bugger the pope jokeupsets the inviolable benny

From THE TIMES:

Addressing a Rome rally in July, Sabrina Guzzanti warmed up with a few gags about Silvio Berlusconi — her favourite target for her biting impressions — before moving on to some unrepeatable jokes about Mara Carfagna, the Equal Opportunities Minister and one-time topless model. But then she got religion, and after warning everyone that within 20 years Italian teachers would be vetted and chosen by the Vatican, she got to the punchline: "But then, within 20 years the Pope will be where he ought to be — in Hell, tormented by great big poofter devils, and very active ones, not passive ones."

The joke may have gone done well with her crowd on the Piazza Navona in Rome, but not with Italian prosecutors. She is facing prosecution for "offending the honour of the sacred and inviolable person" of Benedict XVI.

The Christian world may have been dismayed, even outraged, at the Muslim reaction in 2005 to Danish cartoons satirising the Prophet Muhammed, but Italian law enforcement appears to have had its own sense of humour failure. Giovanni Ferrara, the Rome prosecutor, is invoking the 1929 Lateran Treaty between Italy and the Vatican, which stipulates that an insult to the Pope carries the same penalty as an insult to the Italian President. Prosecution requires authorisation from the Ministry of Justice, for which Mr Ferrara has applied.

The July rally was called to protest against alleged interference by the Vatican and the Catholic Church in Italian affairs, from abortion to gay rights, but also to attack the Prime Minister for passing "ad personam" laws to protect his own interests and avoid prosecution on corruption allegations.

Dario Fo, the Nobel prize-winning playwright, said that applying the treaty more widely would even have led to the prosecution of Dante, since "he put a Pope in the Inferno as well, namely Boniface VIII".

“Shame of the Papal Chair! and art thou come,
Hollow and dismal from the fiery tomb,”
He cried – “a later doom the Prophet told –
But come, Seducer of the Spouse of God,
Who rul’d the christian world with iron rod,
Come! thine eternal revenues behold!”

COMMENT: I'm inviolable.
In fact, I can't play any stringed instrument.