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A $ 2 million tabernacle was stolen from a Catholic church in Brooklyn, New York City police said Monday, in what church officials described as a “blatant felony. of respect and hatred “.
The jeweled tabernacle, a vessel that houses the Eucharist used in the rite of Communion, is “irreplaceable for its historical and artistic value,” the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn said in a statement.
The robbery at St. Augustine’s Roman Catholic Church in the Park Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn was discovered Saturday by Father Frank Tumino, a pastor there, who said in the statement that the tabernacle was “the central focus of our church outside of worship “.
Tumino had been on his way to hear confessions in a parish above the street when he passed by St. Augustine and noticed that one of the doors was ajar, according to the Tablet, a publication of the bishopric.
When he entered the church, he encountered destruction, and found the Eucharist, commonly unleavened bread or wafers, scattered on the altar. The vision made him feel sick, he said, adding in the statement that the Eucharist in the tabernacle had been used in communion for the sick and confined at home.
Church officials said the robbery took place on Friday, while police gave a wider window, saying it happened between 6.30pm on Thursday and 4pm on Saturday. There were no witnesses and no surveillance footage was available, New York City police said in an email. Tumino said that although the church has security cameras inside and outside, parts of the surveillance system were also taken during the robbery.
A metal casing on the altar was “severely cut” with an electric saw, police said, allowing the tabernacle to be torn down. Statues of angels on either side of the tabernacle were also “beheaded and destroyed,” the diocese said. An empty safe was also cut.
Police had no clue as to possible suspects until Monday evening and asked anyone with information about the robbery to contact the department’s crime unit. Tumino speculated that several people were involved in the robbery, given the sheer weight of the tabernacle.
Although police said the tabernacle was solid gold, Father Robert Whelan said in a 2013 program about the church that it was 18-carat gold-plated solid silver.
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 plunged to the ground, losing only a few feet of the church’s high bell tower,” an article in the Catholic Standard and Times said at the time.
The jewels placed in the tabernacle were donated by the parishioners, Whelan said, who were asked at the time to bring their jewelry for use. Diamonds and other jewelry from engagement and wedding rings were used to adorn the structure.
Whelan told the show that it was “probably the most elaborate tabernacle in the country.”
Jaclyn Peiser contributed to this report.