NEW YORK, Nov. 24 (UPI) ─ An abandoned baby briefly made a nativity scene inside a New York City church next to the real thing on Monday.
A newborn baby was left in the nativity scene of the Holy Jesus Child Church in Queens, New York wrapped in a towel with his umbilical cord still attached. The woman who left the child didn’t speak to anyone and was only seen on video.
The church custodian Jose Moran was setting up the scene Monday morning for the Christmas season. The manger was still empty when he went to lunch.
Moran returned around 1 p.m. and heard a baby crying and discovered the abandoned child in the manger. Moran told the parish priest, Christopher Ryan Heanue, and they called the police. The baby, a boy, but whose name is not known, was estimated to be only four-to-five-hours old, police said.
The baby was taken to Jamaica Hospital Center and is reported to be healthy.
“I think it’s beautiful,” Heanue said, being inspired rather than saddened by the event. “A church is a home for those in need, and she felt, in this stable, a place where Jesus will find his home, a home for her child.”
New York has a safe haven law allowing parents to leave an infant anonymously at a hospital, firehouse, police station or church without fear of prosecution. However, the parent must leave the child with someone or give notice of the child’s presence, and the woman in the video did not. Police are now searching the middle-class neighborhood ─ which Heanue referred to as “a true melting pot” ─ for the woman.
“Let us pray for this child,” Heanue wrote on the church’s Facebook page, “for his parents and for whomever will receive him into their home.”
