A cloth with a drop of blood from St. John Paul II has been reported stolen from the Cologne Cathedral.
The Associated Press is reporting on the theft which was spotted on Sunday by a visitor to the Cathedral. The cloth was housed in a glass container which had been pried from the base of a sculpture commemorating the pope’s visit to Cologne in 1980.
“Although the material value is low, the spiritual value is a lot bigger,” said Gerd Bachner, the cathedral’s provost, in a police statement.
Bachner is urging the thief to return the relic.
This is not the first time a thief stole a relic from the late pontiff.
In 2014, thieves broke into a church in San Pietro, Italy, where a piece of the bloody cassock the saint was wearing in 1981 during an assassination attempt was housed. The thieves stole the relic, which was eventually found in a nearby garage.
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