The Vatican announced Thursday that it will withdraw the commemorative stamp of the World Youth Days to beheld this summer in Lisbon and whose design generated controversy in Portugal for resembling the images used by the Salazar dictatorship to promote Portuguese colonialism.
The Holy See has justified that the design, drawn up by the Vatican Philatelic Service, had the sole objective of promoting the Pope's encounter with young people without any reference to the past but accepted the criticism and promised to present a new image.
The stamp, designed by artist Stefano Morri and issued by the Vatican, shows Pope Francis followed by young people carrying a Portuguese flag while standing on a platform that emulates the sculpture "Monument to the Discoveries", installed in the Portuguese capital during the dictatorship imposed by António de Oliveira Salazar.
The religious leader and children replaced the original sculptures, which showed Henry the Navigator and a group of sailors on the same platform, representing a ship.
"Just as in the monument Henry the Navigator guides the crew to the discovery of the new world, in the seal Pope Francis guides young people and the Church," explained the official Vatican News portal.
Messages immediately appeared on social networks comparing the drawing with those disseminated by the National Propaganda Secretariat of the "Estado Novo".
Even Portuguese Bishop Carlos Moreira Azevedo, delegate of the Pontifical Committee for Historical Sciences, considered that the design is in "terrible bad taste," according to the local press.
World Youth Day will take place from August 1 to 6 and will be celebrated in Lisbon and neighboring Loures with the presence of Pope Francis, who is also scheduled to visit the shrine of Fatima.
- Portugal
- Pope Francis I
- the Vatican
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