Rouviere Media

(At Least Some) Baby Jesuses Come Home

A baby Jesus figure that was stolen from the All Faiths Chapel at Texas A & M in early December was found on the ground outside the chapel on Dec. 26. 

Another baby Jesus figure reappeared eight years after somone stole it from a private residence in the Chicago area and left an empty beer can in its place. It turned out that the statue had been sitting for years in a police department property room.

In Port Angeles, Washington, where several  baby Jesuses were taken from nativity scenes, they mysteriously reappeared in the front yards from which they were taken.
A number of people  were facing charges involving missing baby Jesuses.

In Pennsylvania, a Spotsylvania County woman was charged with grand larceny in the theft of a baby Jesus figure and manger taken between Dec. 13 and 14. They were valued at Police located the woman after someone told them she had posted a photo of the baby Jesus on her facebook page.  She remained free pending her next hearing.

Five teenagers were charged with criminal mischief in the disappearance of a baby Jesus from a nativity scene at an Oakmont, Pennsylvania, residence during a scavenger hunt. This was the second year that the baby Jesus had been stolen from the nativity display.

In Ft. Branch, Indiana, police got a call that the seven baby Jesus figurines were on the front steps of the public library. "You had to smile because it was really cute," said Chief Deputy Marshal Darrell Parker. Library surveilance video showed two teenage boys set up the figurines on the steps of the library and then moved back in to adjust the figures' positions. Police drove around town looking for nativity scenese with missing baby Jesuses and replaced the figures. Three or four years earlier, the same thing happened, Parker said. 

A baby Jesus that was stolen from a nativity scene at the Smithtown Library in New York  turned up on the front lawn of a volunteer firefighter. 

Meanwhile, in Manitowoc County, Wisconsin, all of the figurines in a nativity scene were stolen except the baby Jesus. They have not been recovered. Various igurines in a number of other nativity scenes in locations in  the United States and Canada were stolen during the holiday and remained missing.

A goat who ran away while being unloaded for use in a nativity scene was found after 25 days during which his owners and others searched for him.

Two rabbits were taken from a live nativity scene in Grosseto, Tuscany. The nativity scene had guinea pigs, hamsters and chickens among statues of the Holy Family and Wisemen. The animals, placed there by the monks of the Convent of St. Francis, were pulled out of their cage and bundled into a sack. The Animal Liberation Front claimed responsibility for the raid, saying friars had imprisoned the rabibits to “satisfy the curiosity of the faithful.”

The monks described the raid as incomprehensible and said the rabbits had been content and well cared for. They replaced them with other rabbits provided by a local family.

Wide Variety of Baby Jesuses

Here are some photos showing some of the wide variety of differing baby Jesus figures that appear in various nativity scenes.

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