The church of Santo Cristo del Calvario in Marbella has resumed using the chalice and silver ciborium stolen on April 29. The perpetrator, arrested a week later, handed them over to the Local Police on September 16.
The chalice and silver ciborium that disappeared from the sacristy of the church of Santo Cristo del Calvario in Marbella on April 29 have returned to the parish. The parish priest, Rafael Rodríguez, has been able to use them again in a Eucharist since September 23, five months after the theft, as confirmed to Diario Sur.
The thief entered the sacristy in the morning, found the keys to the sacred vessels, took them, and left the temple with the two pieces hidden under his shirt. A parishioner discovered him, but the man became aggressive, even threatening her with death, and left the building with the loot. The church reported the incident to the police and valued the chalice and ciborium at 1,200 euros each, although the parish priest believes they “easily have more value as historical and religious pieces.”
The perpetrator was arrested just a week later. In his court appearance, he confessed to the crime and was released, but the items did not appear. It was not until September 16 that he handed them over to the Local Police, who had been monitoring him, preferring to dispose of items he had not managed to sell. The man, who awaits trial, has a restraining order against the parish priest and the parishioner who caught him.
“The perpetrator of the theft was a person with addictions, who would occasionally come to ask for help from the parish,” recounts Rafael Rodríguez.
The priest assures that this is not an isolated case. It is the second time in six years that thefts have occurred in the temple: on January 8, 2020, three chalices and four hams donated to Cáritas by a hospitality school were taken. The police recovered the items then at a second-hand shop and the hams inside a vehicle, in an operation that ended with the material author and two other people arrested. “We are very accustomed to thefts,” admits the parish priest, who describes them as “repetitive,” committed “by the same people,” although “they are petty thefts, so the perpetrators are not imprisoned and they end up repeating.”
Attempts usually occur in the lampararios, when the perpetrator sees an opportunity. In the church of Calvario, located just over a hundred meters from Avenida Ricardo Soriano and celebrating its fiftieth anniversary this year, the parish priest accepts the risk as part of his duty: “It is part of life; it is our mission to help people.”
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