Rome inherits riot shame

Wall Street outrage protests travel around the globe. Can such protests remain peaceful?

Vancouver riot

A few months ago, Vancouver rioters gave the city a bad name after the hometown favourite Vancouver Canucks lost out to Boston in the Stanley Cup finals.

Metropolitan police in Tottenham

Next, London was the scene of looting and arson which spread around England in response to the police shooting of Tottenham resident Mark Duggan.

Now, Rome has joined this cheery little club of cities where people smash up stores and set fire to cars in spite of calls to keep protests peaceful.

The rioting is just a few blocks from the Vatican where, in a general audience in 2009, Pope Benedict blamed human greed for the current global economic crisis.

The pope called greed a "vice" of the human heart which has led to "failure of correct ethical behaviour."

"We see," he added, "that the root of greed is precisely where this crisis was born." Greed, said the pontiff, views possession and appearance as the most important things in the world.