A statue of the baby Jesus has been kidnapped from a church’s nativity display in North Vancouver, leaving parishioners praying the figure will be returned.
Father John Horgan of St. Pius X Catholic Church in Deep Cove says it was heartbreaking to arrive on New Year’s Day to find the statue gone.
“It was a shame. So many people were disappointed,” he said. “The first word that people said was that they’ve stolen the Christ child from the manger. To take a figure like this destroys the spirit of the season.”
Horgan says he wants the 24-inch fiberglass statue put back in the nativity display, no questions asked.
“We’d be very happy if the figure is returned, that’s the end of the matter,” he said.
The church called the police on New Year’s Day, who helped hunt around for the statue, but they had no luck.
“We assisted the parishioners, but we didn’t locate baby Jesus. We created a file,” said North Vancouver RCMP spokesman Cpl. Richard De Jong.
The figure has a long history – for some 50 years it was in the nativity display at St. Vincent’s hospital in Vancouver before it closed. Father John Horgan had been a chaplain there and took the statues with him to St. Pius X Church.
It’s not the first baby Jesus that’s gone missing on the North Shore. Two years ago, He went missing from St. Paul’s Church. Father John Brioux says he’s more careful with the clay replacement.
“We take him and put him in the foyer for safety so he doesn’t disappear,” he said.
With so many churches the theft happens somewhere every year. Some churches have taken security into their own hands, and are attaching GPS trackers to their statues to find them – a strategy that worked for one Florida church.
But Horgan says he’d rather have faith the statue will return.
“It’s a terrible day if we have to microchip the Christ child,” he said.
