Baby boy found abandoned in New York nativity manger: report

A custodian found the infant inside a manger at Holy Child Jesus Church in the borough of Queens, the New York Times said. The child was said to be in good health.

Surveillance video footage showed a woman carrying the baby into the church wrapped in a towel and then leaving, police said.

Doctors reported that the boy, whose umbilical cord had not been properly snipped, had likely been born four or five hours previously.

Christopher Ryan Heanue, the parish's 28-year-old priest, commended the woman, believed to be the mother, for her actions.

"A church is a home for those in need, and she felt, in this stable -- a place where Jesus will find his home -- a home for her child," he told the Times.

Christianity teaches that Jesus was born in a manger in the town of Bethlehem, after his parents Mary and Joseph were turned away from a crowded inn.

The priest said that officials were still unsure of the woman's identity.

The child was being treated at Jamaica Hospital Center, according to the Times.