Italian police have identified the man suspected of stealing a vial containing the blood of Pope John Paul II from a cathedral in the Umbria region.
The gold and crystal reliquary was stolen from an altar dedicated to the late pontiff in Spoleto in September.
Police identified the man, reported to be aged 49 and resident of Tuscany, thanks to CCTV footage in the cathedral and surrounding area. He has allegedly been connected to the theft of other ecclesiastical assets in the past.
The vial, one of three relics that contain droplets of the pope’s blood, has not been found. Police believe it may have ended up on the parallel market, possibly in the hands of collectors, as such relics are of great religious value.
John Paul II died in 2005 after leading the Catholic church for 27 years. One of the most popular popes, he became a saint in 2014.
Blood was taken from him shortly before his death and used as the official relic for veneration during his beatification in 2011. Such relics tend to be either body parts of saints or their clothing.
The vial was being temporarily housed in the Spoleto cathedral before a planned transfer to a new church in Umbria named after the pope.
“Give the reliquary back to the cathedral and the faithful,” the archbishop of Spoleto, Renato Boccardo, who was a close aide of John Paul II, said after the theft.
This is not the first time one of the late pontiff’s relics has been stolen. In 2014, months before his canonisation, a metal frame containing a blood-stained piece of cloth from the robe he was wearing when he was shot in an assassination attempt at St Peter’s Square in 1981 was stolen from a church in a small town in Abruzzo.
The theft triggered a massive search, involving sniffer dogs. The cloth was eventually found among rubbish in the rubbish of one of the thieves, who threw it away not realising its value.
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