5/3/04

From the "better late than never department".

Tonight we do a very late update and correction to an almost 4 year old post, "Spanish Continue With Self-Castration."

Your humble editor very belatedly apologizes and notes that he posted an incorrect photo, did not appropriately credit the source for that photo, and (bearer of good news finally), also sees that the Spanish relented under local pressure and did NOT remove their....

....Statue of James James, The Moor–Slayer.

The large photo in the original post below, as I have been very gently chided by a pleasant and peripatetic gentleman, "... is not of Santiago Montemores in Santiago, which is a smallish statue in a side chapel. Rather it is a large sculpture in Lagroño on the facade of the church there...[and]... is copyright by Mike Metras at www.worksandwords.com.

Here is the actual statue in question:

and as also noted above, here is the the excellent news as reported in the Telegraph, that a

"Public Outcry Forces Church to Keep Moor Slayer's Statue.":

St James the Moor Slayer, Spain's patron saint, has notched up another victory.

Church officials have been forced to overturn a decision to remove a statue of the saint from the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in north-west Spain.

The statue, an 18th-century work by Jose Gambino which depicts St James on a white charger hacking off the heads of Moors beneath his rampant mount's hooves, was deemed to be offensive to Muslims.

However a spokesman for the church, which is Christendom's third holiest site after Rome and Jerusalem and attracts half a million pilgrims each year, said yesterday that, due to public anger over the proposed move, the statue will now remain in place.
______________
On Monday, May 03, 2004, JP posted:

Spanish continue with self-castration.

As reported by the Bin Laden Broadcasting Company on Monday, 3 May, 2004, 12:10 GMT 13:10 UK [found also at Worldnetdaily.com]
Church to remove Moor-slayer saint.

A statue in a Spanish cathedral showing St. James slicing the heads off Moorish invaders is to be removed to
avoid causing offence to Muslims.


Large sculpture in Lagroño on the facade of the church there, is NOT the statue in question: photo copyright by Mike Metras at www.worksandwords.com.

Cathedral authorities in the pilgrim city of Santiago de Compostela, on Spain's north west coast, plan to move the statue to the museum.

Among the reasons for the move is to avoid upsetting the "sensitivities of other ethnic groups".
EARTH TO SPAIN! The statue is in YOUR CHURCH! Unless you are planning on turning over your churches to Osama, who is going to be offended?
The statue of St James "the Moor-slayer" is expected to be replaced by one depicting the calmer image of St. James "the Pilgrim", by the same 18th century artist, Jose Gambino.

The Saracen-slaying image of St James, or Santiago in Spanish, is a symbol of the fight between Christianity and Islam and the reconquest of Spain from eight centuries of Moorish rule before 1492.

The saint is said to have appeared to Christian troops fighting Moorish army at the Battle of Clavijo in 844, the
crusaders rallying to the cry of "Santiago y cierra Espana" - "St James, we will reconquer Spain".

Cathedral authorities insist the timing of the decision has nothing to do with the 11 March bombings in Madrid, which an Islamic group is alleged to have carried out.
ALLEGED? The Moroccans who were arrested have confessed to planning the attack BEFORE the liberation of Iraq, AND most of the al Queda who originally got away later BLEW THEMSELVES UP, rather than be arrested by the few Spanish who still have their "complete packages"!
Alejandro Barral, president of the cultural commission for the cathedral council, told BBC News Online:

"This is not an opportunistic decision. This is not through fear of fanatics of any kind and nothing to do with 11 March or 11 September."

He said the decision was taken a few years ago, but simply had not yet been implemented.
No time like the present for appeasing muslim terorists, eh, SeÒor Barral? Did Osama promise to spare your entire family?
Mr Barral said the idea was to try to take the image of the saint back to its origins - St James as the apostle or pilgrim who took the word of Jesus to the Iberian Peninsula.

The Baroque image of a sword-wielding St James cutting the heads off Moors is not a very sensitive or evangelical image that fits the teachings of Christ, he added.

The statue, when it is eventually moved from the chapel in the cathedral, is not likely to be hidden from the six
million pilgrims and tourists who visit the city every year. It is due to take its place alongside dozens of other
images of St James in the cathedral museum.
Seems to us that the BBC and the Spanish can kneel to the muslim moon-god together!