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On 11 August, the Holy See published a Rescript granting Vatican City State employees expanded family rights, including paternity leave, special provisions for parents of disabled children, and updated rules for family allowances.
The document, signed by Maximino Caballero Ledo, Prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy, and approved by Pope Leo XIV, followed an audience on 28 July in which Mr Caballero presented to the Pope the resolutions of the ULSA Council — a body bringing together representatives of the Holy See, the Governorate, and their staff.
The Rescript, which amends the Consolidated Text of Benefits in Favour of the Family and the Rules for the Granting of the Family Allowance, states: “The employee is entitled to five days of paid leave on the occasion of the birth of a child.” These five working days may be taken consecutively or in full-day increments — “not in hours” — within thirty days of the birth. For this period, the father will receive “full pay, counted in all respects related to length of service.”
For parents of children “in a situation of certified severity”, the decree grants “three days of paid leave each month”, which may be taken consecutively, provided the child is not fully hospitalised in a specialist institution. To ensure the time is genuinely for care, the leave entails “the impossibility of carrying out other work activity” unless specifically authorised.
Assessment of disability will rest with a Medical Board of the Governorate’s Directorate of Health and Hygiene, whose decisions are “not subject to appeal”. Once recognised, the family — or a qualifying Vatican pensioner — is entitled to the family allowance.
On allowances generally, the Rescript specifies eligibility for families with legitimate or equivalent children over eighteen if still in secondary education up to age twenty, or in university or equivalent studies recognised by the Holy See up to age twenty-six, with proof of enrolment required.
The measures, Vatican officials say, aim to strengthen protection for families working in the world’s smallest sovereign state. As the text notes, they are “with a view to enabling greater availability of time for the care” of children and dependants.
The move draws inspiration from the social teaching of Pope Leo XIII, whose 1891 encyclical Rerum Novarum laid down the Church’s defence of the dignity of labour and the rights of working families. In it, Leo XIII insisted that “The State should watch over these societies of citizens banded together in accordance with their rights.”
While the Rescript of Pope Leo XIV addresses the microstate realities of Vatican employment rather than the industrial unrest of nineteenth-century Europe, it expresses the same principle: that work should serve the family.
