Petrus wines and Bvlgari watches: archbishop hopes to see these featured in carnival floats

Having been the target of a “malicious” carnival float linking him to sex crimes, archbishop Charles Scicluna said that he hopes to see floats featuring politicians linked to gifts from alleged murder mastermind Yorgen Fenech.

“I have no objection to seeing that whoever occupies a public role is subjected to satire… hopefully there will be other floats on politicians who gave us a lot to talk about in recent times in terms of satire. I’ll be curious to see whether there’ll be any floats depicting specific watches and particular brands of wine,” Scicluna said.

He was referring to a €25,000 Bvlgari watch that former prime minister Joseph Muscat received as a gift from the alleged mastermind of Daphne Caruana Galizia’s murder.

In the same breath, Scicluna said that the carnival float that had depicted him alongside two horned cherubs under the rainbow LBTIQ+ flag was not a satirical move but an act of defamation. “You have to have a particular hatred to portray the archbishop in that manner,” he said, adding that as the Vatican’s sex crime prosecutor, his role was far from that depicted.

“To associate me with paedophilia is not satire but defamation. It’s unjust,” Scicluna said.

READ ALSO: Archbishop says ‘hateful’ carnival float was defamatory

The float has since then been banned by culture minister José Herrera from seeing the light of day, with the minister saying that it had “promoted hate against an institution.”

Scicluna said that he is usually the target of defamation throughout the whole year but insisted that carnival was not the appropriate place to be a victim of it.