The Holy See has threatened legal action against Italian retailer Benetton after finding a series of adverts to be in very poor taste.
On Wednesday, Benetton unveiled a new ad campaign featuring world leaders locking lips. In one Photoshopped picture, Barack Obama kisses Hu Jintao of China, while in another German Chancellor Angela Merkel smooches Nicholas Sarkozy.
The advertisement that set off sparks at the Vatican features Pope Benedict XVI kissing Ahmed el Tayyeb, a leading authority of Sunni Islam. El Tayyeb is the imam of the Al-Azhar Mosque in Cairo, which denounced the ad as “irresponsible and absurd”.
A large banner of the image was hung from a bridge near the Vatican on Wednesday but was removed soon thereafter.
The ads are all a part of Benetton’s “unhate” campaign to promote a culture of tolerance, but the backlash has forced the company to pull the doctored images featuring the pontiff.
A statement from the Vatican said the ad was "damaging not only to the dignity of the pope and the Catholic Church but also to the feelings of believers”. The Holy See threatened legal action if the Ponzano-based company did not remove the Pope’s image from display.
The Italian clothing chain has a history of using social issues and controversial images in advertisements and has not announced plans to discontinue use of the other five images in the campaign that do not feature the Pope.
