The wind last week blew off the roof of the chancel of the medieval church of St Michael and All Angels in Edmondthorpe, Leicestershire. The church is in the care of the Churches Conservation Trust, being deemed redundant. The storm got in only because thieves had already stolen the permanent lead roof. Is this all about climate change, neglected heritage or a breakdown in law and order?

I was also a little shocked to hear this month that at Coventry Cathedral, thieves who stole a charity box got in by smashing a nine-foot engraved window, part of the great west wall of glass that John Hutton spent 10 years making. Weirder seems the theft of the small bit of bone, a relic, from the shrine of St John Henry Newman at the Birmingham Oratory.

In my experience of what people think is possible or impossible to do, stealing from churches comes under a different category from stealing from strangers or from offices. Stealing from churches might feel like body-snatching: a taboo, even if it did not invite divine vengeance.