority, in agreement with the Directorate of Health and Hygiene, in the event of a public health emergency declared in accordance with Article 12 of the International Health Regulations (2005), having assessed the risk of exposure to the biological agent and transmission of contagion, in the performance of work activities involving public service tasks, relations with third parties or posing a risk to the safety of the working community, may deem it necessary to implement a prophylaxis entailing the administration of a vaccine in order to protect the health of citizens, residents, workers and the work community.

Article 6

(Measures regarding workers)

§1. With due regard to what is provided for in §2 of Art. 5, the Administration may assign, for the period of the above-mentioned risk, the worker who, for proven reasons of health cannot undergo the administration of the vaccine, to other tasks, equivalent or, if not available, lower, guaranteeing the economic treatment corresponding to the tasks of origin.

§2 The measures referred to in §2 of Art. 5 are tantamount to preventive, periodic and ex officio health checks, which are the responsibility of the Directorate of Health and Hygiene. Therefore, the worker who without proven health reasons refuses to undergo them is subject to the provisions of art. 6 of the Rules for the Protection of Human Dignity and Fundamental Rights to be observed regarding health checks in view of the recruitment of personnel and during the employment relationship, and Rules for the protection of employees suffering from particular serious diseases or in particular psychophysical conditions of November 18, 2011.”

Article 6, §1 is interesting. In saying that a worker who refuses the vaccine for “proven reasons of health” may be reassigned to a task in which he or she will not pose a risk to the health of others. But the text also implies that workers who refuse the vaccine without “proven reasons of health” and who are in a position to pose a risk to other “citizens, residents, workers and the work community” may not receive another task and payment. In other words, they would lose their job and income.

The task of intervening in the case of non-compliance with the public health measures imposed by the “Superior Authority” of the Vatican City State is assigned by the decree to its Gendarmerie Corps that can surveil and impose fines on non-compliant workers and residents.

The decree concludes with the words:

The original of the present decree, bearing the seal of the State, shall be deposited in the Archives of the Laws of the State of Vatican City and the corresponding text shall be published, in addition to the Supplement to the Acta Apostolicae Sedis, by being posted in the courtyard of San Damaso, on the doors of the offices of the Governorate and in the post offices of the State, instructing everyone concerned to observe it and to have it observed.

Vatican City, February eighth, two thousand and twenty-one.

(signed) Giuseppe Card. Bertello

Cardinal Bertello is the governor of the Vatican City State, having held the position since 2011.

Administrative fines are listed in an Annex to the decree. Vaccination is not mentioned: the fines apply to the transgression of rules regarding “prohibition of assembly”, obligation to use protective equipment and to use it “correctly,” “social distancing measures,” “fiduciary seclusion or quarantine,” “behavioral requirements” (the “rules of conduct in public places or places open to the public established by the measures issued by the competent authority”) and restrictions to circulation and movements (“violation of the limitations of circulation and displacements within the State, and in entry and exit to the same.”) 

These two last situations could theoretically bring a vaccine obligation into play. Getting the jab could, for example, could be construed as a “behavioral requirement.” time will tell whether that will be the case. As to restrictions to circulation and movements, these could also be interpreted as applying to Vatican residents who refuse a COVID-19 vaccine insofar as refusing to be vaccinated is presented by the decree itself as a potential hazard to public health.

All of this must be read in the light of two facts. The first is that, in the present sanitary emergency, over 99.95 percent of the population survives and most COVID-19 victims who actually die of the disease are very ill or very old and have a very short life expectancy. Second, the Vatican is using and distributing the Pfizer mRNA shot that was developed using cell lines derived from voluntary, late-term abortions.

And now the Vatican has become one of the first states to impose these vaccines on its own workers, under more or less veiled threats and with no mention of freedom and informed consent.