Vatican: PETA Supporters Arrested as They Beg Pope Francis to Denounce Bullfights
For Immediate Release:
December 9, 2024
Contact:
David Perle 202-483-7382
Four PETA U.K. supporters dressed in t-shirts bearing the message to “Stop Blessing Corridas” and holding signs saying, “Bullfighting Is a Sin,” were arrested after throwing themselves in front of Pope Francis’ vehicle as he arrived on Sunday at the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the Spanish Square. The dramatic demonstration was part of PETA’s campaign urging the Pope to cut the Catholic Church’s ties with bullfighting and finally condemn the despicable blood sport.
Images of the action are available here (credit: Matteo Minnella)
Video is available here.
“The Church’s continued endorsement of the violent stabbing, slaughter, and mutilation of bulls is shameful,” says PETA U.K. Vice President Mimi Bekhechi. “PETA is calling on Pope Francis to denounce these disgusting spectacles and make it clear that no good person can support bullfighting.”
Every year, tens of thousands of bulls are slaughtered in bullfighting festivals around the world, many of which are held in honor of Catholic saints—including festivities dedicated to the Virgin Mary. During these events, assailants on horses drive lances into a bull’s back and neck before others plunge banderillas into his back, inflicting acute pain whenever he turns his head and impairing his range of motion. Eventually, when the bull becomes weak from blood loss, a matador appears and attempts to kill the animal by plunging a sword into his lungs. A knife is used to cut his spinal cord. The bull may be paralyzed but still conscious as his ears or tail are cut off and presented to the matador as a trophy and his body is dragged from the arena.
Pope Francis wrote in his encyclical Laudato Si’, “Every act of cruelty towards any creature is ‘contrary to human dignity’,” and as far back as the 16th century, Pope Pius V—who has since been canonized—banned bullfighting, which he described as “cruel and base spectacles of the devil and not of man” and contrary to “Christian piety and charity.” Paragraph #2418 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church clearly states that humans should not “cause animals to suffer or die needlessly,” yet Catholic priests often officiate at religious ceremonies in bullrings and minister to bullfighters in arena chapels. Some even attack bulls in arenas while dressed in a cassock.
PETA has previously called on Pope Francis to speak out against bullfighting through letters signed by priests, protests, disruptions, ad campaigns, and more.
PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to use for entertainment”—points out that Every Animal Is Someone and offers free Empathy Kits for people who need a lesson in kindness. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow PETA on X, Facebook, or Instagram.
