Ridiculous restoration job turns religious statues into googly-eyed caricatures and instant tourist attraction

A disastrous restoration job on religious statues in Brazil left the Holy Family looking like ridiculous cartoons — and the botched spruce-up was so bad that it became an instant tourist attraction.The absurd changes turned Jesus, Mary and the other religious figures in the public square in Carmo do Cajuru into googly-eyed caricatures with thick, arched eyebrows and bright red lips, outraging locals who found the spectacle disrespectful, according to Jam Press.But out-of-towners flocked to the town, with about 250,000 of them there to laugh or pray around the site.The ridiculous alterations to the Passion of Christ figures have since been removed.Worshippers in the Nossa Senhora do Carmo Parish, which commissioned the work, had decried the altered statues as a “depredation” and “an eyesore.”The parish council eventually admitted the changes “caused discomfort to many faithful and residents” and ordered the paint be removed, returning the sculptures to their original white finish.“The facial features were painted on in an entirely mistaken fashion, which is why we acted immediately to reverse it,” church officials said, without revealing who was behind the bashed paint job.The parish has since been searching for a new artist to do a proper restoration on the weathered statues.In 2012, an amateur Spanish artist made worldwide headlines for her infamous restoration of a prized painting of Jesus — earning it the nickname “Monkey Christ.”Cecilia Gimenez, who died at the age of 94 in December, became a viral sensation when she restored “Ecce Homo,” a deteriorating fresco by Elias Garcia Martinez that had hung at the Sanctuary of Mercy Church near Zaragoza for almost 100 years....