Naples: PETA Members Stop Popemobile in Its Tracks, Protesting Church’s “Blessing” of Bullfights
08.05.2026
Naples – Moments ago, Pope Leo’s celebration which marks the one-year anniversary of his election as Pope in Naples was disrupted by two PETA supporters wearing t-shirts saying “Bullfighting is a Sin”, who pleaded with His Holiness to cut the Catholic Church’s ties to bullfighting and condemn the vile bloodbath. Bearing signs urging “Pope Leo: Help End Bullfighting”, the animal defenders were dragged away by police.
A video from the action is available here.
“For a year, PETA has urged Pope Leo to condemn bullfighting. In that time, tens of thousands of bulls have been tortured to death in the name of God—most of them in Spain, the next stop on the Holy Father’s itinerary,” says PETA Senior Vice President for Europe Mimi Bekhechi. “Glorifying cruelty contradicts the Holy Father’s own warnings about a world increasingly marred by violence. We urge Pope Leo to denounce this bloodshed as offensive to Christian values.”
Every year, tens of thousands of bulls are tormented and slaughtered in bullfighting festivals around the world, many of which are held in honour of Catholic saints. During these events, tormentors on horses drive lances into a bull’s back before others plunge banderillas into his upper 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 him by plunging a sword into his lungs or, if that fails, cutting his spinal cord with a knife. The bull may be paralysed but still conscious as the matador cuts off his ears or tail 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 bullfights, 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—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 more information, please visit PETA.org.uk or follow PETA on Facebook, X, TikTok, or Instagram.
Contact:
Sascha Camilli +44 (0) 20 7923 6249; [email protected]
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