Overview

• PETA projected “200,000” and “bullfighting is a sin” onto the Apostolic Palace facade to demand a formal denunciation from Pope Leo XIV.
• The display builds on nearly 200,000 signatures originally collected for Pope Francis to condemn bullfighting and redirects pressure onto the new pontiff.
• Activists invoke Pope Francis’s encyclical Laudato Si’ assertion that cruelty to animals contradicts human dignity as ethical grounds for a papal statement.
• They reference Pope Pius V’s 16th-century ban on bullfights—described as “cruel and vile spectacles of the devil”—to underscore historical church precedent.
• PETA also calls out Catholic priests’ participation in bullring ceremonies and ministering to matadors, urging the Vatican to disavow such involvement.