‘Virgin Mary’ stain defaced, covered in Chicago (Reuters)
A stain under a highway bridge that had drawn hundreds of faithful who thought it resembled the Virgin Mary was painted over by a road crew on Friday after a vandal defaced the image. Chicago police said they charged a 37-year-old man with damage to state property after he used black shoe polish to paint “big lie” on the yellow and white stain which had become the site of an impromptu shrine for the past three weeks. Some wept as a coat of brown paint was rolled over the stain on a wall next to a sidewalk where candles, flowers, pictures and other mementos had been placed.
Engineers had said the stain was most likely caused by a water leak from the road above, mixed with salt that had been used on the highway during the winter. Police did not say what the man’s motive might have been in defacing the image.
I don’t know what’s sadder, that hundreds of people in a developed country can be drawn to pay homage to a water stain or that someone would be so vindictive as to deny them the opportunity. Just pitiful.
