Police believe it was the mother who left her newborn baby boy in the manger of an indoor nativity scene at the Holy Child Jesus Church in Queens on Monday.
A custodian at the church heard the baby cry and called for help.
>>UPDATE: Mother was found but won't be charged, prosecutor says
The full-term baby, who was just hours old and still had his umbilical cord attached, was hospitalized and was doing well, a church official said.
Surveillance video showed a woman arriving with the baby boy wrapped in a towel. She was then seen leaving the church without him.
The The parish priest, the Rev. Christopher Ryan Heanue, 28, condoned the mother’s choice to leave her child at the church.
“I think it’s beautiful,” Father Heanue said. “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.”
Although churches can be considered a safe haven for dropping off infants without fear of prosecution in New York, someone is supposed to be told the child is being left. That did not happen in this case, police said.
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