Judge Dismisses Charges Against PETA Activists Who Confronted Pope Francis to Defend Bulls
03.09.2026
Rome – In a victory for free speech and animal rights, a judge has dismissed charges against PETA supporters Teodora Zglimbea and Aitziber Saez de Buruaga, who were arrested on 7 August 2024 after staging a peaceful demonstration at the Vatican’s Paul VI Audience Hall. Just before Pope Francis’ audience began, the activists climbed over the barrier and approached the stage where the pontiff was seated, holding signs reading “Bullfighting Is a Sin” and wearing T-shirts emblazoned with “Stop Blessing Corridas.” The animal allies left the hall as soon as security guards intervened.
PETA supporters Teodora Zglimbea and Aitziber Saez de Buruaga leave Paul VI Audience Hall peacefully after security intervenes. Photo: Credit: Esa Ennelin
“Today a judge confirmed what we’ve known all along: standing up for animals isn’t a crime,” says PETA Senior Vice President Mimi Bekhechi. “The real offense is the Church’s continued endorsement of bullfighting, and PETA is calling on Pope Leo to end its complicity in the ritual torture of bulls.”
Every year, tens of thousands of bulls are slaughtered in bullfighting festivals around the world, many held in honour of Catholic saints. During these events, a lance is driven into a bull’s neck before banderillas are plunged into his back. When the animal becomes weak from blood loss, a matador appears and attempts to kill him by plunging a sword into his lungs. If that fails, a knife is used to cut his spinal cord. The bull may be paralysed 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 canonised – 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 torment bulls in arenas while dressed in a cassock.
PETA – whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to use for entertainment” – points out that when it comes to the ability to feel pain, hunger, and fear, a bull is a dog is a boy. For more information, please visit PETA.org.uk or follow PETA on Facebook, X, TikTok, or Instagram.
Contact:
Sascha Camilli +44 207 923 6249; [email protected]
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