Portland police have recovered the statue of Our Lady of Guadalupe which was stolen from the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception chapel last month.

It arrived in the mail Friday.

The statue disappeared sometime during the night of Sept. 17 and was discovered missing from the chapel, located alongside the main cathedral on Cumberland Avenue, the following morning. Police said there was no sign of forced entry.

The statue stands about 4 feet high and its value was placed at $1,000, police said.

A woman in New Hampshire saw news stories about the theft and determined the statue she had been given by another person at a church retreat might be the missing statue, said Assistant Chief Vern Malloch. Once she determined it was the missing statue, she mailed it back to the department, Malloch said.

The statue appears to be made of plaster and is hollow, he said. It did sustain some damage, he said.

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Nobody has been charged in the theft and the case remains under investigation.

Malloch did not provide additional details about the woman’s identity and said he did not know where the religious retreat had been held.

The statue depicts the Virgin Mary in a red dress and a blue veil with stars.

Our Lady of Guadalupe is a representation of Mary as she appears in the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City, listed by Travel and Leisure as the most visited site in Catholicism.

The image recalls the story of how Mary appeared to a peasant in what is now Mexico and instructed him to gather flowers, which he stored in his cloak. When he presented the flowers to the archbishop, the story says, the stain left behind on his cloak showed the image of Mary, the mother of Jesus.


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