The Ultima Generazione (Last
Generation - UG) civil-disobedience group has accused the
Vatican of hypocrisy after one of its courts handed nine-month
suspended jail terms and big fines to two people who staged a
protest in the Vatican Museums last summer to highlight the need
to address the climate crisis.
The movement said it would appeal against the ruling, in which
protestors Ester Goffi, 26, and Guido Viero, 61, were ordered to
pay a total of over 3,000 euros in fines and 28,000 euros in
damages for having glued themselves to the iconic Laocoon
statuary group.
Pope Francis has repeatedly told the international community to
address the climate crisis and recently called for an end to the
"senseless war against creation".
"The Vatican, one of the world's last absolute monarchies, has
shown all of its hypocrisy with this punishment," UG, which has
staged a series of controversial headline-grabbing climate
protests over the last 18 months, said in a statement.
It said the sentence was "out of proportion and absurd" given
that only "a few drops of glue" had been put on the marble
pedestal under the statue, stressing that Goffi and Viero were
simply aiming to highlight an issue that the pope preaches and
writes about himself.
On May 26 the Vatican condemned so-called 'eco-vandalism'
targetting cultural heritage in a document on tourism by Rino
Fisichella, the Pro-prefect for New Evangelization.
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