Home / News & Publications / Michigan Catholic News / 2008 / Tabernacle, other sacred items stolen from historic Corktown church
Tabernacle, other sacred items stolen from historic Corktown church
by Robert Delaney of The Michigan Catholic
Published September 12, 2008
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Robert Delaney | The Michigan Catholic
Most Holy Trinity Church, at Porter and Sixth streets, was burglarized overnight Monday-Tuesday. |
Detroit — Fr. Russ Kohler spent much of Tuesday morning making the rounds of area pawnshops and antiques dealers, hoping to find some of the items that had been stolen overnight from historic Most Holy Trinity Church.
With no success, he returned to the parish to show archdiocesan buildings and security officials around the desecrated church in the area of southwest Detroit known as Corktown after the early 19th-century immigrants who settled it and were Most Holy Trinity's first parishioners.
Police had already investigated the scene.
Missing items include the tabernacle, chalices and ciboriums, candlesticks and votive candle holders, processional crosses, light fixtures, an ice cream cart, and even the corpus of a crucified Christ that was removed from the crossit was on.
"They must have been spooked about stealing crosses, because they didn't take any of them," Fr. Kohler said as he conducted the tour. He said he could not even begin to estimate a value for the stolen items, as a list was still being prepared.
Noting that the thieves stole the tabernacle without scattering its sacred contents, Fr. Kohler said, "This won't be the first time Jesus has been between two thieves. I'd like them to be appreciative of His presence, but we'd like Him back." (Catholics believe Christ is really present in the Eucharist.)
The theft is yet another incident of thieves stealing copper, bronze and other metal items from area churches, as high scrap metal prices have increased the vulnerability of older buildings, especially churches.
The thieves apparently got in through a side window, a section of the stained-glass windows that can be opened for ventilation. A church worker said some of the latches no longer do a good job of securing the windows, because of warping, which might have made it easy for the thieves to force their way in.
Gobs of candle wax indicated the thieves worked by candlelight rather than risking flashlight beams being seen by passing patrol cars. They were unsuccessful in some of their efforts, such as trying to get into the money receptacles of votive light stands or the poor box.
A volunteer discovered that various items were missing about 8 a.m., Tuesday. Fr. Kohler was still learning the extent of losses during the tour of the church. He speculated the thieves were more sophisticated than some of those who have been apprehended in connection to similar crimes, because they wore gloves so as to leave no fingerprints, were able to pick a couple of padlocks, and were able to break into the sacristy safe.
The thieves also tried to break into the rectory, next door to the church, where Fr. Koehler was sleeping, but never got beyond removing some screens from basement windows only to find them barred.
To Fr. Kohler, known for his outreach to the area's poor and homeless, the incident "goes to show you what happens when you have a locked church – this church should be open."
While his short-term plans were to guard the church until a motion-detector security alarm system could be installed, he said his long-term plan involved getting people to sign up for 24-hour adoration so the church would never be empty. "I'm going to ask people for monetary donations to help replace what was taken, and for people to sign up for Eucharistic Adoration. The casinos down here are open 24 hours; we should be, too," Fr. Kohler said.
Fr. Kohler said it was especially sad for the burglary to occur during the parish's 175th anniversary year. Although the actual anniversary is not until next year, the parish has already begun celebrating the milestone.
Founded in 1834, originally as a hospital during a cholera epidemic, the former Presbyterian church building downtown that was Most Holy Trinity's first home then became Detroit's first English-speaking Catholic church.
With most of those English-speaking Catholics being Irish immigrants, the parish built the present church building in the 1850s in Corktown.
Auxiliary Bishop Daniel Flores visited the parish Tuesday afternoon. Plans were still being finalized for a special Mass to re-consecrate the church as of press time.
Most Holy Trinity Parish is at 1050 Porter St., Detroit 48226, (313) 965-4450.
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