AN Adelaide Catholic school has been forced to cover and cordon off a new religious statue after raising eyebrows for its unfortunate design.

Blackfriars Priory School unveiled the statue late last week of St Dominic handing a young boy a loaf of bread, which appears to have emerged from his cloak.

One of St Dominic’s miracles was the ample supply of bread.

But the sculpture’s unintentionally provocative design has had unintended consequences and created a flurry of activity on social media.

media_camera The covered-up statue, which was later cordoned off completely.

media_camera The ‘rude’ statue of St Dominic. Pictures: Supplied

The Advertiser understands the school was forced to cover the statue with a black cloth after students took inappropriate photos on Friday and by this week it had been cordoned off.

Pictures of the statue have been shared on social media on the ShitAdelaide Instagram page, attracting 1315 likes and more than 90 comments.

One Instagram user wrote: “Like who the hell designed, approved and erected it and no one thought about it?”

Another user wrote: “Blackfriars is not alone. I saw heaps of similarly dodgy ones while living in Chile”.

Other users commented: “surely this can’t be real” and “can’t believe this happened”.

Blackfriars Priory School and Catholic Education SA have both been contacted for comment about the statue, but did not respond by the deadline.

Originally published as Catholic school hides ‘rude’ statue