Page 68 - Vaccines

Vaccines and Catholic morality

most extensive and incisive as yet adopted.⁵ Although
failure by employees to observe rules of behaviour in
force to protect the health of all concerned (such as
wearing masks, social distancing, etc.) would lead to
pecuniary sanctions, the refusal to be vaccinated except
for those where proven reasons of health justified this,
could lead to them being dismissed.⁶ It would be very

⁵ Cf. Decree of the President of the Pontifical Commission of the
Vatican City State in regard to the emergency in public health, 8ᵗʰ
February, 2021: “..., for the duration of the above-mentioned risk,
the Administration may assign the worker, who for proven reasons
of health, cannot be subjected to the administration of the vaccine,
to different, equivalent duties or, in the absence of the same, to
duties of a lower category ...” (art. 6 §1). “... Thus, the worker who,
without proven reasons of health, refuses to submit himself to (the
vaccination) is subject to the provisions of art. 6 of the Norms for
the protection of the dignity of the person and of their fundamental
rights to be observed in respect of investigations of health in view
of the employment of personnel and during the course of their
employment and ... of 18ᵗʰ November, 2011” (Ibid., art. 6 §2)—(my
translation); www.vatican.va/roman_curia/labour_office/docs/
(accessed 17ᵗʰ April 2021)
⁶ Secretariat of State, Rescript from the Audience with the Holy
Father, 15ᵗʰ February, 2011. “Norms for the protection of the dignity
of the person and of their fundamental rights to be observed in
respect of investigations of health in view of the employment of
personnel and during the course of their employment and ...”: “The
refusal to subject oneself to the preliminary or periodic examina-
tions which are required or to those demanded by a person’s office,
as well as the failure to continue with the(se) ... examinations, once
they have begun, will carry consequences for employees, in various
degrees, which may go to the point of the interruption of the
contract of work. For candidates for employment, this is equivalent
to abandoning the establishment of a contract of work” (art.
6)—(my translation); Decree of 18ᵗʰ November, 2011, confirming
the dispositions of the Rescript of Benedict XVI of 7ᵗʰ November,
2008, introducing these measures ad experimentum for three years;
www.vaticannews.va/it/vaticano/news/2021–02—accessed 17ᵗʰ
April, 2021).

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