Stolen monstrances returned with apology note

Two mon­strances stolen from St Mary's RC Church in St James ear­li­er this month were re­turned this morn­ing, ac­com­pa­nied by a hand­writ­ten note ex­press­ing re­morse and seek­ing for­give­ness. The in­ci­dent was first re­port­ed by the Catholic News.

Parish­ioners ar­riv­ing for the 6.15 am Mass on Fri­day dis­cov­ered the sa­cred items in a black garbage bag at the church en­trance. The bag al­so con­tained $100 and a note which read: "Sor­ry fa­ther please pray for me ask God to for­give me and bless me."

The large and small mon­strances, val­ued at ap­prox­i­mate­ly $15,000, were stolen dur­ing a rob­bery on June 2, days be­fore the Cor­pus Christi ob­ser­vance. Parish priest Fr Em­manuel Pierre con­tact­ed the in­ves­ti­gat­ing of­fi­cer from the St James Crim­i­nal In­ves­ti­ga­tion Di­vi­sion fol­low­ing their re­cov­ery.

Re­spond­ing to the note, Fr Pierre told the Catholic News: "for­give­ness is al­ways im­por­tant. I can't de­ter­mine how con­trite the heart is if it's a true for­give­ness...I can't de­ter­mine that...Any­body who re­pents is al­ways a very good and no­ble re­sponse, you know what I mean. But it's writ­ten on a piece of pa­per, so I don't know how to in­ter­pret that."

Fr Pierre said there had been hope that the mon­strances would be re­turned, al­though there were doubts it would hap­pen.

He re­vealed that one of the mon­strances sus­tained mi­nor dam­age and would re­quire re­pairs. The items will be cleaned and re­con­se­crat­ed as soon as pos­si­ble.

Parish­ioners ex­pressed grat­i­tude that the mon­strances, used to dis­play the Sa­cred Host dur­ing Eu­charis­tic Ado­ra­tion, had been re­turned.

On June 2, Fr Pierre en­coun­tered an in­trud­er in­side the church while prepar­ing for the 6.15 am Mass. The sus­pect, who had en­tered through a side door near the St James Med­ical Com­plex, fled af­ter Fr Pierre shout­ed, "I caught you!"

The man es­caped in a wait­ing ve­hi­cle parked on the hos­pi­tal com­pound. Fr Pierre lat­er dis­cov­ered that the in­trud­er had at­tempt­ed to re­move the taber­na­cle but aban­doned it in the sanc­tu­ary af­ter be­ing in­ter­rupt­ed. Oth­er items were al­so left be­hind near the door.

The St James Po­lice were no­ti­fied and crime scene in­ves­ti­ga­tors processed the church for ev­i­dence.