VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – The Vatican has told employees they could possibly lose their jobs if they refuse to get a COVID-19 vaccine without legal health reasons.
A decision by Cardinal Giuseppe Bertello, effectively the governor of Vatican City, said a vaccine is ‘the responsible choice’ because of the risk of harming other people.
Vatican City, on 108 acres the smallest state in the world, has thousands of employees, most of whom live in Italy. The vaccination program began last month and Pope Francis, 84, was one of the first to get the jab.
The seven-page decision says that those who are unable to vaccinate for health reasons may find another position, presumably where they will have contact with fewer people, but will receive the same, even if the new post is a degradation.
But the decision said those who refused to get vaccinated without sufficient reason would be subject to a specific provision in a 2011 law on workers’ rights and duties.
According to the article in the 2011 law, employees who refuse “preventive measures” may be subject to “varying degrees of consequences that could lead to dismissal”.
The decision was signed on February 8 and later posted on the governor’s website.
Pope Francis is a big proponent of vaccines to stop the spread of the coronavirus.
“It’s an ethical choice because you gamble with your health and with your life, but you also gamble with the lives of others,” he said in an interview with an Italian television station last month.
The Vatican has made a COVID-19 vaccination mandatory for journalists accompanying Pope Francis to Iraq next month.
Bertello, who signed the decision, tested positive for coronavirus in December and is in self-isolation.
There were less than 30 cases of coronavirus in the Vatican City, most of them under Swiss guard, living in a communal barracks.
Reporting By Philip Pullella; Edited by Gareth Jones