Care worker sacked for refusing Covid jab is allowed to argue religion

Roman Catholic care worker sacked for refusing Covid jab CAN argue that she turned it down on religious grounds, judge rules

• Patrcja Wierowska worked as a carer for HC-One care homes until April last year
• She was fired after refusing the Covid vaccine due to her strong Catholic beliefs
• Ms Wierowska said jab was against her faith as it involved foetal blood in testing
• Preliminary hearing allowed her to use religious reasons in employment tribunal 

A care worker who was sacked because she refused to have a coronavirus vaccine can argue in an upcoming tribunal that her reasons were religious, an employment judge has ruled.

Patrycja Wierowska worked as a carer for HC-One care homes until she was fired on April 28, 2021.

Ms Wierowska, a lifelong Roman Catholic, claimed that one of the reasons for her dismissal was because she refused to have a Covid vaccine on religious grounds.

In a preliminary judgment published on Friday, employment judge Eoin Fowell ruled Ms Wierowska could rely on her religion as a protected characteristic at an employment tribunal.

He wrote: ‘I am satisfied that her views about the vaccine are intimately connected with her religious faith, and there is a sufficiently close and direct nexus between her refusal to take a Covid vaccine and her underlying beliefs.’

The ruling follows a preliminary hearing on the issue held remotely at Exeter Employment Tribunal in July.

Patrycja Wierowska, a lifelong Roman Catholic, claimed that one of the reasons for her dismissal from HC-One was because she refused to have a Covid vaccine on religious grounds (Pictured: A woman receiving a Covid vaccine)

That hearing was told Ms Wierowska believes having the vaccine would go against her faith because it involves the use of ‘foetal blood’.

The claimant said this is based on the dicta of Roman Catholicism that blood and life are both God given and sacrosanct, so it is contrary to the tenets of her faith to alter the blood by taking a manmade vaccine or to use aborted foetuses in the testing of a Covid vaccine.

It comes after a debate erupted in the global Catholic community over the vaccines that used cell lines that originated with tissues from abortions carried out decades ago.

In December 2020, the Vatican told Roman Catholics it was morally acceptable to use Covid-19 vaccines even if their production employed cell lines drawn from tissues of aborted foetuses.

Giving evidence at the July hearing, Ms Wierowska said she accepted the Vatican’s position but that she also had ‘free will’.

She also accepted the moral case for preventing the spread of infections in order to protect care home residents, but said she was doing everything else to prevent transmission.

Ms Wierowska said she was sceptical about the value of facemasks ‘given the size of airborne particles’ and admitted she had not worn one when she attended the Freedom March in London on March 20, 2021, ‘which had about a million people present’.

In December 2020, the Vatican told Roman Catholics it was morally acceptable to use Covid-19 vaccines even if their production employed cell lines drawn from tissues of aborted foetuses (Pictured: Pope Francis)

The hearing was told Ms Wierowska also feared Covid vaccines might interfere with DNA in the nucleus of cells and they are experimental with unknown long-term repercussions.

Stuart Irving, representing HC-One Oval Limited, argued the claimant’s view of vaccines was not a religious belief so much as a philosophical point of view and that she was simply unconvinced by the current scientific evidence.

But Dr Anna Loutfi, of counsel representing Ms Wierowska, argued her views were deeply embedded in her religious perspective and world view.

She added her views do not need to be the mainstream or orthodox view of the Catholic Church and that a religious belief may be protected even where it is not mandated by the religion.

In his ruling, Mr Fowell rejected suggestions that the claimant’s concerns were essentially health-based.

He wrote: ‘This is an issue which has troubled the worldwide Catholic community, so much so that the definitive statement had to be made by the Vatican on behalf of the Pope in an effort to resolve matters.

‘Even that declaration did not go so far as to criticise any Catholic for refusing to take the vaccine on moral grounds, and it is implicit in the statement made that this remained an issue of personal conscience.

‘Those moral concerns are closely linked to the longstanding Catholic position on abortion and to the resulting opposition to the use of stem cells or foetal material in medical experiments of any sort.’

WHAT THE RULING SAID: JUDGE FARRELL’S COMMENTS

‘In Miss Wierowska’s written account she explained that she was brought up attending Mass every week, and on Holy Days, and that she was committed to her religious upbringing

‘For her, there is no question about the absolute truth of a creator or of the presence of sin in the world. She prays daily to the Blessed Virgin Mary and described her “earthly struggle” to negotiate the temporal demands of “our rulers in government and the culture that seeks to deny our Holy Lord.” 

‘One of the tenets of her faith is that life is sacred so that, for example, “taking the life of the most innocent, in the womb is a mortal sin”.

‘That concern on her part about the practice of abortion extends to the use of aborted foetuses in scientific treatments. She states that once she heard that mRNA vaccines contained such foetal material, alarm bells sounded for her. For many people, she explained, these were not a concern, but for her any interference with a genetic inheritance and with traceable bloodlines was against the will of God. 

‘She views blood as having a sacred component, and quoted in her statement from a biblical passage, the first letter of St. Paul to the Corinthians, 6:19, to the effect that a person’s body is the temple of the Holy Spirit.

‘It appears from the material in the bundle that she is not alone in these views and that there has been a debate in Catholic circles about the morality of taking vaccines. According to the BBC article at page 55, in response to these concerns, the Vatican issued a statement to the effect that such vaccines were “morally acceptable”.

‘Miss Wierowska was questioned at some length about the basis of her concerns about the vaccine. She accepted that the Vatican view was that it was acceptable to take the vaccines but she pointed to the fact that she had free will, which was God-given and that no one could take that decision from her. 

‘She also accepted the moral case for preventing the spread of infections in order to protect the weak, such as the residents of the care home, but she said that she was doing everything else to prevent transmission.

‘I am satisfied that her views about the vaccine are intimately connected with her religious faith, and there is a sufficiently close and direct nexus between her refusal to take a covid vaccine and her underlying beliefs. Hence, she is entitled to rely on that religious faith as a protected characteristic.’

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