Pokémon GO banned by Italian Bishop who likens it to totalitarian Nazism

Bishop Antonio Stagliano threatened to take a legal action to ban the popular virtual game "Pokémon GO" as it reminds him of Hitler's totalitarian Nazism.

According to Religion News Service, local newspapers reported Thursday that the bishop threatened to go to court in order to ban the app game, at least, in his diocese in the southern town of Noto in Sicily in order to "preserve the social stability of the men and women in his region."

The popular bishop, who uses renditions of Noemi and Marco Mengoni's rock hits during Mass, described "Pokémon GO" as "diabolical and alarming" because it "alienated thousands and thousands of young people" and compared it to a "totalitarian system like Nazism."

The bishop also reportedly likened those addicted to the game as an army of "walking dead."

A luxury hotel group in Tuscany offers therapy to their billionaire guests hooked to the game.

"We're seeing billionaires, Sheikhs, Emirs, their wives and children, Russian oligarchs and Italian industrialists hunting virtual creatures in the swimming pool, or in corridor and reception," RNS quoted Salvatore Madonna, CEO of Soft Living Places, as saying.

The Cologne Cathedral in Germany also took legal action against the game's manufacturers after they snubbed the church's request to remove it from the list of PokéStops and gyms that drew a mass number of "Pokémon Go" players to the grounds of the ancient church building.

Bishop Stagliano's threats follow that of French Mayor Fabrice Beauvois of Bressolles, who sent a decree to the Niantic Inc. and The Pokemon Company in California to withdraw from its village northeast of Lyon.

Mayor Beauvois warned that the virtual mobile game placed its players at risk on the road and insisted that Niantic breached the business standards in his municipality because the company did not obtain his authorization to set up activity "even though their settlement is virtual."

"They (Niantic developers) use the entire planet as a playground," the mayor told the Associated Press in a phone interview.