Benetton Ads Spark Controversy As Vatican Condemns Pope-imam Kiss

By: Andy Hodges
11/17/2011 08:36 AM ET

Benetton Ads Spark Controversy, the Benetton clothing company recently withdrew an ad featuring a fake photo of Pope Benedict XVI after it sparked controversy.

On Wednesday the company decided to pull the promotion featuring a fake photo of Pope Benedict XVI kissing a top Egyptian imam on the lips after the Vatican denounced it as an unacceptable provocation. They contend that their “Unhate” campaign, launched Wednesday, was aimed at fostering tolerance and “global love.”

The campaign’s fake photos feature a half-dozen purported political nemeses in lip-locked embraces, including President Barack Obama and Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, and North Korean leader Kim Jong Il and South Korean President Lee Myung-bak.

The photo of the pope kissing Sheik Ahmed el-Tayeb of Cairo’s al-Azhar institute, the pre-eminent theological school of Sunni Islam, had been on the companies website all day but was pulled about an hour after the Vatican’s protest. Al-Azhar suspended interfaith talks with the Vatican earlier this year after Benedict called for greater protections for Egypt’s minority Christians.

A spokesman for the global luxury fashion brand confirmed to The Associated Press that the pope-imam ad was no longer part of the campaign. Vatican spokesman the Rev. Federico Lombardi called the promotion an “unacceptable” manipulation of the pope’s likeness that offended the religious sentiments of the faithful.

“It shows a serious lack of respect for the pope,” Lombardi said in a statement that warned that the Vatican was studying measures to protect the pontiff’s image.

Shock ads have long been a part of the Italy based companies publicity strategy, with photographer Oliviero Toscani’s famous campaigns featuring death row inmates and people dying of AIDS. Benetton said the photos of political and religious leaders kissing were “symbolic images of reconciliation — with a touch of ironic hope and constructive provocation — to stimulate reflection on how politics, faith and ideas, when they are divergent and mutually opposed, must still lead to dialogue and mediation.”

In a statement, the Treviso, Italy-based clothing manufacturer said it was sorry that its image had offended the faithful and that as a result “we have decided with immediate effect to withdraw this image from every publication.”

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Source: Benetton Ad