The police were searching on Thursday for three laughing thieves who made off with a statue of Jesus from a Roman Catholic church over the weekend, clergy and police officials said.

The Diocese of Brooklyn announced the theft on Thursday, a holy day set aside to commemorate Christ’s ascension into heaven. The SS. Peter and Paul Church is asking for the return of the statue, said Mother Maria Bendita, the mother superior of the Williamsburg parish to which the church belongs.

The three-foot-tall statue, which depicts Jesus holding a heart, was a century-old family heirloom donated to the church in 2012 after a previous version was stolen, the donors and church officials said. It sat staked on a pedestal in front of the church rectory until early Saturday morning, when three thieves grabbed it, church and police officials said.

“They knew what they were doing,” Mother Bendita said, adding, “It’s a pattern of disrespect that we are seeing for our faith.”