Church's stolen statue of angel weighing 350 pounds is recovered

Published: 2008-02-11

DETROIT (CNS) -- Angels may have wings, but 350-pound angels are expected to stay put. A bronze angel statue was returned to Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Grotto) Parish in northeast Detroit Feb. 5 after having been missing for about a week and a half. "Needless to say, we're happy to have it back," Father Eduard Perrone, pastor, said later that day. The statue had been stolen from its place as part of a fountain in a floral garden in the parish cemetery at least as long ago as Jan. 25. "It was only reported to me on Friday (Feb. 1), but parishioners had noticed it gone a week earlier," said Father Perrone. The parishioners who mentioned it had assumed the statue had been removed for some sort of maintenance, and had only brought it up because they wondered when it would be put back, he explained. Local television stations and newspapers carried a story about it. Media coverage led to the statue's recovery, when someone called the parish to report having seen it in an alley about a half-mile away. The thieves had either abandoned it or parked it there while searching for a buyer.

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