Italian actress faces jail for saying Pope will go to hell

[MikeWB]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... -hell.html

By Michael Day in Milan
Last Updated: 1:10PM BST 12 Sep 2008
Sabina Guzzanti, a popular actress and comic, had joked at an anti-politics rally that Pope Benedict XVI, known for his hardline views on homosexuality, would "go to hell and be pursued by two big, gay and very active devils".
Rome's prosecutor Giovanni Ferrara said he wants to start proceedings against her for "vilification" of the Pope under article of 313 of the penal code. Ferrara said that the offence caused by her comments went beyond satire.
He has officially asked the justice minister, Angelino Alfano, for permission to start proceedings. Guzzanti is also under investigation for breaching article 278 of the penal code, which allows the courts to sentence people to five years if found guilty of "offending the honour" of the Pope or the Italian president.
Luca Volonte, a senior member of the Union of Christian Democrats party welcomed the development. "These gratuitous insults must be punished," he said.
The comic's father dimissed calls for his daughter's prosecution, however.
Paolo Guzzanti, a member of the ruling right-wing PDL party said: "Ratzinger is sufficiently strong and intelligent a person not to have need of the courts' retaliation."
Veteran socialist Bobo Craxi told Corriere della Sera newspaper: "If we start prosecuting satirists, we're on our way to becoming a totalitarian state."
Guzzanti was already under fire for suggesting that Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's controversial equal opportunities minister Mara Carfagna - only recently a TV show girl and topless model - obtained her job in exchange for performing oral sex on the Italian Premier.
The remarks drew outraged denials from the 32-year-old minister and former Miss Italy contestant.
Both attacks by Guzzanti were made at the big anti-politics rally organised by comic and satirist Beppy Grillo, that took place in Rome's Piazza Navona on 8 July.
It emerged yesterday that Grillo himself will not be investigated for the criticism he made of Italy's head of state, Giorgio Napolitano, at the same event after the authorities deemed them to be straightforward satire.
The comic had lampooned President Napolitano for signing Berlusconi's new immunity law. Controversially this has granted the country's top four officials - including president and premier - immunity from prosecution.

[sullivan]

The idea that anyone, be it the Pope, the Italian President or a member of the police (all of whom have similar protection against insults) should be beyond ridicule or insult is ludicrous. But then again, Italy has almost as many stupid laws as it has people. The one saving grace is that, should this ever come to trial, the cumbersome, awkward and bureaucracy-ridden Italian legal system will ensure that the proceedings will rumble on until such a time as the window for prosecution has expired.

Why Giovanni Ferrara, the prosecutor, gives a damn about this is beyond me.  He is, after all, as Jewish as you can find in the 'bel paese'.

[mobes]

If the pope was a true Christian, why wouldn't he just forgive her?

I guess that shows his colours.....