Dozens of police with sniffer dogs searched the area around the church of San Pietro della Ienca in the central mountainous Abbruzzo region of Italy for a stolen relic containing a fragment of cloth stained with the blood of the late Pope John Paul II.

The relic is believed to have been stolen Saturday night from the small stone church together with a small simple cross, according to police.

The small church is in the Gran Sasso mountains near the city of l’Aquila was dear to Pope John Paul II, who visited the area more than 100 times during his papacy, where he would walk and meditate and was even known to have skied down the slopes as a young pope. The area has become a place of pilgrimage for people in search of peace or wishing to pray.

The relic is a small piece of cloth soaked in blood the pope lost during the 1980 attempt on his life in St. Peter’s Square and is only one of three of its kind. This one was given to the people of L’Aquila in 2011, after the devastating earthquake that struck the area, by the pope’s personal secretary, now cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz.

Objects like this relic, with a special symbolic value, are particularly sought after by the flourishing trade in religious objects.

A criminal investigation has been opened by the local prosecutor’s office.

The Vatican has announced that Pope John Paul II will be made a saint on April 27, along with Pope John XXIII, and Rome is planning for millions of faithful to come for the ceremony.

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