HEART OF DUBLIN’S PATRON SAINT STOLEN FROM CHURCH

SAINT’S ANCIENT HEART STOLEN FROM
DUBLIN CHRIST CHURCH CATHEDRAL

Dublin (AP) - Somewhere in Ireland, a burglar has the heart of a saint. Officials at Christ Church Cathedral in Dublin said Sunday they’re distraught and perplexed over the theft of the church’s most precious relic: the preserved heart of St. Laurence O’Toole, patron saint of Dublin. O’Toole’s heart had been displayed in the cathedral since the 13th century. It was stored in a heart-shaped wooden box and secured in a small, square iron cage on the wall of a chapel dedicated to his memory. On Saturday someone cut through two bars, pried the cage loose, and made off with the relic. “I am devastated that one of the treasured artifacts of the cathedral is stolen,” said the Most Rev. Dermot Dunne, the cathedral’s dean. “It has no economic value but it is a priceless treasure that links our present foundation with its founding father.” Pope Honorius III canonized O’Toole in 1225 on the weight of many claims of miracles at his original grave site.

O’Toole’s heart had been the last surviving part of his remains. His bones were re-interred in an English church yard in 1442 but were dug up and disappeared during the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century. Ireland’s national police force, the Garda Siochana, said the thief may have hidden overnight in the cathedral and fled with the heart when its doors opened Saturday. Worshippers didn’t spot that the relic was missing until Saturday afternoon. Nobody was arrested. Nuala Kavanagh, the cathedral’s director of operations, said whoever stole it appeared to have no interest in financial gain, since several nearby objects made of gold and other precious materials were not touched. “It’s completely bizarre,” she said. “They didn’t touch anything else. They wanted the heart of St. Laurence O’Toole.”  Ireland’s churches have suffered a spate of such robberies of irreplaceable, but also hard to sell, religious artifacts.

The preserved heart of Dublin's patron saint - St. Laurence O'Toole - which had been on display in Christ Church Cathedral for 800 years, was stolen days ago. The relic was kept in a heart-shaped wooden box in a chapel dedicated to the saint; money boxes and other valuables, such as loads of silver in the cathedral were untouched.  Insanity in the Age of Kali progresses and many things that were sacred in ancient times - such as the veneration of relics - are desecrated now.

WHAT DO THE VEDIC TEACHINGS TELL US? 

French historian Alain Danielou had noticed as early as 1950 that “a great number of events which surround the birth of Christ-as it is related in the Gospels-strangely reminded us of Buddha’s and Krishna’s legends.” Danielou quotes as examples the structure of the Christian Church, which resembles that of the Buddhist Chaitya; the rigorous asceticism of certain early Christian sects, which reminds one of the asceticism of Jain and Buddhist saints; the veneration of relics, the usage of holy water, which is an Indian practice, and the word “Amen,” which comes from the Hindu (Sanskrit) “OM.” Another historian, Belgium’s Konraad Elst, also remarks “that many early Christian saints, such as Hippolytus of Rome, possessed an intimate knowledge of Brahmanism.” Elst even quotes the famous Saint Augustine who wrote: “We never cease to look towards India, where many things are proposed to our admiration.”

Stephen Knapp (Śrīpad Nandanandana dasa) :
“Christianity’s Similarities with Hinduism”
http://www.stephen-knapp.com
http://www.stephen-knapp.com/christianity%27s_similarities_with_hinduism.htm