The Vatican has announced that it will leave without pay workers who are absent for not having received the Covid vaccine. The Holy See will not let those who do not present the vaccination certificate go to work, which is why they will consider it an “unjustified absence” and will immediately suspend the salary of these workers.
This is deduced from the new decree of the Secretary of State, signed by the cardinal Pietro Parolin this Thursday 23 December.
According to the new provision, the obligation to present the so-called green passport applied to those vaccinated or those who have recently suffered the disease extends to all personnel of the dicasteries, bodies and offices of the Roman Curia and of institutions linked to the Holy SeeX
«Personnel without a valid green passport through vaccination against SARS-CoV-2 or recovery from SARS-CoV-2 will not be able to access the job and will be considered an unjustified absence, with the consequent suspension of the Remuneration for the duration of the absence ”, reads the new decree.
Since mid-October, the Vatican has been supplying the third dose of the vaccine to people considered vulnerable from a medical point of view and to those over 60, as confirmed in a brief statement by the director of the Press Office, Matteo Bruni.
These categories include both Pope Francis, who will turn 85 in December, and Benedict XVI, 94, who since he resigned from the Pontificate in 2013 has lived retired from the world in a convent located in the Vatican Gardens. Sources from the Holy See consulted by Europa Press have not specified whether the Pope and the Pope Emeritus have already received the third dose.
Both Francis and Benedict XVI completed the coronavirus vaccine schedule in February. The doses are supplied in a sector of the Paul VI Hall of the Vatican equipped with the logistics and health personnel necessary for the vaccination campaign in the small state, where some 5,000 people work and which has about 600 citizens, of which only 240 are residents.
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