Thieves steal Pope John Paul's blood from church

[spaminator]

Thieves steal Pope John Paul's blood from church
Philip Pullella, Reuters
First posted: Monday, January 27, 2014 08:35 AM EST | Updated: Monday, January 27, 2014 01:12 PM EST
ROME - Thieves broke into a small church in the mountains east of Rome over the weekend and stole a reliquary with the blood of the late Pope John Paul II, a custodian said on Monday.
Dozens of police with sniffer dogs scoured the remote area for clues to what the Italian Catholic magazine Famiglia Cristiana called "a sacrilegious theft that was probably commissioned by someone".
Franca Corrieri told Reuters she had discovered a broken window early on Sunday morning and had called the police. When they entered the small stone church they found the gold reliquary and a crucifix missing.
John Paul, who died in 2005, loved the mountains in the Abruzzo region. He would sometimes slip away from the Vatican secretly to hike or ski there and pray in the church.
Polish-born John Paul, who reigned for 27 years, is due to be made a saint of the Roman Catholic Church in May, meaning the relic will become more noteworthy and valuable.
In 2011, John Paul's former private secretary, Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz, now archbishop of Krakow in Poland, gave the local Abruzzo community some of the late pontiff's blood as a token of the love he had felt for the mountainous area.
It was put in a gold and glass circular case and kept in a niche of the small mountain church of San Pietro della Ienca, near the city of L'Aquila.
Corrieri, who is part of an association that looks after the small church, said the incident felt more like a "kidnapping" than a theft. "In a sense, a person has been stolen," she said by telephone.
She said she could not say if the intention of the thieves may have been to seek a ransom for the blood.
Apart from the reliquary and a crucifix, nothing else was stolen from the isolated church, even though Corrieri said the thieves would probably have had time to take other objects during the night-time theft.
Some of John Paul's blood was saved after an assassination attempt that nearly killed him in St. Peter's Square on May 13, 1981.
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[spaminator]

Cloth stained with Pope John Paul II's blood missing
Reuters
First posted: Thursday, January 30, 2014 01:51 PM EST | Updated: Thursday, January 30, 2014 01:58 PM EST
ROME - Police on Thursday recovered a stolen gold and glass case that once contained the blood of the late Pope John Paul II, only to find the cloth stained with the blood itself was missing, officials said.
Pasquale Corriere, head of the association that looks after the small church in the mountains east of Rome from which the reliquary was stolen, said two men had been detained by police in the regional capital, L'Aquila.
The men took the police to the site where they had dumped the reliquary, but the cloth stained with the blood of the pope, who died in 2005, was no longer inside, Corriere said.
Police were interrogating the men, who they believed to be drug addicts, and searching their apartment, Corriere said. A small crucifix stolen along with the reliquary from the church of San Pietro della Ienca last weekend was also recovered.
The blood-soaked cloth was a fragment of the cassock that John Paul was wearing on May 13, 1981, when he was shot in an assassination attempt.
Relics of saints and other holy figures are often displayed in reliquaries to be venerated by the Catholic faithful.
The late pope, who is due to be declared a saint on April 27, loved the mountains in the Abruzzo region because they reminded him of those in his native Poland, and he would slip away secretly from the pressures of the Vatican to hike and ski there in the early years of his papacy.
In 2011, John Paul's former private secretary, Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz, now archbishop of Krakow in Poland, gave the local community the relic as a token of the love that John Paul had felt for the area. (Reporting By Philip Pullella; Editing by Kevin Liffey)
A broken glass of a niche where the reliquary with the blood of the late Pope John Paul II was located is seen next to a painting of the late Pope in the small mountain church of San Pietro della Ienca, near the city of L'Aquila January 28, 2014. (MAX ROSSI/REUTERS)

Cloth stained with Pope John Paul II's blood missing | Weird | News | Toronto Sun