Rishard Khan

rishard.khan@guardian.co.tt

The Ro­man Catholic Church in T&T has man­dat­ed that cer­tain re­li­gious of­fi­cials be vac­ci­nat­ed. 

Ac­cord­ing to a pro­pos­al by the Arch­dio­cese of Port-of- Spain Health, Safe­ty and En­vi­ron­ment Team is­sued in Sep­tem­ber, the fol­low­ing mem­bers of its con­gre­ga­tions are man­dat­ed to be ful­ly vac­ci­nat­ed against COVID-19 be­fore per­form­ing their re­spec­tive du­ties in the church– Cel­e­brants i.e. priests, dea­cons, Eu­charis­tic min­is­ters or any­one dis­trib­ut­ing Holy Com­mu­nion, hos­pi­tal­i­ty-team mem­bers in­clud­ing those check­ing off at­ten­dees who pre-reg­is­tered, choir mem­bers and lec­tors.

While the man­date is not one hand­ed down by the Gov­ern­ment, Vic­ar of Com­mu­ni­ca­tions, Fa­ther Robert Chris­to told Guardian Me­dia the Church vol­un­tar­i­ly in­sti­tut­ed it in hopes to pro­tect against the spread of COVID-19 be­cause these are the peo­ple who are in con­stant con­tact with the pub­lic.

“It’s re­al­ly for those to elim­i­nate and mit­i­gate the spread of the virus for the health and pro­tec­tion of all...we be­lieve in the pro­tec­tion of hu­man life. Every­body else who are un­vac­ci­nat­ed, it’s their own choice and we wel­come you in­to the church and pre-reg­is­ter as nor­mal,” he said.

“It’s pro­tec­tion of life,” he added.

Fa­ther Chris­to said the church is not man­dat­ing any­one who wish­es to at­tend ser­vice be vac­ci­nat­ed.

He said they have mea­sures in place to help ed­u­cate any of their of­fi­cials who may refuse to be vac­ci­nat­ed. 

“We jour­ney with them. We bring in doc­tors and we have a coun­selling group...to ed­u­cate them and if af­ter that peo­ple have med­ical con­di­tions and we have to re­spect their rights,” he said.

For those who still wish to re­main un­vac­ci­nat­ed, he said, their de­ci­sion will be re­spect­ed but “ob­vi­ous­ly they know they can’t be in­ter­act­ing (with peo­ple) be­cause we are lit­er­al­ly burst­ing the bub­ble.”

So far, he said, peo­ple have been “very co­op­er­a­tive” with the pol­i­cy. He said the pol­i­cy is be­ing re­viewed week­ly. 

Mean­while, Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary of the  An­ju­man Sun­nat ul Ja­maat As­so­ci­a­tion (AS­JA) Rahi­mool Ho­sein, said there is no such pol­i­cy at the or­gan­i­sa­tion.

He said the or­gan­i­sa­tion has high­ly rec­om­mend­ed that its Imams get vac­ci­nat­ed which the ma­jor­i­ty of them have. 

Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary of the Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha (SDMS) Vi­jay Ma­haraj al­so told Guardian Me­dia there was no such man­date for its re­li­gious of­fi­cials.