Let me state here at the outset that if I honestly believed, at all, that the relic that had previously been on display at St. Dominic’s Catholic Church in San Francisco WAS a piece of the True Cross, I wouldn’t be so glib in tone with this article. The True Cross is the actual structure upon which Jesus Christ was crucified, but there have been throughout the centuries enough pieces of this cross “recovered” to make a hundred crosses, if not more. The problem is that no one was even looking for the True Cross, or any remaining pieces of it, until some three centuries after the time of Jesus, when the first Roman Emperor to convert to Christianity, Constantine the Great, sent his momma on a scavenger hunt to recover it and any other extant holy items. This is how we “know” the locations today of the place where Christ was born, the place where He was buried, etc. I doubt any of those sites are the real ones, and I doubt even more that any of the True Cross survived for 300 years to be found and venerated by St. Helena (Constantine’s mother) and other early Christians.
Even so, it’s sad that somebody stole the relic from St. Dominic’s. Even if it wasn’t a little piece of the REAL Cross, it was an object that brought comfort to many and provided a focal point for their faith. It’s a shame to think it’s gonna end up on eBay.
