Women stage topless protest during Pope's Vatican prayer
Four women have gone topless in St Peter’s Square to protest against the Vatican’s opposition to gay marriage.
Police quickly took the women away, and the pope appeared not to have been disturbed as he delivered his traditional prayer from his studio window overlooking the piazza.
On their bare backs, the women had painted slogans “In Gay We Trust,” and “Shut Up.”
One of them, Inna Shevchenko, said: “Today we are here to protest against homophobia.”
The small demonstration coincided with a march in Paris that is expected to draw hundreds of thousands of people to protest the French president’s plan to legalise gay marriage and let gay couples adopt children.
French Catholic bishops and other religious leaders have strongly opposed the proposal, and the Vatican has backed them.
