St. Joseph’s Church is located at 371 Sixth Avenue at the corner of Washington Place
A Greenwich Village pastor had an unexpected guest on his hands during a candlelight service last month, and it didn’t come in for the prayers.
It was a raccoon. Father Jonah Teller, the pastor of the Church of St. Joseph in Greenwich Village, told the New York Post that the visit came just a week before the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi and its Blessing of the Animals, calling it “a great reminder of St. Francis.”
The church caught the whole thing on camera and posted the video to Instagram. The footage shows the raccoon climbing the front steps of the Sixth Avenue church and walking in through the front door during the Sept. 25 Nightfire Candlelight Prayer Service, which the church holds four times a year. Teller spotted the animal in the foyer and encouraged it to head back outside.
It didn’t put up a fight. The raccoon made its way back down the steps and took off along Sixth Avenue, where a surprised passerby can be heard yelling that they’d never seen one in the city before.
