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Bullfighting Goes Against Christ’s Teachings—But These Priests Are Still Defending It

Bullfighting couldn’t be further removed from Christ’s message of compassion, but in footage captured by PETA UK, several backward priests defended the ritualized execution of bulls in front of bloodthirsty crowds.

Bullfighting Goes Against Christ’s Teachings—But These Priests Are Still Defending It
Bullfighting Goes Against Christ’s Teachings—But These Priests Are Still Defending It

Despite clear Catholic doctrine forbidding cruelty to animals, the disturbing new video shows several prominent Catholic priests in Spain making extraordinary remarks in defense of bullfighting. One even compares bullfighting to the death of Christ:

“What you are seeing in the ring, you are seeing a sacrifice that is not violent; bullfighting has precisely come to end all violence.” – Father Antonio Schlatter

“The bull is not made to be pardoned; the bull is made to die in the ring.” – Father Juan García

“It is a sacrifice, like the mass is a sacrifice—it is a sacrifice of an animal. Here it is the sacrifice of Christ.” – Father Cruz Goñi

“All this idea of animalism … as if it were a person, as if it had a soul.” – Father Adolfo Ariza

Bullfighting Goes Against Christ’s Teachings—But These Priests Are Still Defending It
© We Animals Media

Stabbed, Tormented, and Killed: Bullfights Negate Catholic Teachings

As far back as the 16th century, Pope Pius V—who has since been canonized—banned bullfighting, which he described as “cruel and base spectacles of the devil and not of man” and contrary to “Christian piety and charity.”

Texts such as the Catechism of the Catholic Church state that humans must not “cause animals to suffer or die needlessly,” and Isaiah 1:11 declares that “God does not want the blood of animal sacrifices.”

Bulls are curious, social, and gentle when humans aren’t torturing and killing them for “entertainment.” During bullfights, assailants repeatedly stab bulls with lances and barbed harpoons called banderillas before attempting to kill them by driving a sword into their lungs. Once the sword strikes, bullfighters swarm the terrified, mutilated, dying bull and attempt to sever his spinal cord with a dagger at the base of the skull.

Bullfighting Goes Against Christ’s Teachings—But These Priests Are Still Defending It
©traslosmuros
Bullfighting Goes Against Christ’s Teachings—But These Priests Are Still Defending It

Pope Leo, Cut Ties with Bullfighting!

Pope Leo’s predecessor, Pope Francis, wrote in his encyclical Laudato Si’, “Every act of cruelty towards any creature is ‘contrary to human dignity,’” and public opposition to bullfighting has only grown since. Today, 8 out of 10 Spaniards reject the gruesome spectacles entirely.

Please join us in urging Pope Leo XIV to choose compassion for all and sever the Catholic Church’s ties to bullfighting.

Urge Pope Leo XIV to End Bull Torture During Catholic Celebrations

Sign Our Petition!
Your Holiness Pope Leo XIV: Cut the Church’s Ties to the Bullfighting Industry
Most Holy Father:

We urge you to denounce cruel and un-Christian bullfighting, and to end the Catholic Church’s support for it. In doing so, you would honour the legacy of Pope Francis, who, given more time, would surely have taken this compassionate step. God’s creations shouldn’t be subjected to prolonged suffering and stabbed to death in the name of Catholic saints or during holy Christian celebrations, and members of the Catholic clergy shouldn’t support the torture of animals.

As Pope Francis declared in the 2015 Laudato Si’, “Every act of cruelty towards any animal is ‘contrary to human dignity’.” Yet, the Catholic Church’s ties to the bullfighting industry make a mockery of Christ’s teachings of kindness and compassion.

Bullfighting is a ritualised execution, which involves repeatedly goading and stabbing a bull until he is weakened and defenceless. A matador will then plunge a sword into the animal’s heart or lungs. It can take many attempts to kill a bull this way, and if the matador fails, a knife will be used to sever the spinal cord. The bull’s ears or tail may be cut off and kept as a trophy.

Holy Father, before more animals are tortured in this way, please communicate to members of the clergy and the more than 1.4 billion Catholics around the world that bullfighting is contrary to the values of the Roman Catholic faith and that any association with this grotesquely cruel spectacle in God’s name must stop immediately.
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