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Cathedral robbed at Oloron Sainte Marie

billmclaughlin

Active Member
Time of past OR future Camino
SJPP/Burgos 2012; Le Puy/SJPP 2013; Aumont Aubrac/Aire sur l'Adour 2014; Burgos/Santiago 2016.
Thieves used a car with a tree trunk strapped to it to smash down the door of a historic cathedral in south west France to steal several items of high value.


 
A selection of Camino Jewellery
Theft of church valuables and art was a real problem in Spain in the 1970s and 1980s and led to the transfer of much art to diocesan museums in places such as Jaca on the Aragonese, and Santillana del Mar on the del Norte. It is also one of the reasons why many churches along the Camino are closed when not in use for services, in order to satisfy insurance companies.
 
St James' Way - Self-guided 4-7 day Walking Packages, Reading to Southampton, 110 kms
Update: Stolen items include chalices, crosses, monstrances, and at least one 16th-century cope, a gift to the local bishop from François 1er.
There are security cameras at either end of the town, which may provide info. The thieves abandoned one of their two vehicles at the scene.
 
Technical backpack for day trips with backpack cover and internal compartment for the hydration bladder. Ideal daypack for excursions where we need a medium capacity backpack. The back with Air Flow System creates large air channels that will keep our back as cool as possible.

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Theft of church valuables and art was a real problem in Spain in the 1970s and 1980s

It's been an ongoing problem in France as far as theft is concerned for about 70 years plus -- it happens somewhere pretty much every week, that and the multiple desecrations that people have also been doing since the turn of the century for various religious or anti-religious reasons. In fact, if you include the history of the iconoclasts or various revolutionaries wrecking or even destroying churches, this sort of thing goes back to the 16th Century ...

It is the single basic reason why the churches in France nearly always look bare compared to those of Spain and Italy. Nearly all of the churches have suffered from acts of vandalism and/or theft.

In a way, the French mainstream media treated this as being newsworthy mainly because of the extraordinary battering ram method that was used, and because it was not just any old church, but a historic cathedral.
 

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