A peculiar subset of modern moral corrosion is metal theft: the stealing of objects ranging from manhole covers to fire hydrants to be sold as scrap metal. Copper currently sells in the $4.60–$4.70 per pound range, making it a tempting target. What might look like petty crime is, in fact, an assault on both community and the sacred.

This is not merely an American or secular problem. (On America’s problem, see here.) In Legnica, a town in southwest Poland, prosecutors brought charges of theft and violation of religious feelings against a 29-year-old man who, on September 4, attempted to steal the copper cross from atop a local Greek Catholic church. The thief procured a ladder, climbed onto the roof, and sawed off the cross, valued at about $2,800. In the process, he caused $600 in damage to the church roof. To compound matters, he is also suspected of stealing the aluminum ladder itself, worth $400, which he used to reach the cross.

Theft of necessary civil infrastructure — hydrants, manholes, wires for street lights — is not just a matter of lost property. It is an attack on the common good, undermining the safety and well-being of the community. What happened in Legnica, however, strikes at something even deeper: not just plain theft, but sacrilege. Nothing, neither community nor church, today seems immune from desecration. Even the dead are being pilfered: Contra Costa, California, county reported the theft of 200 bronze vases from one cemetery’s gravesites just after last Christmas (see here).

The attempted theft in Legnica was not an isolated event. On September 12, in the town of Mieściszko, a half-naked man tore into the sanctuary of a church in the middle of a service and attacked the cross, the altar, and even the celebrant. The assault occurred just days before the Church celebrated the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross (the day a liturgy of expiation took place in Mieściszko). The First Reading for that feast, from Numbers 21:4b-9, recalls how Moses lifted up a bronze serpent on a pole to heal the Israelites bitten by fiery serpents. In the twenty-first century, one shudders to imagine: would the brazen serpent itself be stolen for scrap, and the redemptive pole profaned?

Metal theft may seem like just a symptom of mere economic desperation, but it reveals a deeper corrosion. When the things that bind us together — our civic infrastructure, our sacred symbols — become objects for plunder, we are witnessing not just crime but decay of moral order. And yet, the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross reminds us that no act of desecration can undo the power of the Cross itself. The bronze serpent healed Israel in the desert; the true Cross heals the world. Though thieves may strip copper and saw through sanctuaries, Christ’s victory is beyond their grasp — even if moderns want to purloin the brazen serpent and pull down the redemptive pole.