On Wednesday last week the Spoleto Cathedral' sacristan, who is in charge of protecting the building and its contents, discovered the vial was missing.

Archbishop Renato Boccardo of Spoleto-Norcia, who was a close aide to John Paul for years at the Vatican, is pleading with those responsible for the theft to "give the reliquary back to the cathedral and the faithful."

The stolen gold and crystal vial was part of a relic - one of several containing the late-pontiff's blood. It had been stored in the Spoleto Cathedral chapel on an altar dedicated to John Paul, who died in 2005.

It was a gift from the Archbishop of Kraków to the Archdiocese of Spoleto-Norcia in 2016.

The archdiocese had been planning to move the relic to a new church in honor of Pope St John Paul on 22 October, which is his feast day.

Boccardo says it is not clear if the vial containing Pope St. John Paul's blood has been stolen for ransom, which has happened in the past with other such artifacts in Italy.

The police have launched an investigation to try and find the culprits. They have reviewed CCTV from inside and outside the building, but have not said if they have identified a suspect.

Source

• Daily Mail
• Aleteia
• Image: Philstar.com

The Birmingham Oratory publicised the theft on Sunday, saying the bone fragment had been taken from its casket in the Newman Shrine.

The fragment, some brass coffin handles and an inscription plate were the only remains found in Newman's grave when it was excavated in October 2008.

According to the Franciscan Media, Newman (21 February 1801 - 11 August 1890) "was the 19th-century's most important English-speaking Roman Catholic theologian.

"He spent the first half of his life as an Anglican and the second half as a Roman Catholic. He was a priest, popular preacher, writer, and eminent theologian in both churches."

Newman was canonised last October.

The theft of Newman's remains is the latest in a spate of relic thefts in recent years.

In 2012, the heart of St Laurence O'Toole was stolen from Christ Church Cathedral in Dublin. It was discovered in a park six years later.

Five years later in 2017, Italian police recovered a piece of St John Bosco's brain that had been hidden in a teapot. They said that the thief had "erroneously" believed the gold-painted reliquary over the glass jar was worth a lot of money.

Source

• Catholic Herald
• franciscanmedia
• Image: The Catholic Register

The fact that a Protestant was the first person to use it is a source of quiet amusement for the man who constructed it.

Upholsterer Colin Loach tells how he put the very large chair in front of his elderly neighbour's door.

"He wandered out with his leg in plaster and a smoke in his mouth and in his pyjamas, of course and said, 'What the bloody hell's that?' I said to him, 'It's the Pope's throne'."

"And that was when he collapsed in the chair, had his photo taken and declared himself the world's first Presbyterian Pope!"

For security reasons, Loach worked on the chair in secret, not even telling his children what he was doing.

Before completing it, he slipped something special inside.

For many years Loach had been a tram driver at both Ferrymead Heritage Park.

On the back of a photo of a Christchurch tram he wrote his and Joe O'Neill's details, identifying them as the chair's makers.

"And I stuffed it in among the springs. I must say I was quietly amused to see him there [the Pope, at Lancaster Park] in all his glory."

"Little did he know he was sitting on a picture of a Christchurch tram!"

O'Neill, a cabinetmaker, made the frame of the chair. Sisters from the Carmelite Monastery of Christ the King embroidered the Pope's Coat of Arms onto a piece of cream velvet.

After being rescued from the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament the chair has been stored along with other items from the Cathedral in six securely locked shipping containers near the ruined building.

This is a digest of a story produced by Justin Gregory and used archival audio from Nga Taonga Sound and Vision. You can subscribe or listen to every Eyewitness podcast on iTunes or at radionz.co.nz/series.

Image: radionz.co.nz

The 4.3 metre shroud has been put on display this year to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the birth of St John Bosco, whose work in Turin focused on poor youth.

More than a million people from as far afield as Argentina and China are expected to head for Turin in the coming weeks to catch a glimpse of the shroud.

The Catholic Church has not taken a formal position on whether the shroud is authentic.

But Pope Francis is due to visit and pray in front of the relic on June 21 in a private viewing he will attend with his Italian relatives.

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The small piece of blood-soaked cloth, taken from from Pope John II's cassock after he was shot by an assassin in 1981, had been kept in a reliquary in the Church of San Pietro della Ienca in the region of Abruzzo.

The theft of the relic and a small cross, was discovered on Monday morning. Three men in their 20s, reported to be drug addicts, were arrested in connection with the incident. The cross and reliquary were recovered first. Then the cloth was found, in a garage belonging to one of the men. A police source said the men at first did realise the importance of the relic.

Auxiliary Bishop Giovanni D'Ercole of L'Aquila told a press conference: "I think John Paul has forgiven them. I think we have to do the same."

Source: Independent Catholic News

The priest, Father Augusto Baldini, had left Rome for a sanctuary near the port of Civitavecchia, where the relic was to be put on display.

When he got off the train at Civitavecchia, a rail hub, Father Baldini realised his backpack was missing. He told police he suspected a man traveling on the train with two others, who had left the train a few stops before his own destination.

"One of the thieves distracted me, telling me I was on the wrong train," Father Baldini said. "I turned round to look, and it was then that his accomplices stole my backpack."

"Maybe they thought there was a computer in the backpack," he said. The priest said that he had been "desperate" after realising the relic was stolen and had prayed for its recovery.

After Father Baldini reported the theft, railway police in the town of Marina di Cerveteri, where the men left the train, searched for a few hours before finding the relic, without the backpack, in a stand of cane grass near the railway station.

Police said it wasn't clear if the thieves had realised what the vial contained and tossed it away, or had planned on coming back later to retrieve the relic.

The relic consisted of a reliquary in the form of an open book with gilded pages in which was embedded a tiny glass vial containing the blood, which was taken from the late pope following the attempt on his life in St Peter's Square by a Turkish gunman in 1981.

Sources:

Associated Press

The Telegraph

Image: New York Daily News

The relic, a belt of the Virigin, is believed to help women's fertility and cure illnesses and modest estimates calculate nearly three million people visited the relic during its 40 day stay in Russia.

The relic attracted a million people in Moscow alone, and people queued for up to 26 hours creating a line of up-to 5kms in length, in the hope of touching the silver chest holding the relic and receiving a miracle.

During its time in Russia, the relic visited 10 cities.

"Such a forceful movement of people towards the holy cannot be explained with any human arguments," the Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill said.

"So many people were cured! I constantly hear about the wonderful miracles that occurred in our land at this time."

Clerics said earlier they hoped the relic would help more Russian women become mothers as the Church is actively promoting motherhood to help the government curtail a steep population decline.

Some reports last week alleged that religious authorities considered loading the relic into a helicopter for an airborne blessing of the entire capital city, although the flight never took place.

Sources

• Associated Press
• Irish Times
• Image: The Republic