Mexican Churches Seek Perpetual Vigilance To Prevent Theft

OAXACA, Mexico — Within the dark sanctuary of Our Lady of Defense chapel, flickering candles symbolize prayers for "perpetual light."

But perpetual vigilance is also in demand these days in this and other Catholic shrines where thieves have stolen hundreds of paintings, statues of saints and their crowns, candle sticks and other centuries-old objects that, by law, are Mexican public property.

Looting of treasures is not new in art-rich Mexico. Federal officials are worried enough about the crimes, however, that they have begun installing tighter security at historic churches, including alarms and cameras. Mexican customs agents were summoned to a special seminar in November to learn more about the tricky ways thieves smuggle art out of the country.

At least two Mexican religious art pieces have been recovered from the United States in recent years. An 18th century painting stolen from a church in Hidalgo state was identified and returned by the San Diego Museum of Art in 2004. In September of this year, a 16th century wooden carving of St. Francis of Assisi weighing more than 600 pounds was delivered back to a chapel in rural Puebla state after its discovery in a Santa Fe art gallery.

Worshippers in the nearly 300-year-old Our Lady of Defense chapel in southern Oaxaca city were shocked last year when three 18th century oil paintings of saints that had always hung in the church suddenly disappeared.

A tall wooden altar painted gold and bearing a glass-encased Virgin of Remedios statue now looks a little lop-sided. Two paintings of saints had flanked the Virgin – until thieves pried the depiction of San Antonio, who was on the right, loose from the altar and left a gaping hole.

Now the church is locked when no Mass is planned. If the doors are open to allow worshippers or tourists to wander in, parishioners like Enriqueta Silva are there, praying, dusting, arranging flowers – and keeping a sharp eye out for suspicious characters.

"In today's world it seems we do not value church property," Silva said indignantly. "These are treasures. They are national, community treasures as well as church treasures. They stole from the whole country."

Eyes blazing, she said, "I don't even think they know what they've taken. It is just that they've heard that this property can be sold. It's a crime of opportunity, but it should be punished as the worst sin possible – stealing from God and the community of the church."

Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History estimates that since 1999 more than 900 pieces of pre-Hispanic and religious art have been stolen and only 190 objects recovered. To help trace missing pieces and prevent more theft, the institute, with the help of priests and parishioners, is completing a computerized national registry of objects in most of Mexico's 60,000 churches.

With a bank of photos and detailed descriptions of pieces, it can better issue "911 alerts" to customs services around the world, the Interpol and private art dealers, said Magdalena Morales Rojas, director of social education for the institute's cultural patrimony conservation section.

The registry doesn't list value because its purpose is not to appraise items that, by law, belong to all Mexicans and cannot be sold, Morales said.

Stealing from churches is part of a wider problem with organized crime and with a "rise in sacrilegious thinking," said Jose de Jesus Aguilar, a Catholic priest who is a specialist on the Sacred Art Commission of the Archdiocese of Mexico City.

But with new technology, coupled with parishioners' loyalty and willingness to help guard their churches, Aguilar said, Mexico can begin to fight back.

"Thanks to computers and digital cameras we can do the registry," he said. "Imagine, there are 3,000 pieces in the national cathedral in Mexico City alone and 500 churches just in Mexico City."

Churches and religious objects that date from the Spanish Conquest to the mid-1990s are federal property in Mexico, a legacy of a long power struggle during which the Mexican state sought to strip down the power and wealth of the Catholic church.

At the Peyton Wright Gallery in Santa Fe, owner John Schaefer said he would welcome access to the National Institute of Anthropology and History's registry and more U.S. government guidance so he could better cross check the origin of historic art he is offered.

"We could really use a blueprint," he said.

Many historic pieces were produced in Mexico and are owned by individuals and can be lawfully sold, he noted. Religious art was common in haciendas where the upper class built private shrines.

Schaefer was investigated and cleared by U.S. officials after a 16th century carved relief known as "Saint Francisco of Assisi Receiving the Stigmata" was located in the Peyton Wright Gallery in early 2004.

The gallery owner said the large wooden panel ended up on display and for sale for $225,000 at the gallery, on consignment, after a Mexican dealer approached him with it.

"The piece showed up here in a 16-foot cargo truck," Schaefer said.

The gallery usually asks for a range of documentation, including bills of sale and import-export records. This time, since the Mexican dealer didn't have much documentation, Schaefer asked a Spanish-speaking friend to interview him at length.

"His story was the village had voted to sell the piece to use the money to make repairs on the church," Schaefer said.

The gallery then checked the piece, at its own cost, Schaefer said, against the Art Loss Register, the biggest database of stolen art in the world. It wasn't reported to that registry as stolen.

"I used everything at my disposal" to check on the piece, Schaefer said.

The gallery invested about six weeks in restoring the ancient, battered piece, he said, but when U.S. and Mexican officials told him they suspected it had been lifted from a church in Puebla in 2001 he was anxious to cooperate and help return it. "This has a happy ending," he said.

The town of Tochimilco in Puebla state threw a fiesta when St. Francis was returned in September after a thorough restoration at the national institute. The state governor came and a band played to welcome home a piece of Mexican culture nobody imagined anyone would ever think of stealing.

"Back then was when there was no distrust," said the town's mayor, Rufino Elias Menenes. The town now appreciates even more, he said, that the piece is "of incalculable value – spiritual value."