Paris, France, Mar 2, 2018 / 16:01 pm
A statue of St. John Paul II will be removed from public land in a small French city, after a 2017 court order ruled its cross must be removed.
The statue, nearly 25 feet tall, portrays Pope Saint John Paul II praying beneath an arch adorned with a cross. Its Russian sculptor had given the statue to the town, and it was installed at a public car park in 2006.
Patrick Le Diffon, the mayor of Ploërmel, has sold the statue to the Catholic Church for about $24,000. The statue will be moved a few dozen yards down the street to a church-owned property neighboring a Catholic school, Agence France Presse reports. It will be visible there for residents and visitors to the small city in northwest France's Brittany region.
In October 2017, France's top administrative court, the Conseil d'Etat, ordered a cross to be removed from the statue, citing France's 1905 secularism law.