On Sunday in St. Peter's Square, balloons were released as a gesture of peace instead of the traditional symbol of flying doves.

This comes one year after an attack by a seagull and a crow on the symbolic birds ignited protests by animal protection groups.

Ever since Pope John Paul II started the tradition of releasing doves on the last Sunday of January every year, children have been at a window of the papal studio overlooking the square with the pope, setting free a pair of doves for world peace, according to the Associated Press. 

In 2014, the act of goodwill turned ugly when the birds were attacked mid-flight.

After the children, alongside Pope Francis, tossed a pair of doves from the window, a seagull swept down, then a crow got into the action, and the doves were attacked.

Animal rights advocates demanded the church put an end to the dove releases.

They appealed directly to Pope Francis himself, who is the first pope ever to take the name of Saint Francis of Assisi, a holy man known for his adoration of birds and other wild creatures.

When children in the square let go of their balloons pope Francis said, according to the Associated Press, "Here's the balloons that mean, 'peace.'"

Many gulls make their nests atop the colonnade of St. Peter's Square, not far from the Tiber River, and there they look for garbage. For an animal advocacy group, this meant putting the dove's lives at risk by freeing them. 

After the seagull and crow incident, there were all kinds of Tweets and Facebook posts using words such as "demonic," "omen" and "apocalypse" to describe what the attack on the doves meant.

So, why did the seagull and crow attack the doves?

The National Geographic put it simply by saying the doves were attacked because they were "bred to be unnaturally white."