The Vatican wrote a letter of support in the pope's name to Franz Pahl, president of the regional government who opposed the sculpture.
"Surely this is not a work of art but a blasphemy and a disgusting piece of trash that upsets many people," Pahl told Reuters by telephone as the museum board was meeting.
The Vatican letter said that the work "wounds the religious sentiments of so many people who see in the cross the symbol of God's love."
Pahl, whose province is heavily Catholic, was so outraged by the sculpture of the pop-eyed amphibian that he went on a hunger strike to demand its removal and had to be taken to hospital during the summer.
Hunger strike? Over a frog? Geezus H. F***ing Buddha. Here's hoping that reason and free artistic expression win out in the end.
Art experts defended the work.
"Art must always be free and the artist should not have any restrictions on freedom of expression," Claudio Strinati, a superintendent for Rome's state museums, told an Italian newspaper on Thursday.
How can you look at the frog and not smile? Just look at his cute little drunken face.
I can think of worse things done to a frog, namely shoving lighted M80 firecrackers down their gullet as a kid. And I can tell you those acts were most certainly NOT done in the name of art but in the name of destruction.
