Italian clothes company Benetton backed down and pulled a photo montage showing the pope kissing a leading imam from its new global ad campaign after the Vatican issued a stern condemnation.
The company, which is no stranger to controversy over its advertising campaigns, said it was "sorry that the use of the image had so hurt the sensibilities of the faithful".
The statement came shortly after the Vatican expressed "the firmest protest for this absolutely unacceptable use of the image of the Holy Father".
Benetton’s poster showed Pope Benedict XVI kissing on the lips Egypt’s Ahmed el Tayyeb, imam of the Al-Azhar Mosque in Cairo and a leading voice in Sunni Islam.
It launched Wednesday a new global advertising campaign called UNHATE that contained a series of photo montages of political and religious leaders kissing.
The company defended the campaign, saying its purpose "was solely to battle the culture of hate in all its forms".
There were other shock pictures showing US President Barack Obama kissing Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao in one picture and Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez in another.
One picture showed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu smooching Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas. In another, French President Nicolas Sarkozy is depicted kissing German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
A picture of Silvio Berlusconi kissing Merkel was pulled at the last minute after the jovial billionaire submitted his resignation last week.
The Vatican strongly criticised the Benedict ad.
"We must express the firmest protest for this absolutely unacceptable use of the image of the Holy Father, manipulated and exploited in a publicity campaign with commercial ends," Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi said in a statement.
"This shows a grave lack of respect for the pope, an offence to the feelings of believers, a clear demonstration of how publicity can violate the basic rules of respect for people by attracting attention with provocation," he said.
The Vatican was examining what steps to take "to guarantee a fair defence of respect for the image of the Holy Father", he added.
The posters appeared in Benetton clothing stores across the globe as well as in newspapers, magazines and on Internet websites.
The passionate embrace between the pope and the imam was briefly shown on a banner held up near Rome’s landmark Castel Sant’Angelo castle not far from the Vatican.
Source- http://www.nation.co.ke/News/world/-/1068/1274594/-/3t9wt6z/-/index.html
