MADRID (AP) — A Spanish priest says he has given up hope that local authorities in his parish of Xestoso in the northwest of the country will fix the potholes in the roads so he has asked for divine intervention.

Luis Roldan Patino celebrated Mass on a pitted road Sunday and splashed holy water to bless it. Each pothole is now marked with a wooden cross on the roadside so drivers can slow down before hitting them, he said.

Roldan Patino told journalists that "just like we can pray to the Lord for rain" he is pleading for divine intervention to fix the road because "it's going to be the only way to do that."

He said the authorities are "blind to the situation and we feel totally abandoned."