By Susan Vela
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Bishop Daniel Dolan next to the statue of Scourged Christ at St. Gertrude the Great Church. (Ernest Coleman photo) | ZOOM |

SHARONVILLE - During these past weeks of Lent, many parishioners at St. Gertrude the Great Catholic Church have stared in wonder at a Jesus Christ statue that some Catholics find too gruesome.

The "Scourged Christ" statue vividly depicts Christ as he appeared on Good Friday, when he was beaten, whipped and crucified.

While most statues show a pale, gaunt Christ, this one portrays a man bleeding profusely from head to toe. Bruises darken his face. Lurid gashes reveal muscle and ribs.

The sight is embraced as an important part of worship by parishioners at St. Gertrude, a Traditionalist church outside the fold of the Archdiocese of Cincinnati.

Seeing Christ's graphic wounds certainly shocks them. But the shock inspires them to think about sin and why Christ died.

"It's a real jumping board to prayer and inspiration. When we look at it, it makes us see the price of our sins," said Bishop Daniel Dolan, the church's pastor."Some people love it. Others can't stand it.

"It's kind of like that statue is too hot. It's too vivid. It's too real."

Part of the Traditional Movement, St. Gertrude's is opposed to the reforms made by the Roman Catholic Church in the 1960s. Here, the Masses are still in Latin, the bishop faces the altar instead of the congregants, and there is a greater amount of kneeling and genuflection than in other Catholic services.

Many statues of Christ and the saints also occupy the church. Right now, the majority are covered in purple cloth, a sign of solemnity and penance. The Scourged Christ is part of a shrine that rests in a church hallway. Bishop Dolan wanted the statue to remain on display.

The 4-foot Scourged Christ occupied an Urbana, Ohio, church's basement until a few years ago. A St. Gertrude parishioner acquired the statue and now it travels between St. Gertrude and another Traditionalist church in Columbus.

This is the second Lenten season that the statue has been at St. Gertrude.

"I love it," said Becky Uhlenbrock of Oxford. "If the statue looked as bad as Christ looked at his scourging (or flogging), I don't think anyone could look at it. It evokes such fear.

"I'm very sorry that I have ever done anything in my life to have caused my Lord to go through such agony."

The Rev. Michael A. Seger, a religious art collector and associate professor at the Athenaeum of Ohio-Mount St Mary's Seminary, fears that observers are so struck by the bloody sight that they pay less attention to Lent's purpose - a preparation for Easter and its celebration of Christ's resurrection.

"The over-emphasis to the point of what's almost grotesque may very well not be calling a person to a spiritual awareness. It would be distracting from the total idea of entering into the Paschal Mystery and the Resurrection," he said.

But, he added: "I have a hard time criticizing the statue. That's ultimately the (church's) personal choice. It's their space."

He and Dolan concur that such statues are common in Mexico and Spain. Catholics in those countries emphasize pain, suffering and violence. Art frequently portrays an armed Virgin Mary, a bloodied, crucified Christ and Christ in his tomb. In some observances, men nail their hands to crosses.

"The whole movement in the late '60s was away from that kind of realistic, passionate suffering, sin-oriented religion," Dolan said. "Then you get to a graphic Christ who's bleeding for our sins. What would you do with him but put him in the basement?"

Beverly Simpson has no qualms about her three children, ages 4-7 years, seeing the Scourged Christ statue. "They just say Jesus has lots of 'ouchies' and sometimes they pray for him," the Blue Ash mother said.

E-mail svela@enquirer.com