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Pope Francis has rebuked his host Evo Morales, the Bolivian president, after the left-wing South American leader presented him with a crucifix mounted on a hammer and sickle – the international symbol of the avowedly atheist creed of communism, according to Telegraph.co.uk.

The disapproving look on the pontiff’s face made abundantly clear that he was not impressed by the provocative greeting gift handed to him Mr Morales when he paid a courtesy call after arriving in the country.

“That’s not right,” the Pope noted. The slight was all the more notable as the Argentine pontiff praised the social and economic reforms of Mr Morales when he arrived from Ecuador on the second leg of a three-country tour of his native South America.

But Bolivian officials explained that the gift was a replica of a crucifix made by Father Luis Espinal, a human-rights activist who was killed by a paramilitary death squad in 1980. The Pope had earlier prayed at the site of the murder of his fellow Jesuit en route to the presidential palace.

On his arrival, Pope Francis stressed the role of the Church in Bolivian society, saying the faith “has continued to shed its light upon society, contributing to the development of the nation and shaping its culture”.

Those words were a clear message to his host. After his election in 2006, Mr Morales, an indigenous Indian, adopted a confrontational approach towards the Roman Catholic Church to which he once referred as his “main enemy”.

But his attitude toward the Church changed radically when Francis became pope. He has been keen to cultivate good relations with a religious leader who is widely perceived as a champion of the poor and oppressed and indeed Mr Morales has twice visited him at the Vatican.