Would you go to a church with this on top?

European companies are finding ingenious ways to disguise ugly, but necessary, mobile phone antenna masts. Customers can pick everything from trees to crucifixes.

The latter crosses the line for some congregations, who are not willing to see Christ on a cross, with antennae sticking out here and there. The mayor of Schwabhausen, in deeply Catholic Bavaria, has come out against such an antenna in his village church. Mobile phone companies are hesitant as well.

“The churches actually don’t like it so much,” said Susanne Satzer-Spree, a Vodafone spokeswoman.

However, some houses of worship have managed to make their masts part of their identity.“Everyone recognizes the church now,” said Johannes de Fallois, pastor at a church in Neuburg.