‘Suicidal denial’: Pope Francis condemns the anti-vaccine protestors

While many people protest against the Covid vaccination, the Pope Francis, has urged people to be vaccinated against Covid-19. He himself would be inoculated against the virus next week when the Vatican begins its vaccination campaign, he declared.

He used the words ‘suicidal denial’ for the act of not receiving and campaigning against the Covid vaccine.

“There is a suicidal denial which I cannot explain but today we have to get vaccinated,” the Pontiff said in segments from an interview with Italian media outlet Canale 5 due to be broadcast in full on 10th January, Sunday.

The Vatican vaccination entreaty came on the same day Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II and her husband Prince Philip received their Covid jabs. The Queen is customarily private with regard to her personal health but broke with tradition to make public the inoculations, a move likely to meet with the Pope’s approval.

What unequivocally hasn’t met with his approval is the mob attack on the US Capitol on Wednesday which he deemed antithetical to the democratic traditions of the United States. “This must be condemned, this movement, regardless of the people involved,” he said, on the day that US Democrats started to mobilise in a bid to impeach the outgoing president, Donald Trump.

He did see some cause for hope, however, thanking God that “this exploded [into the open] so it can be seen, so it can be remedied.” “Violence is always like this, isn’t it? No population can boast of not having one day a case of violence. It happens in history. But we must understand well, so as not to repeat it, learn from history, learn that groups…that are not well integrated into society, sooner or later will have these eruptions of violence.”