By BosNewsLife News Center
BERLIN, GERMANY (BosNewsLife)– A newborn baby was doing well Sunday, December 7, after his troubled mother laid him in the crib of a nativity scene on the altar of a church in southern Germany, in hopes that someone would find and care for him, church and police officials said.
The infant was discovered last week by Father Thomas Rein, the parish priest of the Catholic church of St. Peter and St. Paul in the German village of Poettmes. He told German media “the hands of our dear God” were involved in protecting the child. “I am not going every afternoon to the church to pray.”
However on Tuesday, December 2, the priest said he felt he had to go despite the cold weather. “I arrived in the church shortly after midday to pray and I heard the baby crying,” the 39-year-old Father Rein added.
A small red carpet that is usually used by the priest to kneel on during services was laid over the crib in an apparent attempt to keep the baby warm. “We prepared the crib in the pre-Christmas period so children could lay fresh straw in it and ponder on the meaning of Christmas and Jesus…Now there really was a ‘Jesus-child’ in it,” he said. “His cries saved his little life; I would not have noticed him otherwise.”
EMERGENCY SERVICES
He said he immediately called the emergency services after taking the boy into his house next to the church to keep him warm. “It was only 12 degrees Celsius (some 54 Fahrenheit) in the church. There were fears that he could have hypothermia.”
The boy was taken to the Neuburger Paediatric Clinic, where he was said to make good progress. Police have since found the 38-year-old mother who reportedly explained that she gave the child up because she was in a “difficult personal situation,” but hoped someone would quickly find the child and care for him.
The child is being cared for by the local youth services. Father Rein said the church plans to gather donations to help the woman care for her son.
She has named him Christian.
