T Just hours after surviving a vote of no confidence last week, Berlusconi told his Jewish joke to an audience outside his home, where he was celebrating his victory with his glamorous female MPs. He set the scene by describing an arrangement between two Jews during the war in which one hides the other in his basement for the extortionate rent of €3,000 a day. Berlusconi, a former cruise ship entertainer, gave his punchline: "The question now is whether we should tell him Hitler is dead and the war is over?" Video footage of Berlusconi's latest joke quickly appeared on the website of La Repubblica, along with another joke, in which Berlusconi referred to the physical appearance of opposition MP Rosy Bindi, about whom he has joked before. This time, Berlusconi’s punchline included the phrase "porco Dio", a terrible blasphemy in Italy. L'Osservatore Romano, the Vatican's official newspaper, led the outrage at Berlusconi's behaviour, saying his "deplorable” jokes are "an offense to believers and the sacred memory of 6 million victims of the Holocaust." Berlusconi, who only last month was criticised for telling a Hitler joke to a youth rally, has defended himself, saying the jokes were "not offensive and not a sin, but just a laugh" because they were "made in private". He added: "The bad taste and the responsibility are on the part of whoever publicises them." Vatican raps Berlusconi for blasphemy and Jew joke
Joke about the Holocaust came just hours after Silvio Berlusconi won a vote of no confidence
Monday, 4 October 2010
LAST UPDATED 7:48 AM, OCTOBER 4, 2010
he Vatican has slammed Silvio Berlusconi for a new round of offensive jokes, after the Italian prime minister once more made light of the Holocaust and mocked the looks of an opposition MP using the Italian language's most serious blasphemous profanity.
Vatican official Archbishop Velasio De Paolis told La Repubblica:
"Berlusconi should apologise to all Italians, but first of all to believers."
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