Relics of Don Bosco Stolen This Month Recovered in Most Unlikely of Places

The urn containing the remains of the holy priest’s brain had been hidden inside a copper tea kettle in a kitchen cupboard.

The thief is a 42-year-old man had already had run-ins with the police. He was arrested in his home in Pignerol, about two miles  south of Turin, nearly 40 miles from the basilica. He had been identified by the forensic police of Parma thanks to the fingerprints he left on the site of the theft and to the pictures taken by the basilica’s video surveillance system. After admitting he was guilty, the man was taken to the prison of Asti.

The investigation says he did not steal the relics to ask for a ransom or sell them to collectors, but because he thought the reliquary was made of solid gold. The urn was found in perfect condition and the relics were still sealed.

The archbishop of Turin, Archbishop Cesare Nosiglia, expressed his “great joy” at this happy ending. “I was sure this would be the result, because the figure of the patron saint of young people is so loved and honored throughout the world that nobody, not ever a thief or a brigand, could have resisted the unanimous prayers,” he told Vatican Radio on June 16, 2017.  He also thanked the police and prayed that St. John Bosco would forgive the thief.