Artist recreates stolen St. Bernadette statue for St. Malo shrine

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This article was published 14/04/2023 (910 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A replica of a stolen religious statue will soon rest in a southern Manitoba shrine thanks to the generosity of a Winnipeg artist.

After hearing about last spring’s theft of the statue of St. Bernadette from Our Lady of the Lourdes Grotto near St. Malo, visual artist John Millar offered to make a replacement figure.

“Without the statue of St. Bernadette, the shrine wouldn’t have the central figure of who made it happen,” said the 2021 University of Manitoba fine arts graduate.

Constructed more than a century ago on a shady spot along the banks of the Rat River about 70 kilometres south of Winnipeg, the shrine commemorates Bernadette Soubirous (1844-79) who repeatedly saw apparitions of the Virgin Mary in her hometown of Lourdes, France.

The French nun was canonized as a saint in 1933 and her body exhumed and put on display in a convent in Nevers, France, so visitors could venerate her.

In 1939, a statue replicating St. Bernadette’s body was installed in a glass casket inside a new wooden chapel at the Manitoba grotto.

That statue was stolen — and returned — twice, but it hasn’t been seen since early June when it was reported missing, said Leo Roch, a member of the board of the bilingual Roman Catholic parish of St. Malo/Blessed Margaret Pole, which oversees the shrine.

Roch said nothing else was taken from the small chapel and the glass casket, located behind a plexiglass barrier, was not damaged.

“We haven’t heard anything about it since, and I doubt we’ll ever get more information,” he said of the theft, which was reported to the RCMP.

Roch was pleased to get Millar’s offer in November to make a replacement statue. Millar only asked to be paid for the materials, estimated at $500.

The parish board plans to install security cameras to deter further theft and vandalism.

After studying photos of the saint, Millar sculpted her head and hands with modelling clay, created a silicone mould and then cast the body parts in resin, painting the features for a realistic look.

“It was really painstaking to get every detail,” said Millar, who studied human anatomy to get the proportions right.

Dressed in a black nun’s habit, the statue’s body consists of copper tubing covered in spray foam and wrapped in duct tape, making it light and easy to transport, said Millar, who previously repaired religious statues for another Catholic church.

“I’m definitely interested in statue restoration and religious art,” said the Filipino-Canadian who was baptized a Roman Catholic.

Millar had planned to deliver the statue this weekend so it could be blessed on April 16, the feast day of St. Bernadette, but that installation will have to wait for several weeks since the grotto site is still soggy from melting snow.

For now, the religious object lies in repose, on a couch in the basement of Millar’s North End home.

In addition to the new statue, Roch said volunteers plan other improvements this spring, including installing another row of benches to expand the capacity of the outdoor chapel and stabilizing loose stones in the altar.

People from around the world visit the grotto and shrine, located on the east side of Highway 59, and thousands of Manitobans attend the annual pilgrimage in mid-August, he said.

brenda.suderman@freepress.mb.ca

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