Austria – Virgin Mary Decapitated – Feminist Idealogy Not Welcomed In The Church That Worships The Mother Of All
In the Christian tradition, the Mother of God is always idealized. It is almost impossible to see images of the Virgin Mary in an overly realistic pose or with realistic facial features. It’s the tradition. And it’s always shocking to see depictions of Mary as a human being. However, she was and is human.
Only three weeks the sculpture of “Mary Giving Birth to Christ” remained untouched in the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Linz, Austria. Then, three weeks after the opening of the exhibition, the sculpture was beheaded.
It remains unknown on whose initiative and under whose leadership the beheading was carried out. It is only known that some cardinals of the Catholic Church spoke very negatively about this work of art. One of the cardinals, cardinal Müller, condemned the controversial statue displayed in the Linz Cathedral, calling it “an advertisement for feminist ideology that violates the natural sense of modesty.”
The “Mary Giving Birth” is a creation of an Austrian artist Esther Strauß, who shows the Virgin Mary, the most depicted woman in the world, from a feminist perspective.
“Perhaps Mary is the woman in the world of whom there are the most paintings, drawings and sculptures; there must be thousands upon thousands. The majority of these images were made by men. Why does the one image that is missing stand out among them? The birth, which millions of people celebrate on December 24th, cannot be found in any painting or sculpture” – Esther Strauß
And she asks whether the depiction of Mary as an asexual being and an “ideal image of the mother or woman” does not just “serve the patriarchal power relations?”
