Blackfriars Priory school, a Catholic boys school in Adelaide, Australia commissioned a statue of a saint Martin de Porres that was supposed to showed him giving a loaf of bread to a child. While the commission was granted on the basis of a drawing of the statue, when the final statue was unveiled, it suggested something completely different, though one that is consistent with what we have learned about the Catholic church.
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It did not help that the school itself had earlier been hit with several sex abuse scandals involving teachers.
The school has covered up the statue with a black cloth while they decide what to do about it. But that act of covering up is itself being viewed as a metaphor for how the church has responded to its sex abuse scandals.
I’ve got to think the artist **knew** what they were doing. Good grief, how could you work on that and not know? Makes me wonder if they did that on purpose to make a statement.
Made us LOL. And shake our heads.
That’s either deliberate, or the artist is a devout Christian. They tend to be literal-minded and usually struggle with alternative interpretations and double entendres.
I agree with kestrel @1. That was my first thought when I looked at the pic.
I doubt that the artist did this deliberately. Most artists are starved for commissions and such a prank would guarantee that they would lose a lot of potential jobs.
Reminds me of the joke that ends with “… a pat on the head and a Snickers bar.”
From a more local report, this quotation:
The saint looks sorta disinterested in the child”s welfare, just like the rest of the church..
All they have to do is move it to another parish….
@7 Lofty-
Spot on. The child is looking up at the adult. The adult, meanwhile, has a blank expression and certainly doesn’t look back at the child.
“Give us today our daily bread…”
The kid is thinking, This is so degrading…..
The Saint is thinking, Only 17 more to do before I’m off for a week…..