In his message for the 29th World Day of the Sick, released on Jan. 12, Pope Francis argued that vulnerable people were unable to gain access to treatment amid the pandemic, which has claimed the lives of more than 1.9 million people worldwide.

The bishops' statement quotes Pope Francis’s message to the United Nations, in which the Holy Father says complete elimination of nuclear weapons is a “moral and humanitarian imperative."

In the motu proprio “Spiritus Domini,” issued on Jan. 11, the pope changed canon 230 § 1 of the Code of Canon Law to read: “Lay people who have the age and skills determined by decree of the Episcopal Conference, they can be permanently assumed, through the established liturgical rite, to the ministries of lectors and of acolytes; however this contribution does not give them the right to support or to remuneration by the Church.”

Pope Francis also discussed the increasingly diffuse social tendency to judge persons’ worth on the basis of “productivity” and to discard anyone “unproductive” – especially the sick, the elderly, and the unborn – a tendency he identifies as the chief characteristic of the “throwaway” culture.

"I urge [government] authorities and the entire population to maintain a high sense of responsibility," Pope Francis said Sunday, "in order to soothe tempers, promote national reconciliation, and protect the democratic values rooted in American society."

Speaking to Mediaset Tg5 journalist Fabio Marchese Ragona, in an interview that will air in its entirety on Sunday evening at 20:40 CET on the Italian network, Pope Francis said: "I believe that, ethically, everyone must take the vaccine." 

"Even in the most mature realities," Pope Francis went on to say, "there’s something that isn't right -- something that causes people to take to the streets against the community, against democracy, against the common good."

Powerful aftershocks have continued to rock central Croatia after the earthquake on 29 December, which struck roughly 30 miles southeast of Zagreb and measured 6.4 on the Richter scale.