Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Oh, you're going to hell.

Someone burglarized the sacristy at church this Monday, stealing all the offerings from the Christmas Eve & Christmas Day services.

St Mark's is not a poor church, generally speaking, but we are in debt at the moment, because of the recently-completed remodeling of the parish house (it was long overdue, and went over budget because of the building boom post-Katrina).

The sacristy is not exactly open to the public. Not being a Catholic church, we do not typically have the sanctuary unlocked unless there are people in that part of the building. If memory serves, the sacristy itself is usually locked; and the money was in a safe.

This means that there's a good chance a church member is behind this. Which is just wrong, on many levels. To get to this room, you have to walk past the altar. I suppose we're lucky they didn't steal more; there is a lot in this church that could bring money.

It's distressing, of course. I don't think we have had anything like this happen in the 150-year history of this church. A criminal is a criminal, of course, but somehow stealing from God's house is even more beyond the pale. We do do charity work, and this will make it more difficult. The checks can have payment stopped & be replaced, but the cash is gone. And of course this has probably exposed a good many people to possible identity theft or fraud that reaches far beyond this simple burglary.

This, after we've added a security guard. Well, perhaps that's one expenditure we can cut off for now. Allied Barton obviously hasn't made the church any safer.

1 comment:

Dave said...

That's pretty low. Perhaps it will turn out to be a parishioner who was crying out for help hoping to be caught.

Or just a common scumbag thief.