SAN ANTONIO – A theft at Mission San Juan has the pastor improvising for church services and thinking of security going forward.
Father James Galvin said someone stole the processional cross out of the church sometime during Feb. 9. The cross was donated by the University of the Incarnate Word.
"It's horrible that anybody would steal from anybody at all, but to steal sacred objects from a church that people use and they worship, I think it's really bad," Galvin said. "It just shows that people have no respect for anything sacred anymore."
Galvin said the cross went missing sometime on Thursday as visitors milled in and out of the church.
One or more of them was apparently a thief, jumping the gate at the back of the church and making their way to the sacristy at the front.
Galvin said the thief or thieves took the cross off of its pole and stole a CD player as well. He said nobody has said they saw anything.
It's a crime he thinks would sadden most visitors, and he's likely right.
"I really think people like that need a Jesus moment," said visitor Joey De Los Santos.
Since the theft, Galvin said the church has been improvising by using a wooden cross.
He said a parishioner is working to attach an old cross to the pole as a replacement.
The theft isn't the first Galvin has seen at the church either.
Since arriving in 1998, Galvin said he has seen statues, paintings and even an organ stolen.
In the middle of the night last month, he said, someone tried to bust into his bedroom in the rectory building next to the church.
"They managed to kick the door in to the church," Galvin said. "But the alarm went off and that scared them off."
Galvin has considered closing the church to visitors in the past but he doesn't want to do that, especially now that it is a UNESCO World Heritage site.
"I don't think that's an option at all. I'm considering trying to get some cameras in, and maybe there's a way to monitor that," he said.
The father said he may consider other options, too, like having a rotation of parishioners pray at the church.
He said neither the cross theft nor any of the others before it have broken his faith in people.
"I find in my line of work that there are more good people who do more good things than there are people who do bad things," Galvin said.
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