Removal of statue of Mary from court building by Argentinean judge sparks protests

Buenos Aires, Argentina, Jan 6, 2004 / 22:00 pm

A federal judge’s decision last Saturday to remove a statue of Our Lady of the Rosary of St. Nicholas from the entrance to the Supreme Court building has sparked angry protests from various organizations which have called the decision illegal.

Judge Susana Cordoba had ruled in favor of a lawsuit filed by the Association for Civil rights, which claimed the statue of Mary in the Supreme Court building “endangers judicial impartiality and violates the right to the equal treatment of persons.”

Moreover the ruling by Cordoba had been appealed by other organizations, and therefore the removal of the statue was not to take place while the appeal was still pending.

The organization Pro-Life said the ruling “is explained only by the systematic and sustained campaign being carried out to damage and attack the Catholic faith.”

Pro-Life denounced the ruling as “a deliberate attack on the Catholic faith and on one of its most venerated symbols, the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God.”

The group said the removal of the statue, “which took place secretly on a Saturday and during the court recess...constitutes a grave attack on freedom of religion which, both in private and in public, is protected by the national Constitution.”

Militant atheism “is becoming rampant in a country which invokes God’s protection in the preamble of its Constitution,” Pro-Vida said.

Other pro-life groups referred to the nomination of a self-declared “militant atheist” to the Argentinean Supreme Court by President Nestor Kircher as further evidence of growing secularization in the country.