Benetton has created a stir with its new ad campaign. The images show Pope Benedict XVI kissing Egyptian imam Imam Ahmed el Tayyeb on the lips, along with images of President Obama locking lips with Chinese premier Hu Jintao and Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez.

Part of the fashion company’s “Unhate” ad campaign, the White House had no comment, but the Vatican threatened legal action. “This is a grave lack of respect for the Pope,” said Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi.

Lombardi asserted that the image is offensive to the “sentiments of the faithful” and “a clear example of how advertising can violate elementary rules of respect for people in order to attract attention through provocation.”

Benetton, for its part, is apologetic. “We are sorry that the use of an image of the pontiff and the imam should have offended the sensibilities of the faithful in this way,” said Benetton in a statement.

“Our campaign promotes a shift in the balance: don’t hate, Unhate,” says the Benetton explanation on its website inviting “us to consider that hate and love are not as far away from each other as we think.”

Source: New York Daily News