Baby Jesus stolen from nativity scene: Harmless prank or hate crime?

The desecration of a nativity scene in Haverhill, Mass., has 'all the elements of a hate crime,' the mayor said. But police do not yet have evidence of anti-Christian prejudice. 

|
Tom Gralish/The Philadelphia Inquirer/AP
Jim Schatzman, of Flowers by Dante, positions one of the Christmas trees on the altar next to the Nativity scene at the Cathedral Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul on Tuesday during preparations for Christmas services. Vandals desecrated an outdoor nativity scene at a Roman Catholic church in Haverhill, Mass, Thursday.

'Tis the season for holiday gifts, family feasts … and the traditional rash of nativity thefts.

Infant Jesus figures have long been targets of holiday controversy and pranksters. However, this year’s replacement of the central figure of a Haverhill, Mass., nativity scene at Sacred Hearts Roman Catholic Church with a pig’s head pushes the boundary between prank and religious denigration.

Haverhill Mayor James Fiorentini says the desecration has "all the elements of a hate crime."

To many members of the Christian faith, the nativity scene is a central fixture of one of the holiest days of the year. Vandalism of any religious shrine is an affront to worshipers and goes against one of the nation’s most central values: freedom of religious expression. Because of that, this theft carries more weight than a simple prank. 

But police are holding off labeling the act as a hate crime, absent any evidence that the perpetrator was motivated by anti-Christian prejudice.

The defacement of a Muslim shrine or Jewish synagogue might more quickly be seen as a hate crime, though that is partly due to the fact that Jews and Muslims are minority religions in the United States. Of the 1,166 hate crimes motivated by religious bias in 2012, the most recent year for which FBI data is available, 60 percent were anti-Jewish and 13 percent were anti-Islamic.

Jews make up 1.8 percent of the US population, according to 2012 Pew report on The Global Religious Landscape. Sensitivity around anti-Semitic vandalism is extremely high, given the global history of persecution of Jews.

While Muslims are the second largest religious group in the world, they make up 1 percent of Americans, according to the Pew report.

Earlier this month, a man in an sports-utility vehicle painted with anti-Muslim messages ran over a 15-year-old Muslim boy while he was getting into the family car in front of a Kansas City mosque. The FBI is investigating the matter as a hate crime.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Baby Jesus stolen from nativity scene: Harmless prank or hate crime?
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/USA-Update/2014/1226/Baby-Jesus-stolen-from-nativity-scene-Harmless-prank-or-hate-crime
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe