TURIN, Italy – Inside a copper teapot in a kitchen cupboard, Italian police found the relic of St. John Bosco that had been stolen two weeks earlier from the basilica erected at his birthplace.

ROME, Italy – Police set up roadblocks in northern Italy after a thief posing as a pilgrim stole tiny fragments of the brain of John Bosco, one of the country’s most revered saints.

VATICAN CITY – At every canonization ceremony, people connected to the new saint carry to the altar a relic – often a bone shard from the new saint's body. The relic presented at the Mass for St. Teresa of Calcutta was a few drops of her blood.

VATICAN CITY – The relics of Syrian St. Elian, which originally were thought to have been destroyed by members of the Islamic State militia, have been found amid the rubble of the desecrated Mar Elian Church in Qaryatain, Syria.

TORONTO - Fr. Guy Desrochers can’t help but chuckle when he hears that a woman has asked St. Anne, patron saint of unmarried women, to help them find a husband.

TORONTO - Not only is the Islamic State causing catastrophic human tragedy throughout Syria and Iraq, it is engaged in a “cultural genocide” as it destroys anything in its way that is not part of its idea of Islam, said Sascha Priewe.

Why are we so fascinated with any historical artifact — relics, as some call them — associated with Jesus?

MAKOLA, Sri Lanka - When Pope Francis made a surprise visit to a prominent Buddhist temple in Colombo Jan. 14, the head of the Maha Bodhi Society of Sri Lanka reciprocated by showing the Pope historical relics of Buddhas' disciples, normally exposed only for the annual Buddhist feast in May.

Fifty years ago Blessed Paul VI went to Jerusalem — the first papal trip outside Italy in our time, inaugurating the practice of apostolic journeys — to meet Patriarch Athenagoras of Constantinople, primus inter pares of all the Orthodox patriarchs. It was a historic moment that, after nearly a millennia of separation, the Bishop of Rome, Successor of St. Peter and universal pastor of the Church, would meet with the Patriarch of Constantinople, the “New Rome,” successor of St. Andrew and ecumenical patriarch of all Orthodoxy.

VATICAN CITY - The first two married couples beatified as couples and St. Therese of Lisieux were being honored during the extraordinary Synod of Bishops on the Family.