Issue 44 winter 24 - Journal - Page 103
Above, Completed installation of stainless “presence circle” and
inscribed dedication
To an ever-increasing extent, shrines and relics get
‘touched’, are ‘kissed’, have ‘adornments’ & ‘prayer requests’ added: so some protection, both environmental
and physical, becomes an additional consideration. A
laminated glass panel is UV protective to minimise degradation of the relics with silicate bags inside, to even out
fluctuations in relative humidity.
Meeting Romero
Then also, at this point, wordsmiths, interpreters,
communicators will have given thought to what surrounds the visible shrine: how many words, in what format, with what amount of explanation, to interpret the
meaning of this place of prayer.
Above, the bust is mounted on a 3-bladed ‘Trinitarian’ stand in
polished steel
One wants to ask, ‘how is the likeness to be displayed,
how does it relate to other likenesses in the great church,
and how does it contribute uniquely to the new place of
prayer?’ I mounted the bust on a Trinitarian stand, three
mirror-polished blades in one inter-reflective pillar,
Romero’s signature etched below the resin bronze likeness. And I located it on the diagonal, akin to Harry
Youngman’s lively statue of St George slaying the Dragon
set on the diagonal by my predecessor, Austin Winkley,
when he reordered the Sanctuary in 1989.
Following Romero
The space has adapted already alongside Romero’s
increasing status. The shrine, rising in significance for an
expanding fellowship of pilgrims to this new saint, will not
Above, Archbishop Oscar Romero’s bust by the American artist
LV Goudjabidze
I wrote previously of a ‘likeness’; an icon or image of a
long-dead saint or a true portrait of a modern saint. Each
pilgrim stores that visual connection and takes it away on
leaving. A resin-cast bust by the American sculptor
Lado V. Goudjabidze was presented to cathedral by the
Romero Trust.14
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Above, Archbishop JohnWilson & Canon Richard Hearn
rededicate the shrine and, subsequently installed, gates after
Romero’s beatification in 2019
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Conservation & Heritage Journal
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