Vatican clamps down on smokers/Rome

BBC News ^ | 27 June 2002

[SheLion]

Vatican is getting tough on smokers, banning staff from smoking in offices from Monday onwards.

Smoking is already banned in public places.

The ruling applies to everyone from cardinals to cleaners, and comes on top of an existing ban on smoking in public places.

Effectively, smoking will now be banned indoors throughout the world's smallest state.

The tiny Vatican police force has the power to impose a 30-euro ($30) fine on any offender.

'Prohibetur Uti Fumo'

Pope John Paul II, a non-smoker, approved the new measure on 4 June.

Pope John XXIII smoked cigars

The law stipulates that "No Smoking" signs should be put up around the Vatican, fuelling speculation that they will be in Latin, the official language of the Catholic Church.

If so, they would read "Vetatur Fumare" (No Smoking) or "Prohibetur Uti Fumo" (the use of smoke is prohibited), speculates Father Reginald Foster, a Latin scholar who translated the Vatican's cash point machines from Italian into the language of ancient Rome.

The law does not mention whether the sale of cigarettes in the Vatican's shop will continue.

Prices in the shop, which is reserved for the state's 4,000 employees, are around half those in Italian shops.

Italy's fines

An Italian priest, Ugo Mesina, denounced the sale of cigarettes in the Vatican in a 1995 speech before the Pope and about 500 Roman priests.

Anti-smoking laws in Italy are already tough, with police issuing on-the-spot fines of up to $250 for smoking in public places.

All recent popes have been non-smokers, though the popular "smiling pope" John XXIII, who died in 1963, was a cigar smoker in his youth.

[Madame Dufarge]

Parties to the convention must subject periodic reports on implementation to the UN Committee against Torture.

This has got to be one of the funniest things I've read in ages.

I remember an old National Lampoon comic section from the 70's called "White Dove Comics" depicting U. N. "peacekeepers" parachuting into a war zone and producing Document 2311111.1./Section A(1) or something and demanding an end to the hostilities because the warring parties were signatories. It was hilarious.

I'd go dig it out of my attic and re-read it right now if it weren't 170 degrees up there.

[Gabz]

However, inhaling a poisonous substance that causes you to die of cancer is suicide and I think suicide is still considered a sin.

I need to take you comment in reverse order:

I think suicide is still considered a sin.

You are correct

inhaling a poisonous substance that causes you to die of cancer is suicide

You are incorrect. You are making a definitive statement here - there is no definite that smoking tobacco products is going to cause a person's death. Therefore smoking can't be considered suicide, ergo, not a sin.

[Madame Dufarge]

You are incorrect. You are making a definitive statement here - there is no definite that smoking tobacco products is going to cause a person's death. Therefore smoking can't be considered suicide, ergo, not a sin.

Exactly right, Gabz.

By the way, I don't see anywhere in the article where the Vatican declared smoking a sin.

[Great Dane]

With that said, I am in agreement with everyone who has said the church should be dealing with more important things.

As do our governments. :-}

[Gabz]

ain't that the truth!!!

[Dajjal]

I imagine it was a tough decision whether to punish a bishop for smoking, or -- say -- transferring homosexual pedophile priests from one parish to another!

[A Ruckus of Dogs]

there is no definite that smoking tobacco products is going to cause a person's death. Therefore smoking can't be considered suicide, ergo, not a sin.

There is substantial evidence that addictive smoking greatly increases your odds of getting lung cancer. That's why there is a warning on the cigarette carton. They don't call 'em nails-in-the-coffin for no reason.