The echoes of a crying newborn led the custodian at Holy Child Jesus Church to the nativity scene that's being set up inside the sanctuary — and he was shocked when he took a closer look at the manger.
"The last place he looked was here," said Bishop Octavio Cisneros of the Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn and Queens. "He was looking out into the pews 'where is the baby crying?' He came and to his surprise, and to all our surprise there is a baby."
A newborn baby boy — wrapped in blood soaked blankets — abandoned in the church Monday afternoon.
"He was breathing, he had good color and we noticed his umbilical cord was still attached," the bishop said.
The little boy was rushed to Jamaica Hospital, but not before parishioners and church staff worked to give him aid.
"They came and immediately they took the baby in their arms and they tried to give him warmth," the bishop said.
The state's Safe Haven Law allows parents to abandon their newborns at facilities like churches as long as someone there is notified and the baby is not unattended. But as police investigate, church leaders say they're just happy the little boy wound up here.
"Usually we wait until the third week of Advent to set up crèche scene so by it being up again this woman found in it this home for her child," said Father Christopher Heanue.
"They brought it to the place where she thought it would be best for him and what a best place for anybody to be, in church," the bishop said.