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An
Australian Catholic school was forced to cover up a “suggestive”
statue — of a saint handing a young boy bread.
Blackfriars
Priory School in Adelaide apologized Wednesday for the recently
completed granite work depicting St. Martin de Porres holding a loaf
of bread close to his groin, as a child reaches out for it.
“Upon
arrival, the three-dimensional statue was deemed by the [school] to
be potentially suggestive,” Simon Cobiac, principal of the boys
school, wrote
on their Facebook page.
“As a consequence, the statue was immediately covered and a local
sculptor has been commissioned to re-design it.”
The
sculpture, honoring the patron saint of all those seeking racial
harmony, was commissioned from an artist in Vietnam and designs were
approved by the school’s executive committee in May.
School
executives only recognized its risqué nature after it arrived and
decided to cover it with a black tarp until a local artist can
“substantially” alter it, Cobiac wrote.
The
principal apologized for any “concerns and publicity” generated
by the work, which was unveiled Friday and quickly posted to
a popular
Adelaide Instagram page,
where it attracted hundreds of comments, local
news site Adelaide Now reported.
“This
is the first time bread had been unappealing to me in my whole life,”
one commenter wrote.
“Who
designed that… surely someone has to say ‘mmm big mistake,’”
wrote another.
The
account also posted their own altered versions of the work replacing
the loaf of bread with everything from a Subway sandwich and candy
bar to a photo of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
The
work portrayed St. Martin de Porres, a Dominican priest who lived in
Peru until his death in 1639.
He
was noted for establishing a children’s hospital and orphanage and
was believed to have the ability to communicate with animals and cure
the sick instantly.
