A new video game titled Vatican Quest with a character who looks like Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI is causing furor in Spain. The reason behind the ruckus is that the papal look-a-like acts as a pimp for Catholic cardinals.

The video, made by RoundGames.com, showed the character catching children using his staff and then handing them over to pedophile clergy, who are hiding behind doors. There are also paparazzi who take photos of the main character's pimping.

Maslibres.org, a human rights group in Spain, expressed disgust with the video game and called for its pull out. It launched an online petition to ask the developer to remove the offending online game from its free Web site.

"Reducing to caricature the drama of child sexual abuse, and then profiting from it, offends and victims and their families ... Representing the pope as a pimp and the cardinals as pedophiles in an offense to Catholics," The New York Daily News quoted Maslibres.org spokesman Miguel Vidal.

Besides asking the developer to remove the game, which is like a game from an old Nintendo platform, Maslibres.org is asking the Spanish distributor of Vatican Quest to ban it from PCs and smartphones.

The game ends when the pope is caught by media, who are investigating the sex abuse allegations.

"The trend of hurting the church and Catholics must have a limit. Unfortunately in some web pages that are currently hosting the game it has become the most popular with its readers," Mr Vidal was quoted by Huffington Post.

It is not the first controversy for the game developer which released Vatican Quest in March. RoundGames had previously released other games with controversial themes, including Osama's Revenge and North Kim Jong Nuke Trouble.

While the objection raised by Maslibres is understandable and proper, the reality of sex abuse is real with some of the main characters in the game somewhat involved in one way or the other in terms of cover up or not doing enough to address the problem like what Pope Benedict did or the large number of sex abuse case involving children perpetrated often by priests.

Over the past few decades, the Vatican received at least 600 sex abuse complaints yearly against clergymen.

The question now is would Maslibres also object to a planned movie by Dreamworks on the same subject based on award-winning stories made by the Boston Globe?

Pope Benedict left the matter of sex abuse for his successor to handle. Barely a month in his post, Pope Francis ordered last week determined action against the sex abuse cases.

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