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Animal rights group asks Pope to end Easter lamb 'slaughter'

Pope Francis has been asked by an Italian animal rights group to help stop the tranditional eating of lamb at Easter.

By Ed Adamczyk
Pope Francis presides over the Via Crucis (Way of the Cross) torchlight procession on Good Friday in front of the Colosseum in Rome on March 29, 2013. UPI/Stefano Spaziani
Pope Francis presides over the Via Crucis (Way of the Cross) torchlight procession on Good Friday in front of the Colosseum in Rome on March 29, 2013. UPI/Stefano Spaziani | License Photo

VATICAN CITY, April 16 (UPI) -- An Italian animal rights group made an appeal to Pope Francis, urging him to condemn the eating of lamb at Easter.

“Holy father, stop the shameful slaughter of lambs killed only to satisfy greed at Easter,” Lorenzo Croce of the Italian Animal and Environment Defense Association. In a letter sent Wednesday and released to media, Croce added that he sought “protection of the lambs and all the other animals killed and tortured on the planet.”

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The practice of eating lamb at Easter stems from references in the New Testament’s Book of John, in which Jesus Christ is called “the Lamb of God” for his death as the ultimate sacrifice for sin. It is predated by the Jewish sacrificial slaughter of lambs -- a metaphor for absolution of sin -- as a daily occurrence at Jerusalem’s temple.

Croce also asked the pope to defend all animals, calling them “part of creation that has been entrusted (to people) to be protected and not massacred.”

The Vatican has not issued a public response.

[ANSA]

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