Vatican accused of hypocrisy over climate-protest ruling

(ANSA) - ROME, JUN 13 - 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. (ANSA).