Frog bites Pope

The board of the Museion museum in the northern city of Bolzano has refused to take down the modern art piece which the Vatican has condemned as blasphemous.

The sculpture called "Zuerst die Fusse", meaning Feet First, depicts a frog of about four feet high nailed to a brown cross holding a beer mug in one outstretched hand and an egg in another.

Museum staff said the artist, who died in 1997, considered the sculpture a self-portrait representing human anguish.

However, the German Pope did not agree and the Vatican wrote a letter to the regional government, whose President, Franz Pahl, went on hunger strike in opposition to the frog and had to be taken to hospital

The Vatican's letter said the amphibian "wounded the religious sentiments of so many people who see in the cross the symbol of God's love".

Cuttooth wrote:It's not even very good.