U.S. Asked to Probe Vandalism of Virgin’s Image

Condemning the recent defacement of several murals depicting the Virgin of Guadalupe, Sen. Barbara Boxer asked U.S. Atty. Gen. Janet Reno on Friday to investigate the attacks as hate crimes.

In recent weeks, about two dozen streetside murals of the Virgin of Guadalupe in Boyle Heights and South-Central Los Angeles have been desecrated with slashes of paint, some including “666” and “La Bestia” (“The Beast”) scrawled under the Virgin’s womb.

The attacks have coincided with a tour through the region of a replica of the Virgin’s image, which is being displayed in more than 50 churches across the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles.

No police investigation of the defacements has begun. But, some parishes with murals of Guadalupe, including Our Lady Queen of Angels Church near Olvera Street in downtown Los Angeles, have hired private security officers to guard the Virgin’s image.

In a letter to Reno, Boxer (D-Calif.) said that “if the Los Angeles attacks were designed to disrupt display of the replica or intimidate parishioners, the crimes would violate federal hate crimes law.”

“These systematic attacks on the images of the Virgin of Guadalupe are more than acts of vandalism--they are hate crimes,” Boxer added. “And like all hate crimes, they strike directly at our nation’s core values of respect, tolerance and religious freedom.”

The story of the Virgin of Guadalupe stems from an apparition of the Virgin Mary in 1531 to Juan Diego, an Aztec convert to Christianity. Believers say that after appearing to him as a dark-skinned Virgin outside Mexico City, she left her image on his mantle.

That image lies inside the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe, which was built on the site where the appearance reportedly occurred. Since then, the Virgin of Guadalupe has evolved into a powerful sacred image, especially for Mexicans, who revere her as protector and mother.

Several residents have blamed the attacks on evangelical Christians or Pentecostals, some of whom have criticized devotion to the Virgin of Guadalupe as idol worship. But the archdiocese’s Office of Hispanic Ministry has said it is unfair to conclude that Protestants are responsible.