Scottish Catholic Observer

The church of San Pietro della Ienca lies in an isolated spot in the mountains in central Italy. Over the weekend, thieves broke some protective iron bars and forced their way in through a window.

They took a Crucifix and the priceless relic, which contains a piece of gauze once soaked in the blood of the late Pope—one of only three such relics in the world.

“We are very displeased by the theft,” Franca Corrieri, a member of the local cultural association, said.

“This is an area that John Paul II visited often, with his secretary and not too many bodyguards. We feel very connected to him. After his death, his secretary, Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz, came and told us that he wanted this church to become a sanctuary.”

The  relic was donated to the church in May 2011 by Stanislaw Dzuwisz, a Polish cardinal.

The reliquary is one of just a handful in the world that contains the blood of the Polish Pope, who died in 2005 and was succeeded by Pope Benedict XVI.

The theft of the reliquary comes as the Vatican prepares to Canonise John Paul II, along with another former Pope, John XXIII, at a ceremony on April 27.

—This story ran in full in the January 31 edition print of the SCO, available in parishes.