reliquary

Just weeks before the planned canonization of the former pope, a thief has broken into a small church in an alpine village where John Paul II liked to take his skiing vacations (this pope was a very outdoorsy type and admonished his traveling companions to refer to him as Wujek—or uncle—as it was forbidden for a priest to fraternize with junior members of the Church for fear of inculcation and perpetuation of radical ideas and this relationship if not the cover-name itself stuck), which was endowed with a relic with a blood-stained patch of the vestment he was wearing during the failed assassination attempt by a gunman allegedly affiliated with the ultra-nationalist Turkish group the Grey Wolves in 1981. The burglar, the church itself closed for sometime due to bad weather, and pilfered this relic and authorities have launched a massive effort for its recovery. I wonder what would possess someone to take a treasure like this that is best shared. I'd like to hope that someone really needed a miracle and hope that it's answered, even if by ransom.