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A $ 2 million tabernacle has been stolen by a Catholic church in Brooklyn, New York City police said Monday, with church officials describing it as a “brazen crime of disrespect and hatred.”
The gem-decorated tabernacle, a container that holds the Eucharist used in the sacrament, is “irreplaceable because of its historical and artistic value,” a statement from the Brooklyn Roman Catholic Diocese said.
The robbery of the Roman Catholic Church “St. Augustine in the Park Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn was inaugurated on Saturday by Father Frank Tumino, a pastor there, who said in a statement that the tabernacle was “the central focus of our church outside of worship.”
Tumino was about to hear confessions in a parish in the street when he passed St. Augustine and noticed that one of the doors was ajar, according to Tablet, a diocesan publication.
When he entered the church, he encountered destruction by finding the Eucharist – usually unleavened bread or waffles – scattered around the altar. The sight made him feel bad, he said, adding in a statement that the Eucharist in the tabernacle was used as a communion for the sick and home-bound.
Church officials said the theft happened on Friday, while police gave a wider window, saying it happened between 6:30 p.m. Thursday and 4:00 p.m. Saturday. There were no witnesses and no surveillance footage was available, New York police said in an email. Tumino said that while the church has security cameras inside and outside, parts of the surveillance system were taken during the theft.
The metal shell of the altar was “forcibly cut” with an electric saw, police said, allowing the tabernacle to be looted. Statues of angels on either side of the tabernacle were also “beheaded and destroyed,” the diocese said. An empty safe has also been cut.
Police had no information on potential suspects as of Monday night and asked anyone with information about the burglary to contact the department’s crime department. Tumino speculates that many people took part in the robbery, given the enormous weight of the tabernacle.
Although police said the tabernacle was made of solid gold, Father Robert Whelan said in a program for the church from 2013 that it was made of solid silver covered with 18-carat gold.
The tabernacle was completed in 1895, Whelan said, a few years after the church opened, which the New York Times described in 1892 as “the best in Brooklyn.” St. Augustine – and inside, the tabernacle – narrowly escaped being hit by a plane that crashed in Park Slope in 1960, killing dozens. “The jet landed on the ground, passing just a few feet of the church’s towering tower,” a Catholic Standard and Times article said at the time.
The jewelry attached to the tabernacle was donated by parishioners, said Whelan, who at the time was asked to bring his jewelry for use. Diamonds and other jewelry from engagement and wedding rings were used to decorate the structure.
Whelan said in the program that this was “probably the most complex tabernacle in the country.”
Jaclyn Peiser contributed to this report.
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