Catholic Charities’s Deacon Lucio Caruso and Peggy McCarty with the homeless Jesus park bench

By Ruby Thomas, Record Staff Writer

The bronze figure huddled under a blanket on a park bench — on the front lawn of St. James Church — could be that of any homeless person. Only the familiar nail wounds on the feet give away that it’s a figure of Jesus Christ.

When a parishioner of St. James Church, 1826 Edenside Drive, approached Father Gary Padgett offering to anonymously commission a statue of the “Homeless Jesus” for the parish, the pastor said he had mixed feelings. Read more >