A late 19th-century tabernacle valued at more than $2 million was stolen from a Catholic Church in Brooklyn over the weekend.
According to the NYPD, via Fox 5 New York, burglars broke into St. Augustine’s Roman Catholic Church in the Park Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn sometime between Thursday and Sunday. The burglars allegedly cut through a casing on the altar with power tools and made off with the silver and gold, bejeweled receptacle. The burglars also decapitated two marble angel statues flanking the tabernacle, as well as other statuary. The Church was closed for construction at the time.
In a statement Sunday, the Roman Catholic diocese of Brooklyn called the burglary”a brazen crime of disrespect and hate, which desecrated the most Holy Eucharist and the altar” of the Church. “The burglar cut through a metal protective casing and made off with the Tabernacle, which dates back to when the church was built in the late 1800s,” the statement read. “This holy sacramental receptacle is irreplaceable due to its historical and artistic value. The angels which flanked the Tabernacle were decapitated and destroyed, and the Holy Eucharist housed inside the Tabernacle was thrown all over the altar.”
“This is devastating, as the Tabernacle is the central focus of our church outside of worship, holding the Body of Christ, the Eucharist, which is delivered to the sick and homebound,” Fr. Frank Tumino, pastor of St. Augustine, said. “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.”
“I was here and just sick to the pit of my stomach!” Tumino told parishioners Sunday morning, via Spectrum News. ““You’ve taken away something that is so beautiful, that has given people beauty in the midst of the ugliness of their lives at times.”
According to a guide on the Church’s website, the tabernacle, built in 1895. is a “masterpiece and one of the most expensive tabernacles in the country.” The 18-karat gold receptacle is adorned with silver figures and gemstones. “All the precious metals and stones were donated by parishioners in the form of coins and jewelry,” the website reads. The statue is flanked by two statues of adoring angels, made with 22-karat gild, along with the two marble angels, who are swinging censers. The tabernacle itself was restored in 1952 and again in 2000, the site adds.
In addition to the tabernacle itself, the burglars also cut open a safe inside the sacristy, the room where the priests and altar servers put on their vestments and prepare for the Mass, but nothing was inside. The burglars also threw the Eucharist, the sacramental hosts consecrated into the body of Christ during the Mass, all over the altar.
The NYPD urged anyone with information on the burglary to reach out via their confidential tip line.
In December, another prominent Catholic church was vandalized. A statue of Our Lady of Fatima was attacked on the grounds of the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington D.C., as the Daily Wire reported at the time. Video of the incident shows an unknown attacker walking up to the statue of Mary, the mother of Jesus, and smashing its face and folded hands in with a hammer. The attack came just days before the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, a Catholic holy day celebrating Mary.
Source: Dailywire
