Lobby group pushes Pope to back total tobacco ban

BY STAFF REPORTER
AN AMERICAN campaign group has urged Benedict XVI to ban smoking in Vatican City.
Physicians and Nurses Against Tobacco, based in Rhode Island, has launched an online petition calling on the Pope to establish the world’s first tobacco-free state.
“We hope to convince him to make this gesture as an example to other religious and political leaders and policymakers,” the petition says.
The Vatican banned smoking in offices and public places five years ago but visitors and employees can still smoke outdoors.
Bishop Renato Boccardo, secretary general of the Vatican City governor’s office, admits that at first the ban was ignored. “For a while, even after the no smoking rule, people still smoked. But now it’s entered into the general mentality,” he said.
Bishop Boccardo caused controversy some years ago when he prohibited smoking on the official papal plane.
Journalists and members of the papal entourage had been allowed to light up on the chartered plane even though the Alitalia airline had banned in-flight smoking years before. They had been encouraged to do so by the free cartons of cigarettes that Alitalia gave each passenger.