The Vatican and an Italian Catholic bishop on Wednesday protested a performance at Italy’s Sanremo music festival that featured a “profane” faux baptism on stage, lamenting in particular that it was broadcast on public television.
On the opening night of the annual song contest, a tattooed, bare-chested and barefoot singer named Achille Lauro gyrated and grabbed his crotch as he sang “Domenica” (“Sunday”), backed up by singers from the Harlem Gospel Choir. He finished by kneeling on stage, hands clasped in front of him as if in prayer, and poured water from a bowl over his forehead.
