Italy Church appeals to thieves to return John Paul blood relic
Tuesday, Jan 28, 2014 05:58 AM PST
 By Philip Pullella ROME (Reuters) - The Catholic Church has appealed to thieves to return a reliquary containing the blood of the late Pope John Paul II that disappeared in what it called a "vile and sacrilegious theft". The gold reliquary was stolen at the weekend from a small stone church, San Pietro della Ienca, in the mountains east of Rome, where, in his younger days, the pope would slip away secretly from the pressures of the Vatican to hike and ski. "I appeal to the those who carried out this deplorable act," Archbishop Giuseppe Petrocchi of the city of L'Aquila said in a letter to local Catholics on Monday night. The one stolen at the weekend contained a blood-soaked piece of cloth, most likely from the cassock John Paul was wearing on May 13, 1981 when he was shot in an assassination attempt, the office of Monsignor Slowomir Oder, the official in charge of John Paul's sainthood cause, told Reuters. Full Story | Top |
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