Sony has apologised for an advertising campaign for its PlayStation games console which depicted a young man wearing a crown of thorns and the slogan “Ten years of passion”.

|TOP|The advert, to mark PlayStation’s tenth anniversary, was pulled after the software giant was hit with scores of complaints from Italian Catholics within hours of it appearing in Italian newspapers and magazines.

“This time they’ve gone too far,” said Antonio Sciortino, editor of Famiglia Cristiana (Christian Family), a mass-circulation Catholic weekly.

The Sony advert features a young man wearing a crown of thorns which on closer inspection is made up of the symbols of the PlayStation.

“If this had concerned Islam there would have been a really strong reaction,” Sciortino was quoted as saying in the Corriere della Sera newspaper.

Italian Cardinal Ersilio Tonini, among the first to speak out, denounced the ad as “an irreverent mockery”.

“The advert displays a lack of taste which conceals a lack of respect. Kids shouldn’t be induced into believing that the passion of Christ is a game,” he said.

|QUOTE|Sony Computer Entertainment Italia issued a statement Friday in which it said it “regretted the reactions” to the campaign, saying that the message had been “misunderstood”.

“The campaign has been stopped and, also due to the reactions it has caused, will not be taken up again,” the statement read.

Sony’s ad campaign adds to a list of others in recent months to come under the scorn of numerous Catholics.

“There is no religion any more” was the slogan of a recent IKEA advert announcing to Italians, who are steadily leaving the church, that its furniture stores were open for business on a Sunday.

Two adapted versions of Leonardo Da Vinci’s Last Supper also stirred up controversy after their launch in predominantly Catholic countries.

French fashion designer Francois Girbaud featured Jesus as a woman with a table of glamorous disciples, while Irish bookmaker Paddy Power depicted the original Christians gambling, the traitor Judas with his 30 pieces of silver in his hands.