In an interview with Italian television channel Canale 5, Pope Francis announced that he would be vaccinated next week, saying that opposition to the COVID-19 vaccine showed a “suicidal negativity.”
“Next week, we will start the vaccination here [in the Vatican]. I have made an appointment, I have to do it,” he said in an interview to be aired on Sunday.
Regarding the vaccine, “there is a suicidal negativity that I cannot explain but today we need to be vaccinated.”
“I believe that from a moral point of view, everyone should be vaccinated. It is an ethical choice because you are gambling with your health, with your life, but you are also gambling with the lives of others,” he explained in this interview.
“When I was a child, I remember there was the polio epidemic, many children were paralyzed and we were desperately waiting for the vaccine. When the vaccine came out, they gave it with a bit of sugar,” recalled the Pope. “Then we grew up in the shadow of vaccines, against measles, against this, against the other, vaccines they gave to children.”
“I don’t know why some people say, ‘No, the vaccine is dangerous,’ but if physicians present it to you as something that will do good, that doesn’t carry particular dangers, why not take it?” wondered Pope Francis.
Pope Francis said he was “amazed” by US Capitol attack
Pope Francis said that he was “surprised” by the attack on the US Capitol on Wednesday by supporters of President Donald Trump and denounced the violence as an attack on democracy.
“I was amazed, because they are a people who are so disciplined in democracy,” said the Pope in an interview with Italian television channel Canale 5, making his first public comment on the events on Capitol Hill in Washington DC.
“Even mature societies can have flaws, and there are often people who take a path against the community, against democracy, and against the common good,” he said.
“This move must be condemned,” said Pope Francis, “It must be well understood so that it is not repeated and (the world) is taught by history.”
Source: ANA-MPA