Thieves Steal $2 Million Gold Tabernacle, Behead Angel Statues at Brooklyn Catholic Church
Thieves recently stole a $2 million tabernacle and also decapitated statues of angels at a Brooklyn, N.Y., church, according to a new report.
The suspects made off with the St. Augustine Roman Catholic Church’s “pure 18-karat gold tabernacle with jewels” — which is believed to date back to the church’s founding in the 1890s — sometime between Thursday and Saturday after using power tools to cut open a steel cabinet, police told the New York Post.
Reverend Frank Tumino, St. Augustine’s pastor, said he arrived at the church around 3:50 p.m. Saturday for confession and found the doors were ajar despite the building having been locked since 7 p.m. Thursday.
He went into the sacristy where a safe had been cut open and called the police. A DVR with surveillance footage was taken, as well.
Tumino said his heart dropped “right to the pit of my stomach” when he discovered the tabernacle, which held the Holy Eucharist and was only opened during Mass, was missing.
“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,” he said.
The suspects also decapitated the heads of angel statues sitting on either side of the tabernacle and left the Eucharist thrown about.
The pastor said he always made an effort to make sure the church is locked and well-lit. He told the New York Post he believes the thieves did not break into the church via the front door. However, they exited through the front by breaking an interior lock.
“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,” Tumino said.
He called on the thieves to return the tabernacle to the church saying, “A sacred thing should not be cut up and sold.”
“A sacred thing should not be melted down,” he said. “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 suggested the incident should be investigated as a hate crime, according to the report.
“When is enough, enough! Yet, again our churches have been desecrated,” he said. “We encourage in the strongest terms possible that if you see something that isn’t right, say something!”
The break-in comes after a wave of vandalism at Catholic churches and pro-life organizations around the country that followed the publication of a leaked draft Supreme Court opinion which suggested the Court may be poised to overturn Roe v. Wade.
