Italian comedienne, Sabrina Guzzanti, is facing a five year prison sentence for making a joke about Pope Benedict XVI. Roman prosecutor, Giovanni Ferrara, invoking the 1929 Lateran Treaty between Italy and the Vatican, makes any insult toward the Pope equal to insulting the Prime Minister. Guzzanti, in a gag about Italian teachers being vetted by the Vatican 20 years from now, exclaimed in her punch line, clearly lost in the translation: "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 1929 Lateran Treaty, enacted by Italy’s Fascist government, makes it a crime to criticize crooks like Silvio Berlusconi or pansy Popes in Prada slippers and satin dresses. You could probably call them fascists or Nazis though. They wouldn’t regard such characterizations as insults.
