Holy smokes! Pope bans cigarette sales in Vatican
VATICAN CITY (AFP) — Pope Francis has outlawed the sale of cigarettes at the Vatican in a bid to lead by example on healthy living.
“The Holy Father has decided that the Vatican will cease to sell cigarettes to employees as of 2018,” the Vatican said in a statement on Thursday.
“The reason is very simple: the Holy See cannot contribute to an activity that clearly damages the health of people,” it said, adding that smoking claims more than seven million lives every year, according to the World Health Organization.
“Although the cigarettes sold to employees and pensioners in the Vatican at a reduced price are a source of revenue for the Holy See, no profit can be legitimate if it puts lives at risk,” it added.
Francis, who has only one lung, does not smoke. He has let the locals keep their other guilty pleasure, taxfree alcohol.
The cigarettes and booze are sold in a luxury duty-free shop, opened in 2003 in what was once the Vatican’s magnificent railway station but is now home to everything from designer handbags and shoes to flatscreen televisions.
Only those with a pass — Vatican employees or pensioners — can shop there, and many pick up goods, food and even fuel inside the city for Italian friends on the other side of the tiny state’s imposing walls.
Lift your hearts, not your cell phones
On Wednesday, Pope Francis chastised priests and bishops who take pictures with their cell phones during masses, saying they should focus on God instead.
“The priest says ‘lift up your hearts.’ He does not say, ‘lift up your cell phones to take pictures’,” Francis told tens of thousands of people at his weekly audience in St. Peter’s Square, referring to a communion prayer in the Roman Catholic mass.
In his improvised remarks, he called using cell phones during mass “a very ugly thing,” adding: “It makes me very sad when I celebrate (mass) here in the piazza or in the basilica and I see so many cell phones held up. Not only by the faithful, but also by some priests and even bishops!
“The mass is not a show... so remember, no cell phones!” he said, prompting laughter and applause from the crowd.
Francis, the leader of the world’s 1.2 billion Roman Catholics, has regularly urged the faithful to be more spiritual and his priests and bishops to be more humble.
Shortly after his election in 2013, he said it pained him to see priests driving flashy cars and eager to use the latest smartphone.
The pope is driven around in a simple blue Ford Focus and is not known to have ever used a cell phone in public since his election.