Madonna mia. The statue is gone. It stood in front of Our Lady of Loreto, a historic Catholic church in the Ocean Hill section of Brownsville. The now-vacant church was built more than a century ago as a refuge for Italian immigrants who were discriminated against by Catholics of other ethnicities.

As a photo taken by the Brooklyn Eagle on Tuesday shows, the statue of Our Lady of Loreto is missing from its pedestal on the corner of Sackman and Pacific streets. Until its removal, it could be seen above a construction fence that had been placed around the church in late spring.