32 baby Jesus dolls found in Ill. yard
2007-01-15 03:03:00
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061219/ap_on_fe_st/thirty_two_jesuses
Tue Dec 19, 4:28 PM ET
CHICAGO - Dozens of people looking for Jesus can find him at a church on Chicago's South Side. Thirty-two plastic baby Jesus dolls were stolen last week from nativity scenes in people's front yards. Then on Saturday morning a woman found all the missing Jesuses lined up along the fence on her lawn and she gave them to St. Symphorosa Church.
The Rev. Marcel Pasciak said the woman was one of his parishioners at St. Symphorosa and "panicked" when she saw the dolls.
Fourteen of the dolls' rightful owners had claimed them by Tuesday morning.
Pasciak said he thinks teenagers took the baby Jesuses as a joke and not as a religious statement.
"Don't they look funny?" Pasciak said as residents came to claim their decorations. "We're putting Christ back into Christmas literally and metaphorically."
Not everyone took the thefts lightly.
"You put things out and it's to express your beliefs, to celebrate your faith with your community," said Carol Angiollo, whose baby Jesus was among those taken. "To have someone violate that is really disheartening."
People who called police to report a missing doll were directed to the church, said Chicago police spokesman Pat Camden.
"Baby Jesus belongs in a nativity, not in evidence and recovered poverty, which is where they'll wind up if they're not claimed," he said.
Police haven't made any arrests.
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