[MSN] Church theft. In Search of Stolen Saints

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In Search of Stolen Saints
By Andrew Downie

The São Bento Church is remarkably tranquil for building wedged between
Rio's bustling downtown and one of the city's major highways. So tranquil,
in fact, that nobody even noticed, recently, when thieves walked into the
Baptism Chapel one afternoon, sawed a priceless wooden sculpture off the
wall, and waltzed off with it.

The piece, a six-inch statue of an icon named Faith, once formed part of the
ornate gold-leaf side altars that date from 1690, shortly after work on the
church began. "It was priceless," says Dom Paulo Azeredo Coutinho, one of
the 45 monks who live and work in the famous building and monastery. "It was
a one-off."

The same, unfortunately, cannot be said for its theft. Although no complete
figures are available, police and cultural officials report a large increase
in recent years in the pilfering of Brazil's religious artifacts and objets
d'art. The booty includes wood and terracotta sculptures, gold and silver
candlesticks, thuribles and communion silver — even rare books, maps and
engravings. 

"This year in Rio we have seen five cases of theft — four sculptures and one
candelabra," said Marcos Monteiro, director general of Inepac, the Rio
institute that oversees the state's cultural heritage. "It is getting worse
as the market heats up and demands more pieces. There is a market for
religious art and it has been growing since the 1940s. Now it is the hot
trend."

Monteiro tracks the beginning of the trend to the late 1960s, soon after the
Vatican II meeting in Colombia declared the church should focus more on
Christ and less on saints and other icons. That ruling led many priests to
remove beautiful sculptures of the Virgin Mary and other saints from
display. Some were sold, often to raise money for a parish, and a whole new
market was created.

Brazil is a particularly rich source of religious art, because during the
17th and 18th centuries it was the only art form encouraged by the country's
devoutly Catholic rulers. In the states of Bahia and Pernambuco in the
northeast, and Minas Gerais and Rio de Janeiro in the south, Portuguese
settlers built baroque churches dripping with gold, silver and art. But
today, much of that art is gone. "The last time I checked, we had registered
188 works of art stolen — that's since 2000," says Vanessa de Souza, a
Brazilian police chief and delegate to Interpol. "We think there are a lot
more that haven't been reported to us. Sometimes we see reports of thefts in
the newspaper and we haven't been told officially."

Souza says some of the robberies are the work of gangs who traffic the
pieces to Europe and beyond. Most, though, are done by small-time crooks who
fence their swag to local antique dealers, who then sell them on to private
collectors. 

Officials believe, however, that many antique dealers have no idea they are
trafficking in stolen goods, because there are hundreds of icons
legitimately on the market, having been sold legally by churches or private
chapels or imported from dealers abroad. In a bid to track the illicit
trade, Brazil's legislature recently passed a law obliging all antique
dealers to register with authorities by December. It'll take more than that,
however, to trace the stolen goods, says Monteiro.

"What we need is a national system to catalogue the country's religious
art," he said. "That way, if something is stolen in Rio then it can't be
resold in Pernambuco or São Paulo, and if something is stolen in Pernambuco
or São Paulo, then it can't be resold here."

The São Bento church has taken its own precautions, hiring seven security
guards to patrol the church and grounds, as well as fitting 15 CCTV cameras
in and around the premises. These steps have made the monks who wander about
in flowing dark brown robes feel safer, and Coutinho is confident it also
offers protection to the priceless pieces that hang from every wall and
ceiling of the spectacular 300-year-old building. 

And Coutinho has a new idea to bolster the deterrent effect of his security
measures. Looking up at a little camera discreetly hanging from a
whitewashed wall, a mischievous smiles flickers across the face of the
serene former architect. "You can't see those cameras," he says. "We should
put up a sign saying, 'Smile, You're Being Filmed.' Or even better, 'Smile,
God is Watching.' "

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