I know it is a somewhat delicate matter to refuse a gift, but in this case the statue is so atrocious that every endeavour should be made to keep it out of the church.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Christians well know that the much-decorated statue of the Church, as it now stands, is not of pure chiseled marble, but of clay, cemented together by blood and tears and hardened in the fires of hatred and persecution.
I've got a statue of St. Francis in my front yard, and I'm not even a practicing Catholic.
We say to the British government: you have kept those sculptures for almost two centuries. You have cared for them as well as you could, for which we thank you. But now in the name of fairness and morality, please give them back.
When a gift is difficult to give away, it becomes even more rare and precious, somehow gathering a part of the giver to the gift itself.
I think of a monument as being symbolic and for the people and therefore rhetorical, not honest, not personal.
I would much rather have men ask why I have no statue than why I have one.
The thing with sculpture is, 90% of the time, when I pass a piece of sculpture, it's in public or somewhere, and it's just, how inconvenient that that's there. It takes up so much room, and it's so oppressive.
I have a statue of Superman. It's actually a big one... It's a collectible statue of Superman, which the DC guys very kindly gave to me. So that's a little prized possession of mine.
Society is one vast conspiracy for carving one into the kind of statue likes, and then placing it in the most convenient niche it has.
The Church has always been willing to swap off treasures in heaven for cash down.