Vatican, Italy bishop slam “profane” Sanremo performance

By NICOLE WINFIELD
Associated Press

ROME (AP) — The Vatican and an Italian Catholic bishop have protested a performance at Italy’s Sanremo music festival that featured a “profane” faux baptism on stage, lamenting in particular that it was broadcast on Italian public television. On the opening night of the annual song contest, a tattooed, bare-chested singer named Achille Lauro gyrated and grabbed his crotch repeatedly as he sang “Domenica,” (“Sunday”) backed up by singers from the Harlem Gospel Choir. He finished by kneeling on stage, hands clasped in front of him as if in prayer, and poured water from a bowl over his forehead. Sanremo Bishop Antonio Suetta said Wednesday the performance contained “words, attitudes and gestures that are not just offensive to religion, but to human dignity.”