UNITED STATES
National Catholic Register
by PHILIP MOORE
01/04/2012
TUCSON, Ariz. — For more than eight decades, the centuries-old Pamplona Crucifix was on the wall in the vestibule of St. Augustine Cathedral in Tucson, Ariz., a battered and neglected gift from a forgotten donor.
Now carefully restored, the 12th-century artifact of medieval Spanish Catholicism has a new place, over the high altar of the Diocese of Tucson’s remodeled and renovated cathedral.
At a cost of $75,000, the restoration of the crucifix was only a small item in the diocese’s $28 million “Our Faith, Our Hope, Our Future” campaign. However, as a symbol for a diocese recovering from scandal and bankruptcy, it has become something greater.
On Sept. 20, 2004, the Diocese of Tucson was the second in the nation to seek protection under Chapter 11 of the federal bankruptcy code. And it was the first to emerge, on Sept. 26, 2005, having settled with victims of clergy sexual abuse and their attorneys at a cost of $22.2 million.
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