'The Nativity Story' Movie Problematic for Catholics, "Unsuitable" for Young Children

'The Nativity Story' Movie Problematic for Catholics, "Unsuitable" for Young Children

NEW YORK, December 4, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A review of New Line Cinema's The Nativity story by Fr. Angelo Mary Geiger of the Franciscans of the Immaculate in the United States, points out that the film, which opened December 1, misinterprets scripture from a Catholic perspective.

While Fr. Geiger admits that he found the film is "in general, to be a pious and reverential presentation of the Christmas mystery." He adds however, that "not only does the movie get the Virgin Birth wrong, it thoroughly Protestantizes its portrayal of Our Lady."

In Isaiah 7:14 the Bible predicts the coming of the Messiah saying: "Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign. Behold a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and his name shall be called Emmanuel." Fr. Geiger, in an video blog post, explains that the Catholic Church has taught for over 2000 years that the referenced Scripture showed that Mary would not only conceive the child miraculously, but would give birth to the child miraculously - keeping her physical virginity intact during the birth.

The film, he suggests, in portraying a natural, painful birth of Christ, thus denies the truth of the virginal and miraculous birth of Christ, which, he notes, the Fathers of the Church compared to light passing through glass without breaking it. Fr. Geiger quoted the fourth century St. Augustine on the matter saying. "That same power which brought the body of the young man through closed doors, brought the body of the infant forth from the inviolate womb of the mother."

Fr. Geiger contrasts The Nativity Story with The Passion of the Christ, noting that with the latter, Catholics and Protestants could agree to support it. He suggests, however, that the latter is "a virtual coup against Catholic Mariology".

The characterization of Mary further debases her as Fr. Geiger relates in his review. "Mary in The Nativity lacks depth and stature, and becomes the subject of a treatment on teenage psychology."

Beyond the non-miraculous birth, the biggest let-down for Catholics comes from Director Catherine Hardwicke's own words. Hardwicke explains her rationale in an interview: "We wanted her [Mary] to feel accessible to a young teenager, so she wouldn't seem so far away from their life that it had no meaning for them. I wanted them to see Mary as a girl, as a teenager at first, not perfectly pious from the very first moment. So you see Mary going through stuff with her parents where they say, 'You're going to marry this guy, and these are the rules you have to follow.' Her father is telling her that she's not to have sex with Joseph for a year-and Joseph is standing right there."

Comments Fr. Geiger, "it is rather disconcerting to see Our Blessed Mother portrayed with 'attitude;' asserting herself in a rather anachronistic rebellion against an arranged marriage, choosing her words carefully with her parents, and posing meaningful silences toward those who do not understand her."

Fr. Geiger adds that the film also contains "an overly graphic scene of St. Elizabeth giving birth," which is "just not suitable, in my opinion, for young children to view."

Despite its flaws Fr. Geiger, after viewing the film, also has some good things to say about it. "Today, one must commend any sincere attempt to put Christ back into Christmas, and this film is certainly one of them," he says. "The Nativity Story in no way compares to the masterpiece which is The Passion of the Christ, but it is at least sincere, untainted by cynicism, and a worthy effort by Hollywood to end the prejudice against Christianity in the public square."

And, in addition to a good portrait of St. Joseph, the film offers "at least one cinematic and spiritual triumph" in portraying the Visitation of Mary to St. Elizabeth. "Although the Magnificat is relegated to a kind of epilogue at the movie's end, the meeting between Mary and Elizabeth is otherwise faithful to the scriptures and quite poignant. In a separate scene, the two women experience the concurrent movement of their children in utero and share deeply in each other's joy. I can't think of another piece of celluloid that illustrates the dignity of the unborn child better than this."

Thank you so much for your reply, insights and challenge, dear brother in Christ!

Lurkers: kosta50 and I agree on the important Spiritual matters, these are merely differences in our science and math. Not a “biggie.”

Since you raised Sirach, I should hasten to point out the Gosse Omphalos hypothesis, also known as “last Thursdayism” which says that God created an old looking universe, e.g. a few minutes ago, last Thursday, 6,000 years ago, etc. It is a hypothesis which can neither be affirmed nor falsified by the scientific method – but is widely held among Christians who receive the Scriptures as inerrant and literal but reject “Young Earth Creationism.”

The "creation" of time in absence of matter and space is meaningless because such creation would by itself be an "event." Which means "time" was never created but had to exist forever!

God is not limited by our mortal reasoning of what is possible.

Let me try this once again.

The measurement of the CMB in the 1960’s established that the universe is expanding and thus there was a beginning of real space and real time in the physical realm. It was celebrated as a confirmation of this phrase of this verse:

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. – Gen 1:1

In other words, science was saying that before there was a beginning, there was no matter, no energy, no physical laws, no qualia, no thing, no space, no time and therefore no physical causality.

It was not merely a vacuum, it was void. There were no boundaries of any kind. All that is before the beginning is singular, i.e. God.

This means that in order for there to be a beginning there had to be an uncaused cause of it. Consider the void, only God could make a beginning ex nihilo.

As you say, the beginning itself is an event, that means that God created real time and real space in the beginning.

The spiritual understanding I have of Genesis 1-4 is that it is a summary of God creating both the spiritual realm and the physical realm. Consider also Colossians 1. God creates both spiritual and physical realms and beings – consisting of both form and power. Therefore, it is quite apparent that God created geometry (space/time continuum of unknown dimensions) which applies to both spiritual and physical realms, in the beginning:

Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature: For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether [they be] thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him: And he is before all things, and by him all things consist. And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all [things] he might have the preeminence. For it pleased [the Father] that in him should all fulness dwell; And, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself; by him, [I say], whether [they be] things in earth, or things in heaven.– Col 1:15-20

Turning to the physical realm for a moment, since that is all science is able to observe --- it is also apparent that God created physical causation and physical laws in the beginning of the physical realm and thus there was the mechanism for increasing physical order.

It doesn’t matter what cosmology a person holds – big bang, cyclic, ekpyrotic, multi-verse, etc - because every single one of them must have pre-existing geometry (space/time) in order to have physical causation. They cannot obviate God. Period.

Back in the day when man was able to believe in a steady state universe, he was able to obviate God and laugh at the Godhead as the consequence of an overactive imagination. Why? Because in a steady state universe, God must exist “in” space and time!

It was one of the many ways man anthropomorphized God.

Continuing on the issues at hand ... how one looks at the question of which came first in the physical realm – energy/matter or geometry – depends a lot on his understanding of the quantum world.

On the one hand are those who lean to high energy particle physics. These have a tendency to consider the particles such as photons as real and local (even though they often recognize that is not established.) IOW, science has observed non-locality – that measuring one of two entangled photons will determine the other regardless of spatial separation, whether 11 kilometers, across the solar system, galaxy, universe. Also, ordinary matter (the Higgs boson) has not yet been observed or created by either Fermilab or CERN and thus there are new theories, e.g. that matter in four dimensions may be a shadow of momentum components in a fifth dimension.

But I digress…

The other side (obviously I am one) – leans to quantum field theory. A field is defined as existing in all points of space/time, the geometry of the physical realm. Thus phenomena such as non-locality and quantum superposition and matter become an issue of the geometry itself.

Technically as to how the physicists “do” science it doesn’t matter much whether they use quantum mechanics or quantum field theory – but it does matter how one visualizes physical reality.

The former see the uncaused cause causing energy (e.g. big bang) which as in the case of matter/anti-matter colliding in a burst of gamma radiation, expanded the geometry of the energy. Thus, in that view space/time is created by the energy/matter, i.e. it inflates exponentially.

On my side of the aisle, God creates a speck of geometry (space and time of unknown dimensions) which causes vibration (string theory) and gives rise to quantum fields and therefore the matter/anti-matter collisions which result in a burst of gamma radiation, inflating the geometry exponentially.

Or the "chicken and egg" problem of energy/matter v geometry could simply be that God created both simultaneously...

Lurkers: kosta50 and I agree on the important Spiritual matters, these are merely differences in our science and math. Not a “biggie.”

I don't necessarily disagree with you on sicence/math either. I just don't embrace current theories witht he same finality as some do because I have seen theories change in my own liftime and I have no doubt they will change again, even radically.

Again, if God is not logical, in the human sense, then the truth may be completely irrational. For, as Pascal posits that we can never really know God, God's ways may turn out to be be a real surprise, and quite unreachanble by any science.

For the sake of brevity, I understand the CMB issue and the steady-state defunct theory. I am only looking at the "void" you are describing and asking you if such "void" is created or uncreated?

For, if there was nothing but God, and only God pre-existed everything and all, that would include the "void." But the "void" istelf cannot be "void" because it was from its beginning filled with God if not by matter.

So, if God pre-existed everything, which must include the "void," then the "void" itself must be a creation, a receptacle of the Creation to come, and its act of creation is an event in absence of time, whose existence appears without the presence of matter/energy because it's a void.

This reminds me of another defunct physical postulate, namely the "ether," which supposedly filled the outer space.

Hippo and Carthage were local councils

Yes, but they reflected the accepted unchallenged till the Reformation truth. No Bibles were produced without the disputed books. In the East, where Trent did not have jurisdiction, likewise, the conmplete canon has been in use continually.

The chapter in James 2 is not speaking of eternal salvation at all

This is your opinion, and you are wrong. "Dead" (James 2:20, 26) is dead for eternity.

both Athanasius and Jerome (to name just two) rejected Old Testament books that were not written in Hebrew

Still their opinions were not such because they were following Jamnia. Again, show me a Bible that did not have the disputed books prior to Luther.

not private in the sense that they are my 'opinions'.

Point is, I don't care what they are -- they are not the teaching of any apostolic authority. I am here to explain what the Catholic Church teaches, and to explain why.

Christ never even uses the term Mother for Mary, and when she comes to get Him, with His brethren, He refuses to leave and doesn't even go to her. (Mat.12:46-50)

Jesus calls His mother "woman", apparently, to indicate her significance in the light of Genesis 3:15. The episode of Matthew 12 tells us that Jesus chose to be with His church rather than with His immediate family; He urged others to do the same (Luke 9:61-62).

The passage does not say that doing good works result in eternal life, it says, those who seek eternal life by doing good works will find it.

OK...

his good works did not save him, he had to receive the Gospel by faith to be saved.

Indeed, we are not saved by works alone, just like we are not saved by faith alone.

Nowhere is eternal damnation mentioned, only physical death.

I explained that. You are wrong: physical death is only mentioned at the end of the chapter in a simile: "even as the body without the spirit is dead; so also faith without works is dead". Dead faith is eternal damnation.

Abraham was saved in Gen.15, not Gen.22

Do you contradict St. James or not? St. James says that Abraham was "justified by works, offering up Isaac his son upon the altar ... faith did co-operate with his works; and by works faith was made perfect". This is exactly what the Church teaches: faith co-operates with works and together are necessary for salvation.

No one disagrees that faith can be increased by works

Ah. Well, that is just barely Catholic then. You still incorrectly insist that all works are swept aside by St. Paul when the scripture does not say so. They are works for reward of one kind or another that he talks about.

you do not understand the Baptist view of Sanctification.

Yawn. Probably not.

Know what. You just babble on with your old arguments from roughly that point in your post on. I got more interesting stuff to do. You have a question, ask. Ciao, peace be with you.

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