Mary is the centerpiece of virgin-adulation in the Christian tradition, though she is not the only religious figure said to have given birth asexually. Nor was she the first. Mighty Isis gave birth to her son Horus by immaculate conception after Osiris was murdered and hacked into tiny pieces by his wicked brother Set. Michaelangelo's Pieta - photo © MAK 2010 This Virgin Mary, of course, is part of the Pieta, an incomparable sculpture carved by Michaelangelo. Besides being rendered awestruck by its ethereal beauty, you can't help but notice that this Mary -- probably in her late 40s or early 50s at the time of the crucifixion -- has the countenance of a teenager. There are no wrinkles, no signs of life lived well. There is perhaps a suggestion of shock or perhaps surrender, but not the overt grief that might be anticipated from a human mother holding a son who died too young under horrendous circumstances, even a human mother who fervently be