Activists against bullfighting disrupt Pope's audience

Animal rights activists briefly interrupted Pope Francis' weekly audience at the Vatican Wednesday, holding up signs demanding an end to bullfighting.

Two activists from PETA, an international charity which defends animal rights, shouted slogans just as the audience got underway, before being escorted out by security.

"Bullfighting is a sin", read the signs in English and Italian, while the activists' T-shirts read "Stop blessing corridas".

"Corridas", or bullfights, are a controversial tradition practiced in Spain and several Latin American countries as well as in parts of southern France and Portugal.

Each year, thousands of bulls are slaughtered in bullrings around the world, according to PETA.

Wednesday's protest was one of several over the past couple of years calling on the Argentinian pope to take a stand against bullfighting.

In the 16th century, Pope Pius V banned bullfights as "cruel" and contrary to "Christian piety and charity".

But Catholic priests still officiate at religious ceremonies in bullfights and minister to bullfighters in chapels built inside arenas, PETA said.

While considered a venerated cultural tradition in Spain, bullfighting is a blood sport involving taunting and stabbing at the bull before killing it.

Men on horseback first lance the bull at the neck, at which point others attempt to plant sharp sticks into its shoulders.

The matador then confronts the weakened, confused bull, engaging it in a series of passes with his cape before he performs a fatal thrust between the shoulders to kill it.

It often takes multiple stabs to finally kill the animal.