Christians have always honored Mary, the virgin mother of God. In the Catholic tradition especially, Mary has received many titles for the many apparitions attributed to her. Hence, Our Lady of Guadalupe, of Lourdes, et cetera. Episcopal painter, Mark Dukes, decided to add “Our Lady of Ferguson” to the litany.
Press coverage of this weekend’s Black Lives Matter protests and a new Jay-Z song about police have revealed that the “Hands up, don’t shoot” myth is alive and well.
After Michael Brown was killed in Ferguson, Missouri in 2014, “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot” became a motto of sorts for the Black Lives Matter movement. The phrase came from the false witness testimony claiming that Brown was shot in the back with his hands raised in surrender.
Forensic evidence and the then Attorney General Eric Holder beg to differ with this testimony. Brown was shot charging the police officer, not running away. He had just stolen cigars and assaulted a shop clerk before the altercation.
But forensic evidence doesn’t matter to the politically minded. Episcopal painter Mark Dukes decided to paint an Our Lady of Ferguson icon to add to his portfolio of politically correct and theologically nonsensical icons.
The icon depicts Mary with her hands raised. On her torso is the silhouette of a black man with his hands raised circumscribed by sniper crosshairs. In the middle of the silhouette’s chest is the Sacred Heart symbol—used by the Catholic Church to symbolize Christ’s self-giving love.
This icon will fit well alongside Duke’s “Dancing Saints” icon. The “Dancing Saints” fills the rafters of St. Gregory of Nyssa Episcopal Church in San Francisco.
There the parishioners can hold hands in a circle, garbed in Hawaiian lei necklaces, gazing up at the likenesses of Gandhi, Malcolm X, the mass-murderer Queen Elizabeth I, Lady Godiva, the 13th-century muslim Rumi, Thomas Aquinas, and Cesar Chavez.
The liberal editor-at-large of America magazine, Fr. James Martin, S.J., made sure to share this “Our Lady of Ferguson and All Those Killed by Gun Violence” icon on twitter, saying, “Beautiful.”
