Jesus tolerated the mobs

THE EDITOR: There is something stupid, or repressive, or both about the decision by certain local Roman Catholic authorities to hide the weeping Virgin from the thousands of devoted followers whose only ‘sin’ is a desire to pray before this compelling visual aid. Some members of the religious communities have complained that if the statue was exposed, crowds of the curious and the crass would convert the sacred into the profane. There would be eating, picnicking, and unruly behaviour — “real bacchanal” — to disturb the peace and tranquillity as embraced by the Bemini peristyles at St Peters.

These robed bigots are the very sort that would have frowned on the crowds of the turbulent and the greedy, the critics and thrill-seekers, the ardent believers and the proselytes who thronged around Jesus when he preached, at times turning a sermon into a picnic in which He supplied the eats. Jesus tolerated the mobs. Not these latter-day Pharisees who would lock away the statue of the weeping Virgin because of sneering sophistry, and social intolerance of peoples and practices deemed unbecoming, even inferior.

It started when a statue of the Mother of God on February 11, 1996 was seen to have human blood running down the face from the eyes. The figure gained widespread attention and popularity, but for some inexplicable reason, it was removed from public display at the Corpus Christi Carmelite Convent in Diego Martin, and hidden from supposedly curious eyes and sensationalism. It was subsequently taken from the convent, and imprisoned at Mt St Benedict, to be viewed by the chosen few, by appointment only. Is it right to deprive the public of so poignant a manifestation by that statue of Our Lady of Lourdes? Particularly in these troubled times when turbulence at home and abroad are pleading for prayers?

Isn’t La Divina Pastora on display for all to see? Aren’t other statues? - the weeping images of the Virgin at La Salette; in an Orthodox Church in Chicago; in Tumero, Venezuela and in New Sarov Texas? Has Medjugorje been closed down even though it lacks Rome’s imprimatur? Did it stop Archbishop Pantin from going there and celebrating Mass in front of hundreds, Trinis included. Why this iron curtain between an anxious public and a motivational statue? The answer has to be the sort of stupidity and repression that darkened the Middle Ages, and condemned Galileo. What a shame and disaster that devotion to Mary is being choked off by stiff-necked bigots still locked in an earlier century. It should be added that appeals to certain members of the hierarchy have fallen on the unresponsive and the deaf. The suppression continues.

LLOYD CARTAR
Westmoorings