title: POPE TAKES COMMUNIST CRUCIFIX GIFT HOME: Says He Was Not Offended By It [VIDEO]
text: Well, as a Catholic the act of the Pope of my church accepting a gruesome hammer and sickle with Christ affixed to the front was wholly offensive Pope Francis has said he wasn t offended by the  communist crucifix  given to him by Bolivian president Evo Morales during his South American pilgrimage.Morales surprised the pontiff with the unusual gift, a crucifix attached to a hammer and sickle, when Francis arrived in La Paz on Wednesday.The crucifix was a replica of one designed by a Jesuit priest, the Reverend Lu s Espinal, who was tortured and killed by Bolivian paramilitary squads in 1980. Francis prayed at the site of Espinal s assassination upon his arrival in Bolivia.The modified crucifix immediately raised eyebrows, with some questioning whether Morales, whose socialist and anti-church rhetoric is well-known, was trying to score a political point with a questionable, and possibly sacrilegious, melding of faith and ideology.Francis, an Argentine Jesuit, said Espinal was well-known among his fellow Jesuits as a proponent of the Marxist strain of liberation theology. The Vatican opposed it, fearing that Marxists were using liberation theology s  preferential option for the poor  as a call for armed revolution against oppressive rightwing regimes that were in power in much of Latin America in the 1970s and 1980s.During a news conference en route home to Rome on Sunday, Francis said he interpreted Morales  gift through the prism of Espinal s Marxist bent and viewed it as protest art.After taking into consideration the time in which he lived, Francis said:  I understand this work. For me it wasn t an offense. Francis added that he brought the crucifix home with him.Via: The Guardian