Staff at St Peter's Basilica were banned from wearing visible tattoos or body piercings.
The new decree, published over the weekend, applies to about 170 lay employees of the Fabbrica di San Pietro, the department responsible for the basilica.
Father Enzo Fortunato, the basilica's head of communications, told Reuters on Monday that the decree establishes norms that "already existed in a different form."
However, he dismissed Italian press reports that unmarried lay people would be banned from working at the Fabbrica di San Pietro as "rumours".
The decree in question states that employees
they must demonstrate exemplary religious and moral behavior, including private and family life, in accordance with the teaching of the Church.
The Catholic Church teaches that sex between unmarried people is a sin and that engaged couples must also observe the requirement of chastity, the Reuters article added.
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