FEMEN activist stages protest in Vatican Nativity scene

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — A member of the protest group FEMEN was arrested after she jumped the barricade around the Vatican Nativity scene, took off her shirt and tried to grab the statue of the baby Jesus.

FEMEN, a Ukraine-related women’s movement that frequently targets the Catholic Church, posted a notice on its website before the protest saying the objective was “to raise awareness of Russia’s war crimes against Ukrainian children.”

The group accused the Vatican and the United Nations of “inaction” against Russia’s forcibly taking thousands of Ukrainian children to Russia.

According to the Italian news agency ANSA, Yana Fedorets, a 25-year-old Ukrainian citizen, was apprehended in the Nativity scene by officers from the Italian police force’s special Vatican unit. She was fined and released, ANSA reported.

Video of the incident showed Fedorets jumping the wooden barricade around the Nativity scene and removing her shirt. Written in red on her back were the words, in English, “Putin is war criminal.”

FEMEN activists have protested at the Vatican on numerous occasions in the past, removing their shirts to reveal messages ranging from support for women’s rights and the LGBTQ+ community to pro-abortion and anti-pope sentiments.

The Vatican, and particularly Italian Cardinal Matteo Zuppi of Bologna, Pope Francis’ envoy for peace in Ukraine, has been focusing its diplomatic efforts on prisoner exchanges and on returning children to Ukraine who had been kidnapped and taken to Russia.

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