Every year for the past eight years, private citizens have erected a display in Chicago's Daley Plaza featuring an Easter cross and image of Jesus the Divine Mercy as an expression of free speech and the exercise of freedom of religion in the public square. For the previous seven years, the display held its nine-day vigil without incident. This is the first time that someone has defaced the images.

"No display -- whether religious, political, or artistic -- should be destroyed by those who disagree with the message," said Attorney Jocelyn Floyd of the Thomas More Society. "Free speech and expression of faith is protected by the First Amendment. Destruction of others' speech is not."

Called "Jesus in Daley Plaza", a nine-day prayer vigil to honor the Passion, Death and Resurrection of Christ kicks off in the plaza at midnight on Good Friday ever year. The 19-foot tall cross and a 10 foot image of the Divine Mercy image of Jesus is raised and draped in purple linens on Holy Thursday evening as the devotion begins. The nine-day prayer vigil “Prayer in the Public Square,” coordinated by The Divine Mercy Project and The Christopher Leaders, will run through Monday, April 28.

“Both the Easter Cross and the Divine Mercy Image represent a constitutionally protected expression of faith—the observance of the Resurrection—by private citizens in a public forum,” said Tom Brejcha, president and chief counsel of the Thomas More Society. “The Easter displays are privately funded and sponsored, bereft of any government aid or endorsement, and therefore, these displays are clothed and armored with the full protection of the First Amendment of our U.S. Constitution.”

This year's devotion will be prayed with even more fervor, and with pleas for God's mercy upon the perpetrators of the vandalism.

"It is shameful that the image of Jesus Christ was marred last night," Floyd said. "But private citizens should not allow the occurrence of vandalism to discourage them from expressing their faith in the public square."

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