VATICAN CITY: Pope Francis has ordered a ban on the sale of cigarettes inside the Vatican from next year because of health concerns, a spokesman said on Thursday.
“The motive is very simple: the Holy See cannot be cooperating with a practice that is clearly harming the health of people,” spokesman Greg Burke said in a statement.
He cited World World Health Organization (WHO) statistics that smoking causes more than seven million deaths worldwide every year.
Cigarettes have been sold at a discounted price to Vatican employees and pensioners.
Vatican employees are allowed to buy five cartons of cigarettes a month. Many Italians ask their non-smoking friends who work in the Vatican to buy cigarettes for them because they cost much less than in Italy, where they are subject to heavy taxes.
Burke acknowledged that the sale of cigarettes has been a source of revenue for the Holy See, adding, “However, no profit can be legitimate if it is costing people their lives.”
The spokesman said the sale of large cigars would continue at least for the time being because the smoke is not inhaled.
The Vatican, a tiny walled city-state surrounded by Rome, is one of the few states to ban smoking. Bhutan, where smoking is deemed bad for one’s karma, banned the sale of tobacco in 2005.
Holy Smokes! Vatican bans sale of cigarettes
Holy Smokes! Vatican bans sale of cigarettes
Musk’s X to open source new algorithm in seven days
Elon Musk said on Saturday that social media platform X will open its new algorithm, including all code for organic and advertising post recommendations, to the public in seven days.
“This will be repeated every 4 weeks, with comprehensive developer notes, to help you understand what changed,” he said in his X post.
Earlier this week, the European Commission decided to extend a retention order sent to X last year, which related to algorithms and dissemination of illegal content, prolonging it to the end of 2026, spokesperson Thomas Regnier told reporters on Thursday.
In July 2025, Paris prosecutors investigated the social media platform for suspected algorithmic bias and fraudulent data extraction, which Musk’s X called a “politically-motivated criminal investigation” that threatens its users’ free speech.
