Historic Roosevelt Bible Vanishes During New York City Mayor's Swearing In

By Morgan Lee, Christian Post Reporter Friday, January 03, 2014

The Bible that belonged to 32nd President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, which New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio used during his swearing in on Wednesday disappeared after the ceremony, sending authorities scrambling to find the historic book.

De Blasio, 52, was sworn in by former President Bill Clinton during the morning of Jan. 1, but by 2:30 p.m., ceremony organizers had no idea where the Bible had gone.

"They had the whole detail looking through blankets,'' a police source told The New York Daily News, alleging that at least 50 NYPD detectives and city officials searched for the book.

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It took the team close to two-and-half hours to locate the Bible, which included searching through "garbage cans outside [and] in all the bags" to find the gift that Roosevelt received during his first inauguration in 1933.

The Bible is normally kept in the FDR presidential library in upstate New York and has "The White House" embossed on the front. It is also signed by him.

In November, the mayor denied rumors that he was an atheist, saying that while some members of his family are Roman Catholic, he was not raised in the Church.

"[My faith is] obviously too big and too complicated a topic to try to talk about in a press conference," de Blasio said. "I'm not affiliated with any particular church. I do consider myself a spiritual person. As I've said many times, I was very influenced by liberation theology, by Christian liberation theology, in the work I did after college and after graduate school."

The Democrat was sworn in as New York City's 109th mayor after winning the popular vote in November by more than 40 points over Republican Joe Lhota.

His inaugural address focused heavily on addressing and minimizing the city's inequality gap, following a theme of "a tale of two cities" that he drew on throughout the 2012 campaign.

"We are called to put an end to economic and social inequalities that threaten to unravel the city we love. And so, today, we commit to a new progressive direction in New York. And that same progressive impulse has written our city's history. It's in our DNA," de Blasio told a cheering crowd.

In his speech, the mayor also discussed his plans to create universal preschool programs by increasing the taxes for the wealthiest New Yorkers.

"We will make this one city. And that mission, our march toward a fairer, more just, more progressive place, our march to keep the promise of New York alive for the next generation, it begins today," he added.