THIEVES DESECRATES CATHOLIC CHURCH, CART AWAY $2M DOLLARS TABERNACLE

Police: Thieves rob Brooklyn Church of $2M Tabernacle, decapitate Angel statue

Source - New York Post

A bejeweled tabernacle believed to be worth $2 million was stolen from a Brooklyn church by godless thieves who also decapitated statues of angels, Police and Church officials said this Sunday.

The Crooks used power tools to slice open a steel cabinet at St. Augustine Roman Catholic Church in Park Slope and swipe the “pure 18-karat gold tabernacle with jewels” sometime between Thursday and Saturday, police said.

The Tabernacle is believed to date to when the Park Slope church was built in the 1890s. It held the Holy Eucharist and was only ever opened during Mass.

The thieves also cut off the heads of Angel Statues flanking it and left the Eucharist strewn about the Altar.

Church officials were horrified by the unholy act.

Thieves used power tools to cut through an altar at St. Augustine’s Roman Catholic Church.

“To know that a burglar entered the most sacred space of our beautiful church and took great pains to cut into a security system is a heinous act of disrespect,” said the Rev. Fr. Frank Tumino, the church’s Pastor.

The pastor said he came by the Sixth Avenue church at around 3:50 p.m. Saturday for confession and noticed the doors were ajar, although the house of worship had been locked since 7 p.m. Thursday.

He went into the sacristy, noticed that items were out of place and called the police.

Then he noticed the missing tabernacle and his heart dropped “right to the pit of my stomach,” he said.

“I could see that the Tabernacle they had been working on, they had been really well prepared and working on cutting the steel cabinet that covered it,” Tumino said.

He said the removal of the Tabernacle was “very, very violent.”

A statue of an angel had its head removed.

“I tend to think and look for the good in all people, so I never would have known, would have thought” this would happen, he said. 

“That being said, I always try to make sure that things are locked and that the church is lit.”

Tumino believes the Culprits broke into the Church not through the front door but by some other means. They exited through the front by breaking its lock, which was on the inside.

A safe in the Sacristy was also cut open but nothing was inside, Church officials said. A DVR containing surveillance footage was taken.

Tumino said information about the Church and its artifacts was very public. The church is also used for weddings and other events.

He said many of the Police Officers who came to investigate the theft were disgusted.

“They were equally horrified,” he said. “I can’t tell you how many of the officers at varying levels kept on sharing, ‘This is horrendous, Father. This is so unbelievable.’ That was very encouraging and heartening. ”

He begged the Thieves to bring back the Tabernacle.“

As a human being, I say, ‘You’ve taken away something that is so beautiful, that has given people beauty among the ugliness of their lives at times,’ ” Tumino said.

“A sacred thing should not be cut up and sold. A sacred thing should not be melted down. A sacred thing should really be protected. And so that would be my greatest hope, that as it is sacred and has been used for over 100 years for sacred things, that it would return to sacred use.”

New York State Catholic Action Chairperson James Russell called on the incident to be investigated as a hate crime.

“When is enough, enough! Yet, again our Churches have been desecrated,” he said in a statement. “We encourage in the strongest terms possible that if you see something that isn’t right, say something!”

Anyone with information in regard to this incident is asked to call the NYPD’s Crime Stoppers Hotline for English at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477) and Spanish, 1-888-57-PISTA (74782). The public can also submit their tips by logging onto the Crime Stoppers website, or on their Twitter Handle.

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