Statue of Baby Jesus Smashed on Christmas Eve
On Christmas Eve vandals smashed a statue of the Infant Jesus and relics in the Lady Chapel desecrated at St. Patrick’s Church in Edinburgh. There was blood left in multiple areas of the sanctuary, and the figure was thrown into a bin during a confrontation between two distressed visitors.
Police Scotland stated that officers responded at about 6:40 p.m. on December 24, 2025, to vandalism involving a Baby Jesus statue at St. Patrick’s Church in Edinburgh’s Old Town, where the figure’s head and arm were broken and the model was later found in a bin after a struggle between two visitors.
According to Father Gerard Hatton, he returned from a Christmas Eve meal to find “five policemen in the church and a man kneeling at the crib with his hands up,” adding that “there was blood on the floor” and that one of the individuals involved had been “very aggressive and rude and was really angry at priests and the church”.
Hatton said a young woman known to the parish had suffered a mental‑health episode and began throwing the statue, after which the second individual, the agggressive man, intervened and escalated the disturbance. A facebook post from the parish stated, “We ask prayers for reparation tonight on this Vigil of the Lord’s Nativity, for the attack upon the Child Jesus, taken from the throne above the altar; also for the desecration of relics in the Lady Chapel, violence at the crib in the side aisle, and blood spilled in the sanctuary, side chapel and nave." The parish also noted prior threats made during the Easter Vigil and said that a person told them “you’re finished here” on the night of this incident.
Sources: The Times, The Scotsman
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