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<h1>New note: Vatican employees might not be fired for COVID vaccine refusal, after all</h1>
<div>A decree signed in early February had indicated otherwise.</div>
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<span>Fri Feb 19, 2021 - 5:53 am EST</span></div><div><span><a href="https://www.lifesitenews.com/blogs/new-note-vatican-employees-might-not-be-fired-for-covid-vaccine-refusal" target="_blank">https://www.lifesitenews.com/blogs/new-note-vatican-employees-might-not-be-fired-for-covid-vaccine-refusal</a></span>
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</div>VATICAN CITY, February 19, 2021 (<a href="https://www.lifesitenews.com/" target="_blank">LifeSiteNews</a>) — <span style="background-color:rgb(208,224,227)"><b>Following the publication, on Wednesday, of LifeSite’s story about the Vatican’s employees</b></span> <span style="background-color:rgb(234,209,220)"><b>being <a href="https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/vatican-city-state-issues-decree-suggesting-those-who-refuse-covid-vaccine-may-lose-their-jobs" target="_blank">threatened with losing their jobs</a></b></span><span style="background-color:rgb(208,224,227)"><b>
if they refuse the COVID-19 experimental vaccine without a valid health
reason, many major online media</b></span> including Reuters and the BBC, as well
as <a href="https://www.rainews.it/dl/rainews/media/Vaticano-chi-rifiuta-il-vaccino-rischia-il-licenziamento-7d293e82-3fa3-4aa5-b5b2-4b1463e75112.html#foto-1" target="_blank">Italian sources such as RAINews</a>, c<span style="background-color:rgb(208,224,227)"><b>ame out with headlines this Thursday confirming that “anti-vaxxers” faced <span style="background-color:rgb(234,209,220)">being fired.</span></b></span><div><div><div>
<p><span style="background-color:rgb(208,224,227)"><b>The news triggered many negative reactions on social media — so much
so that cardinal Giuseppe Bertello, governor of the Vatican City State
who signed the decree ordering compliance with anti-pandemic measures
was compelled to publish an official note on Thursday in response.</b></span></p>
<p>The note said that for those who simply refuse the (experimental)
vaccine,<span style="background-color:rgb(208,224,227)"><b> the new measures will “allow to find alternative solutions for
the performance of work by the person concerned.”</b></span></p>
<p>As a matter of fact<span style="background-color:rgb(208,224,227)"><b>, the decree signed February 8 by Cardinal
Bertello </b></span>did not provide for anything of the sort. It <span style="background-color:rgb(208,224,227)"><b>only said that<span style="background-color:rgb(208,224,227)">
alternative tasks would be found for </span>workers who “for proven reasons of
health” could not receive the jab.</b></span></p>
<p><span style="background-color:rgb(208,224,227)"><b>I</b><span style="background-color:rgb(255,255,255)">n its article 6 regarding employees</span></span><span style="background-color:rgb(255,255,255)">, §1 provided for those who
refuse the vaccine for valid health reasons, while §2 referred those who
“without proven health reasons” would refuse to undergo vaccination to
article 6 of a previous Vatican City State law of November 18, 2011, <a href="https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/labour_office/docs/documents/ulsa_b19_3_it.html" target="_blank">that reads</a> (in full):</span></p></div></div></div><blockquote><span style="background-color:rgb(255,255,255)">
</span><p><span style="background-color:rgb(255,255,255)">The refusal to undergo required preventive or periodic assessments
and mandatory health checks, as well as the refusal to undergo the
continuation of preventive, periodic or mandatory health checks that
have already begun, entail different degrees of consequences for
employees, which may extend to termination of employment. For candidates
for employment, this is equivalent to the renunciation of the
establishment of an employment relationship.</span></p>
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<p>It can be argued that receiving a vaccine cannot be considered as a
“preventive assessment” or “health check,” but why, then, explicitly
refer to these provisions in relation with those who refuse the
experimental vaccine if they did not apply? And if they do,
“termination” of the work contract was clearly in the cards, and <span style="background-color:rgb(234,209,220)"><b>there
was no mention at all of <span style="background-color:rgb(255,242,204)">finding ways to protect <span style="background-color:rgb(207,226,243)">the Vatican workers’ —
some 5,000 individuals —</span> personal liberty and freedom of choice</span>.</b></span></p>
<p>Cardinal Bertello’ note looks very much like a form of damage
control.<span style="background-color:rgb(255,242,204)"> </span><span style="background-color:rgb(208,224,227)"><b><span style="background-color:rgb(255,242,204)"><u><span style="background-color:rgb(208,224,227)">Hopefully, </span></u><span style="background-color:rgb(208,224,227)">his backpedaling will ensure that</span></span><span style="background-color:rgb(208,224,227)"> </span>Vatican employees<span style="background-color:rgb(208,224,227)">
will not </span><span style="background-color:rgb(234,209,220)">be deprived of</span> their livelihoods <span style="background-color:rgb(208,224,227)">for saying no </span>to the
“vaccine.”</b></span></p>..........<br><p><span style="background-color:rgb(255,255,255)">However, article 6 of the 2011 law mentioned once again by Cardinal
Bertello only speaks of “different degrees of consequences” that may be
entailed by refusal to comply with health requirements, “up to the
termination of the employment relationship” — being fired, in plain
English. “Freedom of choice” and the “absence of repression” are nowhere
to be found in the 2011 text.</span></p>
<p><span style="background-color:rgb(255,255,255)">The eventuality of being fired was certainly not </span>set aside by the
cardinal’s COVID-19 decree (because that is what it essentially is),
whose general form is that of a repressive, if not penal text, in that
it provides for administrative fines for all other transgressions of
COVID-19 measures, and refers to possible job loss regarding the refusal
of the experimental jab.</p>
<p><span style="background-color:rgb(208,224,227)"><b>Cardinal Bertello’s note of clarification is reassuring — but it is
<span style="background-color:rgb(234,209,220)">merely</span> a note, and would not measure up to the strict interpretation of
Vatican State norms and the February 8 decree as they stand.</b></span></p>
<p><i><span>LifeSiteNews has produced an extensive COVID-19 vaccines resources page. </span><a href="https://lifefacts.lifesitenews.com/covid-19/" target="_blank">View it here.</a></i></p> <br></div></div></div><div id="gmail-m_-4828163485220747080gmail-m_-7821223715114898845DAB4FAD8-2DD7-40BB-A1B8-4E2AA1F9FDF2"><table style="border-top:1px solid rgb(211,212,222)"><tbody><tr><td style="width:55px;padding-top:18px"><br></td><td style="width:470px;padding-top:17px;color:rgb(65,66,78);font-size:13px;font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;line-height:18px"><br></td>
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