133-Year-Old Pietà restored for Lent, devoted to the suffering of immigrant women

When Father Camilo Cruz was assigned to St. Patrick’s Pro-Cathedral in 2020, one of his less glamorous undertakings as the new pastor was to clean the nearly 175-year-old church in Newark. Over centuries the building had accrued a lot of clutter, and by 2023, Father Cruz had worked his way to perhaps the most daunting part —the basements.

He had observed through the years that the basements contained some statues but never took a closer look until he began cleaning. Amid the dirt and dust, one statue stored in an inconspicuous room caught his eye. It was a Pietà: Mary holding the lifeless body of Christ after being taken down from the cross. It is also known to the Spanish-speaking community as Nuestra Señora de las Angustias – Our Lady of Anguish.

Upon closer inspection, the Pietà, made of plaster and wood, was in a state of disrepair and very old, Father Cruz said.

“We found an inscription underneath the Pietà, which is a wood base, and there is a little plaque that says it’s from 1890,” Father Cruz said. “It seems it was probably [in the basement] for quite a while and we don’t see [anything like it] inside the church now.”

He adjudged it to have been commissioned by the Irish or Italian communities that filled the pews of St. Patrick’s in its early years.

Moved by the statue, Father Cruz had an idea. He wanted to restore it for the veneration of the parish’s now-mainly Hispanic community and to have it ready in time for Lent. Specifically, by Ash Wednesday when Cardinal Joseph W. Tobin, C.Ss.R. would be at be at the Church to celebrate Mass and could bless it afterwards.

The restoration process

Ash Wednesday was a little over a month away on Feb. 22, so Father Cruz had to act quickly. Through a reference, he commissioned local artist Rafael Sebasco – a Catholic with 20 years of experience in restoration. Sebasco began working on the Pietà on Jan. 30, with a delivery date of Feb. 21 – one day before Ash Wednesday.

“My first reaction was I’m not going to have the time,” Sebasco said. “It is not every day that you find a sculpture in this condition. The statue was damaged by exposure to the dirt in which it was stored for a long time. The damage was very deep, and we decided to repaint it.

I loved the image of the sculpture because it was a challenge. A challenge to the cleaning and the final repainting that we had to do.”

In a window of four weeks, Sebasco brought the 133-year-old Pietà back to life. Throughout the process, he was driven by hope. In restoring the statue, he hoped the completed work might restore the faith of those who venerated it.

“The first thought I had is that through this statue, a person can be saved by faith,” Sebasco said “I base my work on trying to make sure that when the person comes to see the statue already restored, it will help them.”

In addition to restoring the statue, Father Cruz and Sebasco decided to make two additions to it — a heart that is pierced with a sword and a cross. They are meant to symbolize the Spanish colonization of the Americas in the 1490s and the immigration of Latinos into the United States.

*A before-and-after look at the restoration of the Pietà completed by Rafael Sebasco over a four-week period* *(St. Patrick’s Pro-Cathedral*).

A deeper meaning

Nuestra Señora de las Angustias, Our Lady of Anguish, is a special devotion for Father Cruz and the St. Patrick’s community.

The pastor was born in Colombia and grew up admiring the processions and venerations in Sevilla, Spain. His faith and vocation were fostered by the women in his life, he said.

“In my family, the majority are women. Beginning with my grandmother, my aunts, my mother, my sister – they have been women with tenacity and women who occupied important roles in my life,” he said. “My vocation and my persona have been shaped by images of powerful women.”

For Father Cruz, no other image of a woman is more powerful than that of Mother Mary holding the vulnerable Christ. He sees this sorrowful version of Mary in his own family, as well as in the women of his parish family – many of whom are immigrants and had to leave their children and their families behind. So, for Lent, he dedicated the restored Pietà to the suffering of women, especially immigrant women.

“One of the things that I am doing as pastor is trying to empower and accompany these women who are trying to find their place within the Church and within society as immigrants,” Father Cruz said. “And why not during this season of Lent to reflect on these sorrows? And [reflect on] Mary as a sorrowful woman, but as a woman who always found her ways – from Bethlehem to the foot of the cross.”

The Lenten impact

Throughout Lent, parishioners have found their way back to this image of Nuestra Señora de las Angustias. Father Cruz believes this is because they identify with the image and find solace in praying before it.

“[The Pietà] has been a tremendous source of consolation [for our parishioners]. They feel embraced by the love of God through the love of a mother. And they identify in themselves that they don’t walk alone; that there is a God that is near them, through the presence of Mary,” he said.

After all, Lent is a season of drawing closer to God. Much like when a church or a statue is cleaned, Lent is a season in which the spirit is cleansed of the earthly things that keep it away from God. But to get to that point, we need some help, and Father Cruz sees the solution in the image of the Pietà.

“Mary is a big, strong arm to our relationship to Jesus Christ. We always say, ‘to Jesus, through Mary.’”

Alexandra Rojas and Marianela Guerrero contributed to this article.