Salvini 'disgusted' by pope's communist crucifix gift

(ANSA) - Rome, July 14 - Matteo Salvini, the leader of Italy's anti-immigrant Northern League party, said on Tuesday he was "disgusted" by the Communist crucifix that Bolivia's president gave as a gift to Pope Francis during his recent trip to South America.
    Bolivia's Evo Morales presented Francis with the crucifix in the shape of a hammer and sickle when he arrived in La Paz on Wednesday.
    "I was left disgusted, because millions of people in the world have died in the name of that hammer and sickle, in the name of Communism," Salvini told Italian radio Rtl 102.5.
    "Communism has committed more crimes in the world than Nazism," said Salvini. "To see it combined with our Lord...it really annoyed me," he said. The crucifix was based on a design by a Marxist-minded missionary tortured and murdered by Bolivian paramilitaries in 1980, Jesuit priest Father Luis Espinal.
    Francis, who prayed at the site of Espinal's assassination upon his arrival in Bolivia, said on the plane home Monday the gift had not "offended" him - on the contrary, he was taking it back to the Vatican with him.