After months of delays and protests, St. Paul’s Catholic Church and the Archdiocese of Chicago on Tuesday finally carried out a plan to remove a beloved statue from a shuttered church in Pilsen.
The statue — a marble replica of Michelangelo’s Pieta, depicting the body of Jesus on the lap of his mother, Mary, after the crucifixion — was taken from St. Adalbert Catholic Church, 1650 W. 17th St., to St. Paul’s, 2127 W. 22nd Place, which absorbed St. Adalbert’s congregation after it closed.
About 7 a.m., police cordoned off the alley leading to the east transept of the church where the statue is held, and by about 10 a.m., workers had removed the statue and loaded it onto a flatbed truck to move it.
