As Italy continued to battle one of its worst forest fire emergencies in years, a southern bishop called on the Church to excommunicate arsonists as a deterrent.
The bishop of Locri-Gerace in Calabria, Giancarlo Maria Bregantini, said in a radio interview that "it is a terrible crime to set fire to woodland and such acts should be punished with the same force that the Church uses for those who abort - namely, excommunication".
"This is obviously a proposal which needs to be thought about in depth but there is no doubt that arson is a grave act against nature, the woods and everything that God has given us," Bregantini said.
Arsonists have been blamed for many of the hundreds of fires that have broken out across large areas of central and southern Italy in the past two weeks, claiming the lives of five people and destroying thousands of hectares of woodland and coastal brush.
Suspicion usually focuses on farmers seeking to clear space for agricultural purposes or construction speculators hoping to win permits to build on protected land.
The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) urged Environment Minister Alfonso Pecoraro Scanio this week to offer rewards of 100,000 euros to citizens who helped police catch an arsonist.
The minister admitted on Tuesday that the fires represented a "real criminal assault on the country's parks and other areas... by people linked to organised crime groups and illicit construction".
He called for the maximum penalties to be applied to convicted arsonists, who face up to ten years in jail for wilfully destroying woodland and life imprisonment if their actions cause any deaths.
Firefighters on Tuesday were combatting hundreds of blazes, particularly in the regions of Calabria, Puglia on the heel of Italy and Campania around Naples.
80-YEAR-OLD MAN FOUND DEAD.
Meanwhile, an 80-year-old man was found dead from smoke inhalation in countryside near Foggia in Puglia.
Police said they suspected the man died after setting fire to some dry leaves and grass only to find that he had created a bigger blaze than expected.
On Monday, a 21-year-old man died in Calabria while attempting to put out a fire on his father's plot of land.
In late July, three people died including a Canadair pilot whose firefighting plane crashed into a mountain in parkland in the central region of Abruzzo.
