Abandoned Boy’s Mother Calls Church

A distraught young mother who left her baby boy on the steps of a Catholic church in Norwalk has twice made contact with church officials and apparently attended Mass there Sunday morning, but her identity--and that of her infant--remains a mystery.

“We want to help her and we want to reunite her” with her child, said a frustrated associate pastor of St. John of God Catholic Church. “It’s been very stressful,” said the Rev. Alberto Villalobos, who talked with the woman when she telephoned the church Saturday evening.

The brown-eyed, dark-haired child, believed to be between 3 and 7 days old, was discovered about 3:30 p.m. Saturday on the steps leading to the church rectory.

The baby, who still had a plastic clamp on its umbilical cord and two tiny Band-Aids on its heels, was clothed in a clean diaper and white undershirt and wrapped in two white receiving blankets. Whoever left the child rang the doorbell and ran off.

In a handwritten note tucked inside the blankets, the baby’s mother asked church officials to give the boy a good home because she had no home of her own. The note also said she prayed each Sunday at St. John of God.

Later that evening, according to Villalobos, a tearful woman called and said, “I’m the mother of the baby, and I want to know how he’s doing.”

The woman gave her age as 22, but did not give her name or location. Although she agreed to come to the church that evening, she never showed up.

The woman also had an “indirect communication” with a nun Sunday, in which she thanked church officials and revealed that she had attended the 9 a.m. Mass. Villalobos, who did not conduct that Mass, would not elaborate, except to say that the nun did not see or speak directly to the woman.

Placed With County

He also said the woman seemed to hope that church officials would keep the baby until they found a home for it. Instead, they immediately turned the 19-inch, 6-pound baby over to sheriff’s deputies, who placed him in the custody of the Los Angeles County Department of Children’s Services.

The infant, who was checked Saturday at Coast Plaza Medical Center, is in good health and was at the MacLaren Children’s Center in El Monte on Sunday, where county workers were hoping to find clues to his identity.

However, Children’s Services Supervisor Jules Gabay said that even if the mother came forward, the baby would remain in the custody of his department until a Juvenile Court judge authorizes the child’s release. A hearing must be held within 72 hours of the time the county detains--or, in this case, is left with--a child, Gabay said.

Although church officials are publicly pleading with the mother to come forward and not to fear criminal charges, sheriff’s deputies say that if a crime has been committed, charges of child abandonment or endangering a child could be filed.

“As far as I know, they (deputies) took a report alleging a criminal act and therefore there would be a suspect of that act,” said Sgt. Bryan Williams of the Sheriff’s Information Bureau.

But at St. John of God, which has a congregation of 4,500 families, parishioners and church officials said Sunday that they were ready to forgive--and help--the woman. Although there was no mention of her during the English-speaking morning Mass, Villalobos discussed the incident with 1,200 parishioners at the Spanish-speaking noon Mass. Several volunteered to take her in.