Local artist Scott LoBaido unveiled a statue Monday dedicated to America’s first saint amid continuing controversy about a perceived snub against her. His statue of St. Frances Xavier Cabrini, more commonly known as Mother Cabrini, was made public on her feast day, and displayed outside St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Manhattan.

City officials declined to choose Cabrini as one its first-round statues for the “She Built NYC” initiative despite her garnering the highest number of public nominations. “You have this incredible New York woman, who was the first canonized in America,” LoBaido said. “They turned her down when she was overwhelmingly voted on, and it was kind of a shot in the arm to New Yorkers.”