Nashville’s Nun Bun Theft only Latest in Worrisome Trend
The Christmas day theft of the famed Nun Bun from a Nashville eatery is only the latest in an alarming trend of desecration of food objects in which religious images can be seen.
A study by the National Center for Edible Religious Apparitions found that at least three dozen edible apparitions have been stolen, desecrated, or eaten in the last year alone.
“This past year has seen an alarming jump in desecrations,” said Sydney Hempstead, NCERA executive director. “In 2004, we had only six verifiable cases of edible desecrations. You can understand that this jump in numbers is a matter of grave concern to us.”
The Nun Bun was stolen early Christmas day from Bongo Java, a Nashville eatery. Someone broke in and took only the bun, which had been shellacked to preserve it. The thief ignored a jar of coins nearby.
The cinnamon bun gained notoriety in 1996 when a customer took a bite and then noticed the image of Mother Teresa in the bun.
Other notable edible apparition images desecrated or consumed during 2005, according to the NCERA study:
– A frozen pizza in Fargo North, Dakota with the image of John Lennon in the cheese and sausage topping. It was accidentally heated and eaten when the owner’s ravenous teen-age son came home from school and noticed it in the freezer.
– An image of Jesus and six of His disciples on a Ritz cracker. The cracker, owned by a edible religious apparitions collector in Manchester, New Hampshire, was destroyed when its owner accidentally dropped it during an annual cleaning and the 30-year-old cracker shattered.
– The image of Pope Leo X discovered on a Navajo Indian rug in a gift shop in Gallup, New Mexico. The Pope’s image was completely destroyed when a Jack Russel terrier, left home alone by his owner in Blue Spring, Missouri, took revenge and ripped the rug to shreds. The rug’s owner had displayed in on the floor of the family recreation room.
Hempstead said he was particularly concerned by a rise in the number of desecrations that involved theft of the object.
“Almost 50 percent of these cases involve theft, so we don’t know the outcome,” he said. “Did someone steal the sacred item to destroy it? Or was it someone who wants it for their private collection?”
Hempstead said that when one of the sacred apparitions is stolen, his hope is always that at least the item will be preserved, even if it is no longer available to the public.
“Even if the stolen sacred edible is seen by only one person, at least that person is touched by its holiness and by the presence of God in that way. But if a nasty little dog rips it to shreds…”
Hempstead visibly shuddered at the thought.