A Strange Story from Ireland

In one of the more bizarre news stories in recent memory, the heart of a 900-year-old saint was recently stolen from Christ Church Cathedral in Dublin.  

“The 900-year-old heart of St. Laurence O'Toole was taken from the iron cage where it is normally kept in Christ Church Cathedral,” CNN reported earlier this month. “The bars were wrenched open, allowing access to the heart-shaped wooden box that held the relic bolted to a wall in Saint Lauds Chapel.”

Officials at Christ Church Cathedral called the theft "truly awful and strange" and said people were "shocked and saddened."

"It's completely bizarre," Nuala Kavanagh, Director of Operations at Christ Church, told CBS News World on March 5. "They didn't touch anything else. They wanted the heart of Saint Laurence O'Toole."  She said other valuables such as gold chalices and candlesticks were not stolen.

It is a common practice in the Catholic faith to preserve body parts from saints as a form of respect.

Similar thefts have occurred in Ireland in the past few years, most recently 2011, when three relics from the cross used to crucify Jesus were taken from the Holy Cross Abbey in County Tipperary.  Similarly, a reliquary holding the jawbone of Saint Brigid was stolen from a northside Dublin church in January.

Saint Laurence O'Toole, the archbishop of Dublin, was made a saint in 1225.  Saint Patrick is said be buried, appropriately, at Saint Patrick's Cathedral in Northern Ireland.  A large granite boulder lies on top of his grave.