A health care worker at the Posta Central Hospital in Santiago, Chile, prepares a dose of the Pfizer/BioNtech COVID-19 vaccine Dec. 24, 2020, amid the coronavirus pandemic. (CNS photo/Ivan Alvarado, Reuters) The Vatican’s coronavirus commission and the Pontifical Academy for Life issued a joint statement calling for a coordinated international effort to ensure the equitable distribution of COVID-19 vaccines worldwide and underlining the risks involved in not being vaccinated. The document highlights the “critical role of vaccines to defeat the pandemic, not just for individual personal health but to protect the health of all,” the Vatican said in a statement accompanying the document Dec. 29.