San Luis,USA - A criminal inquiry of three Mormon missionaries accused of defacing a Roman Catholic shrine was dropped after Catholic Bishop Arthur Tafoya sought forgiveness for the young men ahead of Easter.
Costilla County Cpl. Scott Powell said March 21 that the investigation had just gotten under way when Tafoya asked that charges not be pursued.
Photos posted on the Internet showed the trio at the Shrine of the Mexican Martyrs at the Chapel of All Saints, which stands on a butte overlooking San Luis.
The photos _ taken in 2006 _ show young men holding the broken head of a statue, preaching from the Book of Mormon at an altar and pretending to sacrifice one another.
The damage was only discovered this month, and officials from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints quickly issued an apology.
Tafoya, bishop of the Pueblo diocese, said Mormon officials apologized to him personally.
"I ask that we as Catholics, who believe in the forgiveness of Christ, will ourselves forgive, and pray for the young men who showed such a lack of tolerance and understanding," Tafoya wrote in an Easter letter.
Kim Farah, a spokeswoman for the Latter-day Saints, said the church was pursuing its own sanctions against the missionaries.
The outdoor shrine is near the Sangre de Cristo Church overlooking San Luis, a small town 170 miles south of Denver. The damaged statue depicts Manuel Morales, president of Mexico's National League for the Defense of Religious Liberty when he was executed in 1926 for refusing to recognize laws he considered anti-religious.