No more holy smokes: Pope nixes cigarette sales at Vatican

The Vatican will no longer have cigarettes for sale, the director of the Holy See’s press office said today.

Greg Burke announced that Pope Francis “has decided that the Vatican will cease to sell cigarettes to employees as of 2018.”

“The reason,” he said, “is very simple: the Holy See cannot contribute to an activity that clearly damages the health of people. According to the World Health Organization, every year smoking is the cause of more than seven million deaths throughout the world.”

Burke said that although the sale of cigarettes is a source of revenue, “no profit can be legitimate if it puts lives at risk.”