NEW YORK — For a few moments, the sight could have been confused for a miraculous arrival ahead of the Christmas season: A newborn baby, hours old and full term, appeared within a nativity scene at a Queens church on Monday.
But the story of how the baby got onto the stage inside the Holy Jesus Child Church in the Richmond Hill neighborhood was much more earthly, the police said: A woman, seen on video, had arrived with the boy wrapped in a towel, his umbilical cord still attached, and departed without him.
On Tuesday afternoon, detectives were seeking to speak with the woman, who was believed to be the child's mother.
Late Monday morning, a custodian, Jose Moran, arranged the empty manger at the front of the church, facing the pews, the crèche still empty of all the animals and statues of the Christmas story. Then he went to lunch.
When he returned, around 1 p.m., he heard the cries of a baby and discovered the child, the police said.
The baby, whose name was not known, was being treated at Jamaica Hospital Center. Doctors said it appeared he had been born four to five hours earlier.
The parish priest, the Rev. Christopher Ryan Heanue, 28, said he could think of no better place to leave a baby. He said that rather than seeing the mother's actions as sad, he found them inspirational. "I think it's beautiful," 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."
He said that Moran had immediately called him upon hearing the baby's cries: "He ran to the office, called me, and we called 911, and that is when the baby was then taken to a nearby hospital."
Like a vast majority of states, New York has safe haven laws to allow parents to anonymously leave unwanted infants, without fear of prosecution, at sites like hospitals or firehouses. Officials said that churches are included in the places covered by the law, but the parent must alert someone to the child's presence, or leave the child in the care of someone at the location. Neither happened in this case, the police said.
The police did not release the video.
Heanue, who grew up in nearby Maspeth and was ordained just five months ago, said the baby "seemed very healthy and was said to be in stable condition." He said the makeup of the congregation reflected the surrounding middle-class neighborhood, which he called a "true melting pot."
The priest said he had not seen the videotape of the woman. He said the authorities were still "not clear as to who the person is." Heanue said the year of this week's events, as defined by Pope Francis, was apropos.
"Pope Francis has called this a year of mercy in the church," he said. "This is a year of mercy, and what better way to be merciful than to find a home for those in need."