During her recent speech at the Christian Cultural Center in Brooklyn, New York Governor Kathy Hochul commented that Christians who chose not to get vaccinated were not listening to God.

Hochul attended mass at the center, where she told parishioners that the vaccine was a gift from God and that God wanted them to be vaccinated. She had just recently replaced disgraced former Governor Andrew Cuomo. Hochul has been in office for nearly a month.

Her comments came just a day before the vaccine mandate for health care workers went into effect. The health care mandate is similar to that which has gotten rolled out to several other states.

She continued by saying, ” Yes, I know you’re vaccinated. You’re the smart ones, but you know, there are people out there who aren’t listening to God and what God wants. You know, this – you know who you are”

Nearly 37 percent of New York is still unvaccinated, and COVID rates continue to spike. Before Cuomo left office, he announced the healthcare vaccine mandate to help reduce those numbers.

Hochul asked parishioners to be her “apostles” and deliver her message to the unvaccinated people of their communities.

“I need you to go out and talk about it and say, we owe this to each other. We love each other. Jesus taught us to love one another. And how do you show that love but care about each other enough to say, please get vaccinated, because I love you. I want you to live.’”

The NY governor has been fighting back against people seeking religious exemptions from vaccinations. In September, she commented that she was “not aware of a sanctioned religious exemption from any organized religion.” She also believed that any faith leader that argued with her statement was encouraging the opposite.

“Everybody from the pope on down is encouraging people to get vaccinated.”

Health care workers that refuse the vaccine should prepare for a lengthy battle. Hochul has vowed that her administration will “defend the right of New York to ensure that anyone in a health care facility can meet a patient and that patient does not have to worry when they go in there for health care that they’re gonna contract a virus from one of the people that are supposed to protect their health.”

Recently the U.S. District Judge David Hurd had issued a temporary restraining order against the state. Judge Hurd barred the state from enforcing the edict on 17 health care professionals that argued the mandate violates their constitutional rights by disallowing faith-based exemptions.

In return, Hochul said New York could declare a state of emergency to open up its workforce supply. The state could let in qualified health care professionals that are licensed, recently graduated or even retired.

The Department of Labor even put a statement out that said workers who are fired because of vaccine refusals were not eligible for unemployment insurance unless they have a doctor-approved form for medical accommodation.