{"id":11813,"date":"2011-11-16T17:19:59","date_gmt":"2011-11-16T22:19:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/?p=11813"},"modified":"2011-11-16T17:19:59","modified_gmt":"2011-11-16T22:19:59","slug":"benetton-clothing-company-has-withdrawn-an-ad-showing-pope-benedict-xvi-kissing-a-top-egyptian-imam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/2011\/11\/benetton-clothing-company-has-withdrawn-an-ad-showing-pope-benedict-xvi-kissing-a-top-egyptian-imam\/","title":{"rendered":"Benetton clothing company has withdrawn an ad showing Pope Benedict XVI kissing a top Egyptian imam"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Benetton clothing company has withdrawn an ad showing Pope Benedict XVI kissing a top Egyptian imam on the lips after the Vatican denounced it as an “unacceptable” provocation.<\/p>\n

Benetton had said its “Unhate” campaign launched Wednesday is aimed at fostering tolerance and “global love.”<\/p>\n

The campaign’s fake photos show a half-dozen purported political nemeses in lip-locked embraces, including President Barack Obama and Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.<\/p>\n

The photo of the Pope had been on the company’s website all day but was pulled about an hour after the Vatican’s protest. A Benetton spokesman confirmed to The Associated Press that the Pope ad is no longer part of the campaign.<\/p>\n

Vatican spokesperson Father Federico Lombardi said in a statement that the ad was “an offence against the sentiments of the faithful and a clear example of how advertising can violate elementary rules of respect for people in order to attract attention through provocation.”<\/p>\n

On the company’s website, executive deputy chairman Alessandro Benetton is quoted as saying that global love is an ambitious but realistic goal.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

You mean an ad campaign showing world leaders kissing each other is an unrealistic goal for “global love”? Who would have thunk it?<\/p>\n

The picture itself shown here<\/a> is one I would rather erase from my mind. You just have to wonder how such an ad ever came about in the first place.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Benetton clothing company has withdrawn an ad showing Pope Benedict XVI kissing a top Egyptian imam on the lips after the Vatican denounced it as an “unacceptable” provocation. Benetton…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11813","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-punditry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11813","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11813"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11813\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11814,"href":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11813\/revisions\/11814"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11813"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11813"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11813"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}