One of the first stories I ever did on the Catholic Church sex-abuse scandal was about a scandalous mural on the back of St. Joseph's in SanTana that its detractors lovingly referred to as the Boner Jesus. Per my writeup then, “Jesus is completely nude. Nowhere is the tattered cloth that two millennia of Christian art universally placed across His crotch. Instead, a red bulge suggests the Savior's scrotum, while a swath of pink appears to indicate the Holy Johnson.”
I don't know of anyone who liked the piece–even former Diocese of Orange Bishop Norman McFarland described it in a court deposition as “quite a bizarre painting…it wasn't something that I thought was anywhere [near] good art.” Well, critics won't have Boner Jesus to kick around anymore: in March, the church painted over the mural, literally whitewashing it of its ickiness.
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The development was first reported by The Digital Hairshirt, a blog written by a former SanTana resident and St. Joe's parishioner who has unsuccessfully tried to save my soul for the past five years or so. According to the author, none other than newish Bishop Kevin Vann personally approved the funds to get rid of the mural. And while I've always been an advocate for public art, Boner Jesus exemplified all that was wrong with the Orange diocese during its pedophile era.
Congrats to the Bishop. Now, if you can only find the funds to get rid of John Urell, your see can get over its current pedophile-protector era…heckuva job, Brownie!
Email: garellano at ocweekly dot com. Twitter: @gustavoarellano. Follow OC Weekly on Twitter @ocweekly or on Facebook!
