A Polish bishop has asked priests to carry proof of their COVID-19 vaccination status with them while making traditional pastoral visits to people’s homes after Christmas.
According to a set of instructions issued this week by Jacek Jezierski, the bishop of Elbląg in northern Poland, people receiving their parish priest have “the right to make sure that [he] is vaccinated”.
“That is why the priest should have a Covid passport on him. The faithful may refuse a pastoral visit if the priest is not vaccinated,” said the announcement, published on the diocese website.
The bishop added that those who refused a visit during the pandemic should not be seen as “cutting off links with the parish and its priests”. Parishes will hold special masses allowing people to receive an equivalent blessing, reports the Polish Press Agency (PAP).
For those who opt for home visits, these should be held with a clear prior invitation and no one else should participate to minimise the risk of infection. The meeting should last for a maximum of 15 minutes.
The head of Poland’s Catholic episcopate, Stanisław Gądecki, earlier this year called vaccines a “gift from God” and “an important tool in reducing the spread of infection and…returning to the normal functioning of societies”.
The Catholic church in Poland has, however, expressed “serious moral objection” to the the AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson vaccines, due to the fact that they were produced using material derived from aborted foetuses. It urged the faithful to instead seek Pfizer and Moderna vaccines if possible.
Last year Poland’s Catholic episcopate warned that the traditional pastoral visits by priests to people’s homes after Christmas would be restricted in many places. The government had also restricted family gatherings to five guests from outside the household.
After surging in October and November, coronavirus infections are currently falling in Poland. The country has not yet, however, been hit with a large number of Omicron cases, with the first being detected on Thursday.
The government has this month introduced a number of restrictions in response to the rise in cases. That has included limiting places of worship to 30% of their maximum capacity.
Fully vaccinated people are not included in those limits, but the Catholic church has – like many businesses – noted that there is no legal basis for checking someone’s vaccine status.
Main image credit: EpiskopatNews/Flickr (under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
Maria Wilczek is deputy editor of Notes from Poland. She is a regular writer for The Times, The Economist and Al Jazeera English, and has also featured in Foreign Policy, Politico Europe, The Spectator and Gazeta Wyborcza.
