- 注册
- 2002-10-07
- 消息
- 402,193
- 荣誉分数
- 76
- 声望点数
- 0
Parishioners in a village near Hawkesbury have a message for the thieves who stole a safe containing money and parish records last week: Please return the records.
“People are stunned by this. We’re sad about it,” said Rachelle St-Denis-Lachaine, a longtime resident of Chute-à-Blondeau and volunteer at St-Joachim Catholic Church.
“People are scandalized that they would steal from a church.”
She arrived last Thursday morning and found signs that someone had been there before her: Dirt on the floor, an inner door open where it shouldn’t be. Probably maintenance work or repairmen, she thought at first.
Then she saw the papers scattered all around, and realized the safe was gone. A window was propped open, and that’s how they got in.
The safe contained some money, but not a lot — the church petty cash, some money for a seniors’ club, some money set aside to repair a statue of St. Michael.
The part that hurts far more is the loss of the records.
“These are the parish registers. It’s all the files of the parish, and there are also registers with marriages. These are our memories in these books. There are copies in the archdiocese in Ottawa, but it’s all the baptisms since the 1880s. The baptisms, the marriages, the funerals, so it’s basically the entire history of Chute-à-Blondeau that was in there.”
In some cases the missing papers traced the same families for 130 years as generations lived, married and died there. That doesn’t happen as much today, says St-Denis-Lachaine, as families are more mobile and newcomers are buying up land along the Ottawa River.
But families that have scattered still come back to the parish for weddings, or to baptize their children, or to be buried.
It’s the first theft in recent memory from the church. They plan to buy a new safe, perhaps one that can be attached to the floor.
In the meantime police in Quebec are also investigating a theft at Grenville, in Quebec, just across the Ottawa River from Hawkesbury. In July, thieves broke into the safe of Presbytère Grenville, stealing only a small amount of money but damaging the church.
There was a third theft from a church in Hawkesbury this summer.
Rachelle St-Denis-Lachaine has a message for the thieves: Never mind about the cash, but “we’re asking them to bring back the books, if there’s a way to give back the books.”
And she asks anyone else who knows about the crime to tell the police or the church.
tspears@ottawacitizen.com
twitter.com/TomSpears1
查看原文...
“People are stunned by this. We’re sad about it,” said Rachelle St-Denis-Lachaine, a longtime resident of Chute-à-Blondeau and volunteer at St-Joachim Catholic Church.
“People are scandalized that they would steal from a church.”
She arrived last Thursday morning and found signs that someone had been there before her: Dirt on the floor, an inner door open where it shouldn’t be. Probably maintenance work or repairmen, she thought at first.
Then she saw the papers scattered all around, and realized the safe was gone. A window was propped open, and that’s how they got in.
The safe contained some money, but not a lot — the church petty cash, some money for a seniors’ club, some money set aside to repair a statue of St. Michael.
The part that hurts far more is the loss of the records.
“These are the parish registers. It’s all the files of the parish, and there are also registers with marriages. These are our memories in these books. There are copies in the archdiocese in Ottawa, but it’s all the baptisms since the 1880s. The baptisms, the marriages, the funerals, so it’s basically the entire history of Chute-à-Blondeau that was in there.”
In some cases the missing papers traced the same families for 130 years as generations lived, married and died there. That doesn’t happen as much today, says St-Denis-Lachaine, as families are more mobile and newcomers are buying up land along the Ottawa River.
But families that have scattered still come back to the parish for weddings, or to baptize their children, or to be buried.
It’s the first theft in recent memory from the church. They plan to buy a new safe, perhaps one that can be attached to the floor.
In the meantime police in Quebec are also investigating a theft at Grenville, in Quebec, just across the Ottawa River from Hawkesbury. In July, thieves broke into the safe of Presbytère Grenville, stealing only a small amount of money but damaging the church.
There was a third theft from a church in Hawkesbury this summer.
Rachelle St-Denis-Lachaine has a message for the thieves: Never mind about the cash, but “we’re asking them to bring back the books, if there’s a way to give back the books.”
And she asks anyone else who knows about the crime to tell the police or the church.
tspears@ottawacitizen.com
twitter.com/TomSpears1
查看原文...
