Vatican City - Animal rights activists filed a formal complaint at the Vatican Tuesday asking the Catholic Church to denounce five Spanish priests whom they accuse of glorifying animal cruelty in defending bullfighting.

Anti-bullfighting protesters have called for years for the pope to oppose bullfighting, which they call a barbaric and archaic practice that contrasts sharply with Catholic teaching.

Spain holds about 1,500 bullfights each year in which the animals are taunted and stabbed before being killed, with defenders calling the controversial practice a venerated cultural tradition.

An Italian lawyer for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), Laura Sgro, filed the complaint at the Dicastery for the Clergy that seeks to compel the Holy See to investigate the priests over their "public promotion of bullfighting."

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Under canon law, a so-called "denuntiatio" formally alerts a dicastery to alleged wrongdoing.

Sgro said that in theory, the Vatican must respond, "even if only to reject it."

"It’s an issue on which the Church, especially the Spanish Church, has never taken a stand," Sgro told AFP, adding that when Catalonia banned bullfighting in 2012, the Spanish Bishops' Conference "more or less buried" the issue.

"I believe this initiative is important, beyond these five priests who have spoken in favor, so that we can actually start thinking in terms of genuine reflection on the issue," she said.

In Spain, bullfights are often held in honor of Catholic saints, including the Virgin Mary, with priests performing religious rites during bullfights.

PETA alleges that the five Spanish priests have glorified bullfighting "including describing the bloodsport as a 'symbol of Christianity' and blasphemously comparing the killing of the bull to the sacrifice of Christ."

"Priests who preach compassion while celebrating the torment and killing of animals for amusement are contradicting the values they are ordained to represent," said PETA Senior Vice President Mimi Bekhecki in a statement.

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In 2015, Pope Francis wrote in his encyclical "Laudato Si" about the environment that the ill treatment of animals was "contrary to human dignity."

In 1567, Pope Pius V issued a papal bull, or decree, largely ignored in ensuing centuries, banning bullfighting under penalty of excommunication, denouncing such events as "cruel and base spectacles of the devil and not of man."

While many countries have outlawed bullfighting, it remains legal, with some regional bans, in Ecuador, France, Mexico, Peru, Portugal, Spain, and Venezuela.