(ANSA) - Palermo, May 20 - Interior Minister and anti-migrant Euroskeptic League party leader Matteo Salvini can't call himself a Christian after brandishing a rosary during a Milan rally of rightist nationalist European leaders, an Italian bishop said Monday.

"We can no longer stay silent over the bragging of an ever more arrogant minister," said Domenico Mogavero, bishop of Mazara del Vallo, a port in western Sicily.

"We can no longer allow (people) to appropriate the sacred signs of our faith to peddle their inhuman, anti-historic views, diametrically opposed to the Gospel message. "Those who are with him cannot call themselves Christian because they have reneged on the commandment of love," said Mogavero.

The bishop was speaking on the sidelines of the assembly of Italian bishops in Rome.

The Vatican has criticised Salvini's use of the rosary saying that invoking God for oneself is always dangerous".

Mogavero is head of the judicial affairs panel of the Italian Bishops Conference (CEI).

