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Vatican introduces three days of paid paternity leave for employees

March 1, 2022 Catholic News Agency 1
Pope Francis blesses a baby at the General Audience in St. Peter’s Square on Nov. 22, 2017. / Daniel Ibanez/CNA.

Vatican City, Mar 1, 2022 / 05:55 am (CNA).

The Vatican on Tuesday amended its law to include three days of paid paternity leave for employees who have a new child through birth or adoption.

The March 1 rescript, which was approved by Pope Francis in December 2021, added an article to the Vatican’s 2017 law on family benefits for lay employees.

The law already included five months of paid maternity leave, in line with Italy’s national maternity leave policies.

The law also foresaw a transfer of maternity leave to the father in the circumstance that the mother died or was physically incapacitated after birth.

From March 1, an employee who is a new father — through birth, adoption, or fostering — will have the right to be off for three working days while receiving his full salary.

The article 10bis was added to the section on parental leave.

The Vatican on Tuesday also updated the General Regulations of the Roman Curia to introduce the possibility of offering “on-call work contracts,” also sometimes called “intermittent work contracts.”

The “on-call work contracts” are a subcategory of the “fixed-term contracts” already offered by the Roman Curia and included in the general regulations.

“For the performance of discontinuous or intermittent services, for technical, organizational or replacement needs, or if in particular periods the need arises for not predetermined services, the Authorities in charge of the individual Entities may stipulate fixed-term contracts denominated ‘on call,’ provided that they are within the limits of its own budget,” the new article states.

The law also says that on-call work contracts should not exceed 665 days of work within a five-year period. Personnel employed under such contracts will be enrolled in the Vatican’s pension fund, but under a separate management.

Both of Tuesday’s texts were signed by the Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin, who said that Pope Francis had granted the incorporation of the new articles into existing Vatican and Holy See law in a meeting with him on Dec. 13, 2021.

Parolin said that the law on intermittent work contracts would go into effect as soon as the separate management within the pension fund has been set up.

[…]

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News Briefs

Pope Francis reportedly tells Order of Malta leaders there is ‘no urgency’ to complete reforms

February 28, 2022 Catholic News Agency 1
Pope Francis meets with the Order of Malta’s Fra’ Marco Luzzago on June 25, 2021. / Vatican Media

Vatican City, Feb 28, 2022 / 10:05 am (CNA).

Pope Francis reportedly told leaders of the Order of Malta on Saturday that there is “no urgency” to make a final decision on long-awaited reforms.

Marwan Sehnaoui, the chairman of the steering committee for the constitutional reform process, said in a letter that the Feb. 26 meeting at the Vatican was focused on the sovereign order’s ongoing reform.

According to Sehnaoui, Pope Francis opened and closed the two-hour discussion by underlining that ultimately he himself would decide on the “critical issues regarding the order’s constitutional reform.”

“Pope Francis listened carefully to the presentations and interventions of both sides. After the exchange of views, the Holy Father said that there is no urgency in making a final decision. His Holiness also said that he wishes to gather and review more information and that he would probably convene another audience,” Sehnaoui said in his letter.

The papal meeting included the Lieutenant of the Grand Master Fra’ Marco Luzzago, as well as the papal delegate Cardinal Silvano Maria Tomasi, who is overseeing the drafting of the new constitution.

In a statement following the Feb. 26 meeting, Tomasi said that the participants in the meeting had presented to Pope Francis how the proposed reform “maintains and better frames the order in its characteristic of a religious lay order and allows for the continuation of its charitable, diplomatic, and humanitarian action.”

Tomasi said that Pope Francis had granted the Order of Malta another audience, after which the pope will decide on the projects they have presented to him.

The Sovereign Military Order of Malta, as it is officially known, is both a lay religious order of the Catholic Church and a subject of international law. In 2017, Pope Francis ordered reforms of both the order’s religious life and its constitution.

The reform entered a decisive stage in January, when a leaked draft of the order’s new constitution appeared to reveal that the order would be made a subject of the Holy See — a provision that critics said could jeopardize the order’s sovereignty and its bilateral relations with 112 states, as well as its permanent observer status at the United Nations.

But after talks with a Vatican delegate, the order’s Grand Chancellor Albrecht von Boeselager said he had been assured that the order’s sovereignty and right of self-governance were not in danger.

[…]

No Picture
News Briefs

Pope Francis reportedly tells Order of Malta leaders there is ‘no urgency’ to complete reforms

February 28, 2022 Catholic News Agency 3
Pope Francis meets with the Order of Malta’s Fra’ Marco Luzzago on June 25, 2021. / Vatican Media

Vatican City, Feb 28, 2022 / 10:05 am (CNA).

Pope Francis reportedly told leaders of the Order of Malta on Saturday that there is “no urgency” to make a final decision on long-awaited reforms.

Marwan Sehnaoui, the chairman of the steering committee for the constitutional reform process, said in a letter that the Feb. 26 meeting at the Vatican was focused on the sovereign order’s ongoing reform.

According to Sehnaoui, Pope Francis opened and closed the two-hour discussion by underlining that ultimately he himself would decide on the “critical issues regarding the order’s constitutional reform.”

“Pope Francis listened carefully to the presentations and interventions of both sides. After the exchange of views, the Holy Father said that there is no urgency in making a final decision. His Holiness also said that he wishes to gather and review more information and that he would probably convene another audience,” Sehnaoui said in his letter.

The papal meeting included the Lieutenant of the Grand Master Fra’ Marco Luzzago, as well as the papal delegate Cardinal Silvano Maria Tomasi, who is overseeing the drafting of the new constitution.

In a statement following the Feb. 26 meeting, Tomasi said that the participants in the meeting had presented to Pope Francis how the proposed reform “maintains and better frames the order in its characteristic of a religious lay order and allows for the continuation of its charitable, diplomatic, and humanitarian action.”

Tomasi said that Pope Francis had granted the Order of Malta another audience, after which the pope will decide on the projects they have presented to him.

The Sovereign Military Order of Malta, as it is officially known, is both a lay religious order of the Catholic Church and a subject of international law. In 2017, Pope Francis ordered reforms of both the order’s religious life and its constitution.

The reform entered a decisive stage in January, when a leaked draft of the order’s new constitution appeared to reveal that the order would be made a subject of the Holy See — a provision that critics said could jeopardize the order’s sovereignty and its bilateral relations with 112 states, as well as its permanent observer status at the United Nations.

But after talks with a Vatican delegate, the order’s Grand Chancellor Albrecht von Boeselager said he had been assured that the order’s sovereignty and right of self-governance were not in danger.

[…]