Police search for thief who stole 9/11 memorial gold rose from New York Catholic church

Daniel Payne   By Daniel Payne for CNA

November 22, 2024 Catholic News Agency News Briefs 0 Print

 

Police are searching for a thief who entered the Church of St. Francis of Assisi on West 31st Street in Manhattan on Nov. 20, 2024, and stole a gold rose that memorializes a priest who perished in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. / Credit: Courtesy of NYPD

CNA Staff, Nov 22, 2024 / 13:35 pm (CNA).

Police are searching for a thief who entered a Manhattan Catholic church this week and stole a gold rose that memorializes a priest who perished in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Police said in a release that on Wednesday afternoon an individual entered the Church of St. Francis of Assisi on West 31st Street and “removed a gold-plated metal rose from the 9/11 memorial inside without permission or authority to do so.”

The suspect on Friday was identified as 21-year-old Deikel Alcantara. The incident was being treated as an act of grand larceny. In New York State, grand larceny involves the theft of property worth at least $1,000.

Police said in a release that on Nov. 20, 2024, an individual entered the Church of St. Francis of Assisi on West 31st Street and “removed a gold-plated metal rose from the 9/11 memorial inside without permission or authority to do so.” The suspect on Friday was identified as 21-year-old Deikel Alcantara. Credit: Courtesy of NYPD
Police said in a release that on Nov. 20, 2024, an individual entered the Church of St. Francis of Assisi on West 31st Street and “removed a gold-plated metal rose from the 9/11 memorial inside without permission or authority to do so.” The suspect on Friday was identified as 21-year-old Deikel Alcantara. Credit: Courtesy of NYPD

Father Brian Jordan, the church’s pastor, told the New York Daily News on Thursday that Alcantara was “known to church staffers and had been asked to leave on several occasions,” the newspaper said.

For years, the memorial has stood in honor of Father Mychal Judge, a former pastor at St. Francis who served as a chaplain to the New York City Fire Department. Judge was struck and killed by debris during the collapse of the South Tower of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001.

The priest had rushed to the scene of the crisis after the first plane struck. He was reportedly asked by then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani to pray for the victims who had initially died in the attack; Judge did so, including at a command post inside the North Tower.

Though not the first to die in the crisis, Judge was designated as “Victim 0001” of the day’s mass murder, becoming the first certified victim of the terror attack. He “refused to flee to safety” before the South Tower’s collapse, Giuliani said in a memorial tribute last year.

The memorial is also dedicated to Carole LaPlante, a secular Franciscan and former parishioner who died in the attack.

The small monument inside the church incorporates a section of twisted steel beams pulled from the wreckage of the World Trade Center after its collapse, along with the gold rose.

A plaque attached to the monument notes that the rose “transcends the senseless brutality” of the attacks “with an enduring promise of hope.”

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Police say church vandal was about to break into tabernacle — until he saw the statue of Mary

February 6, 2023 Catholic News Agency 0
Jerrid Farnam, 32, has been charged with several felonies in connection with a violent vandalism at Subiaco Abbey in Subiaco, Arkansas, on Jan. 5, 2023. He said he was about to begin breaking open the tabernacle where the consecrated bread is kept, but something stopped him in his tracks: a statue of the Virgin Mary. / Credit: Logan County Sheriff’s Office / Suzanne Stratford YouTube screen shot

Boston, Mass., Feb 6, 2023 / 13:55 pm (CNA).

In early January, a man entered a Benedictine monastery in Arkansas and began smashing the altar with a sledgehammer.

He was about to begin breaking open the tabernacle where the consecrated bread is kept, but something stopped him in his tracks: a statue of the Virgin Mary.

Jerrid Farnam, 32, of Sallisaw, Oklahoma, was arrested for the crimes of property damage and theft committed at Subiaco Abbey in Subiaco, Arkansas, and is currently incarcerated awaiting trial.

Sheriff Jason Massey of the Logan County Sheriff’s Office told CNA that when they brought the suspect in he confessed to the crime. But, Farnam told the police, after he looked up and saw a statue of Mary, he couldn’t continue to break open the tabernacle as he had planned to do.

“He decided he just couldn’t do it,” Massey said. “I think he felt it was wrong at that point.”

Subiaco Abbey had reported that on Jan. 5, a man using “a regular hammer and sledgehammer/axe” began destroying the abbey’s marble altar by smashing it in different places. Founded in 1878, Subiaco is home to a community of 39 Benedictine monks.

The suspect left a gaping hole in the top of the altar and broke open stones that contain relics, the abbey said. Two reliquaries — small, brass-colored boxes that each contained three relics of saints from more than 1,500 years ago — were stolen, according to the Logan County Sheriff’s Office.

Father Elijah Owens, OSB, the abbot of the monastery, told CNA in January that the relics contained in one of the reliquaries were those of St. Boniface, St. Tiberius, and St. Benedict of Nursia.

The other reliquary contained the relics of St. Tiberius, St. Marcellus, and St. Justina, Owens said.

A video of the damage can be seen below.

The abbey said in its press release that the man approached the tabernacle and removed a cross located on top as well as the tabernacle’s veil before being “interrupted.”

Farnam was arrested the same day and three of the relics were found in his truck.

At the time, the reliquary containing the relics of St. Tiberius, St. Marcellus, and St. Justina was still missing. The sheriff’s office later discovered them in a trash can in Farnam’s father’s house. 

Farnam gave the reliquary to his father, who, unaware of the nature of the objects, threw the contents of the container in the trash, while keeping the container for himself, the sheriff said.

“Luckily there was no food or anything on them. They were found in great condition,” he added.

Massey said that one of the seven offenses Farnam was charged with was theft of property, a Class B felony, which is the highest classification of a felony in the state, he said.

“You can’t put a price on those relics. They’re 1,500 years old,” he said.

Farnam thought that Jesus’ bones were in the altar and that God was telling him to remove the bones, Massey told CNA. He added that Farnam has a history of substance abuse and was intoxicated during his arrest. 

The abbey is under repairs, and a portable altar will now be used until repairs are made, according to the abbey’s press release.

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