SANTIAGO, Spain, May 3 (UPI) -- Catholic leaders at one of Spain's most famous cathedrals and pilgrimage sites have decided to remove a statue of the country's patron saint.
Saint James "the Moorslayer," so called for his exploits against Muslim invaders, will no longer have a statue of himself in Santiago's cathedral, the Times of London reported Monday.
Church authorities are having the icon removed in case it might offend Muslims.
Spain's national press said the announcement had more to do with the March 11 massacre of 190 people by Islamic terrorists in Madrid.
El Mundo said that the echoes from mainland Europe's worst terrorist atrocity had accelerated the long-planned withdrawal of the famous symbol and its movement to a museum.
Still, the decision has outraged traditional Catholics, many of whom still light candles and pray to the 18th-century statue in the tiny chapel inside one of Christendom's three greatest pilgrim places of worship.
