“Christ Of The Pacific” Statue, Lima, To Be Unveiled Soon

The Statue of Christ The Redeemer in Corcovado, overlooking Rio de Janeiro, will be the inspiration for the "Christ of The Pacific" statue in Lima.

Good news from Peru.

A huge statue of Christ will be unveiled, probably on the Feast of Sts. Peter and Paul, on the 29th June.

We are talking here of 22 metre of statue atop a 15 metre base. This makes a total of 37 metres, something like 12 storeys of a normal building, on top of a hill overlooking Lima.
The idea is that the statue should be visible from every point of the Peruvian capital.

As it was to be expected, such an endeavour is not without controversies: it is an initiative of the President of Peru (who has also very generously contributed to the costs, entirely financed by private donations), but the mayor of Lima has asked to place the statue somewhere else because it affects the view of the Morro Solar, a hill complex located nearby. The President has answered that the hill on which the statue should be posed doesn’t fall within the jurisdiction of the Mayor of Lima and whilst one can’t be certain when and where the statue will be unveiled, it doesn’t seem in doubt that this thing will happen. I haven’t come through calls to abort the installation because of politically correct concerns that such an initiative may, say, offend the Cameronian one-legged Icelandic lesbians or be opposed by the Feminists because Christ is represented as a man.

We’ll have to wait to see how the statue (built in Brazil) looks like, but the fact that it is said to be inspired by the famous one overlooking Rio de Janeiro leaves room for hope that another episode like the JP II’s multifunctional statue/rain shelter/garbage dump/urinal in Rome will not be repeated. Personally, I find the planned illumination in a couple of dozen colours a bit on the tacky side, but that’s just me.

In the meantime, one registers that in 2011 there are still Countries and Christians (from simple donors to people in very high political office) able to pull something like that.

Kudos to the Peruvian people and best wishes that the new monument may soon become closely identified with the city, a constant reminder of Our Saviour for all Lima’s inhabitants and, why not, a touristic attraction.

Mundabor