'Apache Christ' returned to New Mexico church

This caused a stir a few days ago. Now, an update, from OSV News:

An Indigenous image of Jesus Christ has been returned to a New Mexico mission church, days after their sudden removal by the pastor and other individuals, according to tribe leaders and parishioners.

The Mescalero Apache Tribe announced on its Facebook page July 3 that “it is with profound joy that we announce that the paintings take(n) from St. Joseph’s Apache Mission have been returned to the tribe and the paintings will be returned to their locations in the church.”

The parish is located on the lands of the Mescalero Apache Tribe.

The tribe’s Facebook post included two photographs of “Apache Christ” by Franciscan Friar Robert Lentz, an eight-foot icon depicting Jesus as a Mescalero Apache holy man with the inscription in Apache “giver of life,” and a painting of an Apache crown dancer by the late Apache artist Gervase Peso.

In the photos, the images appeared to be in an office at an undisclosed location.

An earlier report noted:

A number of parishioners took to social media to report their astonishment and dismay over the sudden removal — among them, volunteer youth minister and catechist AnneMarie Brillante, who stated on a Google webpage she created for the mission parish that the icon “was taken in the middle of the night while community members recovered” from two major wildfires in mid-June that killed two and forced thousands to evacuate.

“It was a shock to our summer youth catechism teachers and attendees to enter the church and be greeted by an empty space where the ‘Apache Christ’ icon once stood,” wrote Brillante, who told OSV News she is Mescalero Apache and has been a lifelong member of the mission.

Brillante said in her post that “those responsible for the secret removal of the painting include the pastor, members of the Knights of Columbus and the Roman Catholic Diocese of Las Cruces.”

OSV News reached out to Deacon John Eric Munson, the chief operating officer and head of human resources for the Las Cruces Diocese who also oversees communications, but has not yet received a response to several phone and email inquiries.