'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."

Please look at my 4004 and Blogger's response at, I believe 4006.

I am astonished at the interpretation of Luther's teaching presented by some here. I read some Luther in College and a little more in Seminary, and I guess I'd like to have the actual text, chapter and verse, where he says it's okay to commit a lot of adultery. It must be the famous "Madonna Edition".

I got from him pretty much what Blogger said, that the fuel and practise of the Christian life is faith in God's saving love, and the way to avoid sin is to rest in that faith.

Here, let me call down everybody's wrath: I would say that my almost daily rosary, my attendance at Mass, my prayers in the sleepless hours of the night, ALL of it is really just a way of "waiting on" the Lord and intentionally and consciously trusting in His saving Love.

When I was at the Sheriff's office a maxim was, "You fight as you train." So I train myself, through noetic prayer, including the prayer of the heart (Can you say "Philkalia?"), undertaken with guidance from wise and holy people, and all the rest of it, to trust that there is nothing I need to add to God or to the Love of God (both sense of the genitive included). I, personally, am "getting nowhere" with it, and sometimes that distresses me. But I trust that God may be getting somewhere with me, and when the dust settles, that's what's going to matter. I don't expect to say, "Well, I certainly deserve this," if I find myself in heaven. What I look for is an eternity of grateful praise, of looking ever more deeply into the eyes of my Lord and saying from ever deeper parts of me, "THANK YOU!"

And in the meantime, when, as is usually the case, when I find I have sinned, I confess, I try to make such amends as I can, but I stake my life on God's mercy and love. I am still bold enough to say "Father". And that's pretty much what I understood Luther to be saying in the "sin boldly" stuff. If knowing my self to have sinned, I thought I could not take confidence in God's love, well, I think I'd have another drink or a bullet to the head or something along those lines.

G'night and God bless.

Fairly good, but not perfect.

"When one turns away from sin it is because having once been saved he is grateful to God for that and does so in the spirit of thankgiving." One turns from sin because the Spirit of God has regenerated his/her life and has shown that person that their sin is offensive to God. One continues to STRIVE to not sin, hopefully out of gratitude. Unfortunately, a motivation too often is not gratitude but a fear of harsh chastisement. This is due more to us seeing God the Father in a way we see our own fathers. If one has had a distant father, with that as one's reference, a lot of times we see God as distant. If one has had a harsh father, then one will try to please God for that reason. The reason should be out of love of God. But, being human, we get things goofed up sometimes.

" When we see one apparently a faithful Christian who goes out and sins, then that is because the appearances had failed us and he had not really been saved."
No. This part is incorrect. Christians will sin. Paul said (paraphrasing) "The good he would like to do, he does just the opposite and the things he wouldn't want to do those are the very things he does." But, the true Christian's want-to has changed. Our heart aches when we sin. We feel guilt towards the God who bought us. We feel sad because of our betrayal of the Savior. We don't disappoint God (Because how can you disappoint someone who already knew you were going to do something wrong), but we can grieve the Holy Spirit and displease God.

I think what you were seeing about external appearances is a combination of Jesus and John's words. If someone proclaiming themeselves to be a faithful Christian goes out and sins - and stays in their sin without any kind of regard for what they are doing - just continual and non-repentant willful behavior; chances are, that person's faith was a dead faith. They never really believed.

So the true sheep will stray from time to time, but the Shepherd goes and gets them and brings them back. They feel bad when they have strayed as well. And, certainly do experience some chastisement from time to time (but our Shepherd tends to be only as 'harsh' with us as it takes to get our attention).

There are other people whom our Shepherd never knew. They were never saved.

Matthew 7
13Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat:

14Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.

15Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.

16Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?

17Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit.

18A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.

19Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.

20Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.

21Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.

22Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works?

23And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.

I John 1
6If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth:

7But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.

8If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.

9If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

10If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.

1 John 2

1My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous:

2 John 2: 19They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us: but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us.

What the Fathers speak of is "dying to the self" and having a new life which is completely Christocentric. They say that as we shed earthly concerns and become enflamed and purified by grace, the eye of the soul, the "nous", becomes increasingly focused on God to the exclusion of everything else

This theology is repeated every Sunday in the Divine Liturgy of the Faithful, beginning with the Cherubic Hymn:

We who mystically represent the Cherubim sing the thrice holy hymn to the life giving Trinity. Let us set aside all the earthly cares...

[While the Cherubic Hymn is being sung, the priest prays in a low voice:]

No one bound by worldly desires and pleasures is worthy to approach, draw near or minister to You, the King of glory. To serve You is great and awesome even for the heavenly powers. But because of Your ineffable and immeasurable love for us, You became man without alteration or change. You have served as our High Priest, and as Lord of all, and have entrusted to us the celebration of this liturgical sacrifice without the shedding of blood. For You alone, Lord our God, rule over all things in heaven and on earth. You are seated on the throne of the Cherubim, the Lord of the Seraphim and the King of Israel. You alone are holy and dwell among Your saints. You alone are good and ready to hear. Therefore, I implore You, look upon me, Your sinful and unworthy servant, and cleanse my soul and heart from evil consciousness. Enable me by the power of Your Holy Spirit so that, vested with the grace of priesthood, I may stand before Your holy Table and celebrate the mystery of Your holy and pure Body and Your precious Blood. To You I come with bowed head and pray: do not turn Your face away from me or reject me from among Your children, but make me, Your sinful and unworthy servant, worthy to offer to You these gifts. For You, Christ our God, are the Offerer and the Offered, the One who receives and is distributed, and to You we give glory, together with Your eternal Father and Your holy, good and life giving Spirit, now and forever and to the ages of ages. Amen.

You know enough to misinterpret him. Please do not make the mistake of glossing over the sins of your church which helped produce a Luther. The Roman Catholic church was in a real mess in those days and had been for centuries. Probably something to do with those second sons of European Aristocracy that held most of the church posts as a means to money and power rather than pious men drawn to service to God. (See Simony, Pluralism, Selling of Indulgences, etc.,)

Luther was a learned theologian. He knew the Greek well enough to be able to put the Bible into the Vernacular. It was from his studies that he found freedom in Christ from the bondage of his past. His personal confessor was actually a pretty decent guy. But the church hierarchy was quite corrupt. God called Luther out of Babylon and in the mean time healed Luther of his views of God as the harsh unpleasable disciplinarian (like Luther's father was) by showing to him through Scripture his grace, mercy, and love.

Luther did not encourage people to sin. He could be a raskal in making his points, but if you continue reading Luther, you realize he isn't really giving folks a license to just go sin uncontrollably. He is showing them that even if they were to commit horrendous sin, that Christ's sacrifice and grace was sufficient and we needn't worry about being cast out by our God. God's grace is sufficient, even when I have really blown it big time.

What that does is gets our focus off of doing enough works to please a hard to please God, or at least doing as little sinning as to avert his wrath to focusing on the grace and love of God towards us, the full extent of the atonement of Christ, and what we may do for him because we love him.

Again, you can't take Luther's "sin boldly" comment out of the context of Luther's thoughts. He said "sin boldly, but believe MORE boldly." Luther believed that the more you put your trust and devotion towards Christ the less you would sin. He also prayed to be protected from the evil one's seductive schemes. Luther did not wish to be a sinner, as no Christian would. He just said that WHEN we do sin, even if it is a lulu, we needn't fear coming back to the Lord and starting over again because Christ's sacrifice was sufficient.

You know enough to misinterpret him

Fair enough. I guess the same can be said for the Protestant side's knowledge of the Orthodox Church.

Please do not make the mistake of glossing over the sins of your church which helped produce a Luther

MY Church? In case you didn't see my tagline, I am Eastern Orthodox. I suppose you just proved my point above. I assure you that MY Church had done nothing to produce a Luther.

Luther set out to resist human failings and corruption among the clergy and ended up changing the theology to fit his lifestyle! It wasn't about human corruption that he was rebelling, but against the the 1,5900 years of the Apostolic and catholic faith of the Church.

For sure, he did not erradicate corruption, but not to worry, he was more interested in creating a church, if one can call it that, where committing adultery and muder a hundred times a day is okay as long as you love God.

Next thing you will tell me he didn't say that either.

Again, you can't take Luther's "sin boldly" comment out of the context of Luther's thoughts. He said "sin boldly, but believe MORE boldly."

And you see nothing wrong with that? I think that "Believe more bodly so that you may sin less (boldly)" would be the Christian thing to say.

I simply forgot you were orthodox. I would have known the difference.

I readily admit I know far less about the Orthodox than I do Catholics. That's why I'm asking questions.

Luther's theology changed because of what he saw in Scripture. Luther had no desire initially to break with the church, but the more resistance he met, the more he realized that the break was inevitable. He was also a typical German male of the time and could come off rather brute. Nevertheless, when you go to present your case and have to been hidden away less the church people kill you, chances are, it is time to split from that church.

Luther's theology changed when translating Paul. He realized what the Bible actually said about grace. He also had a nasty trip to Rome where he found brothels just for the churchmen. Please don't believe that church corruption wasn't a large part of what caused him to leave.

His desire was to reform. They wouldn't reform. It would take Loyola later on to address some of these issues. But Rome in 1500 was apostate.

OK. So Luther did not encourage anyone to sin but he gave hope of salvation to those who do, and the hope was worded perhaps too provocatively for my prudish Catholic ears.

Luther was often provocative and overboard in some of his commentary. He once remarked that he had no hope of salvation in Zwingli after a debate. Of course, he didnt' really mean that looking at what Luther believed about salvation. However, he said it because he was aggravated with the debate itself and like to shoot off his mouth at times.

The question arises, given that good works are merely a visible reflection of the election, why would such an occasional sinner still show bad works?

Because our sanctification is an already but not yet process. Positionally, we are justified, sanctified, and glorified already.

# Romans 8:30 Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified.
Hebrews 10:10 By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

However, it's also not yet because we are in the process of being sanctified as well...

# 1 Thessalonians 5:23
And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

So that, in this life, we WILL sin. We are in the process of becoming Christ-like, but arent' there quite yet...

Paul put it this way... "I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me. For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members (Romans 7:21-23).

And James speaks of our struggles even with the small parts of our body through sin..."2We all stumble in many ways. If anyone is never at fault in what he says, he is a perfect man, able to keep his whole body in check. 3When we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we can turn the whole animal. 4Or take ships as an example. Although they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are steered by a very small rudder wherever the pilot wants to go. 5Likewise the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts. Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark."

So...none of us are perfect, yet. But positionally we are. We have been justified so that we can boldly approach the throne crying Abba, Father. We couldn't have done that before Christ, because none of our righteousness is good enough. We stand justified because we stand in Christ. It's His blood which justifies us once and for all.

Here is a bit on Luther and Zwingli. Luther, like I said, could shoot his mouth off in contradiction to his well thought out views of salvation. He and Zwingli disagreed on several things. Zwingli was far more gracious to Luther. Luther expresses a doubt about Zwingli's salvation (on account of his denial of the corporal presence). He scorns the idea that he was a martyr; he regrets that the Catholic Cantons did not complete their victory by suppressing the Zwinglian heresy, and he warns the Duke of Prussia not to tolerate it in his dominion. In his furious polemic tract, Short Confession of the Holy Sacrament, written in 1645, a year before his death (Werke, Erlangen ed., vol. XXXII. 399-401, 410), Luther says that "Zwingel" (he always misspells his name) and Oecolampadius "perished in their sins"; that Zwingli died "in great and many sins and blasphemy" ( in grossen und vielen S�nden und Gottesl�sterung)...How different is the conduct and judgment of Zwingli, who, at Marburg, with tears in his eyes, offered the hand of brotherhood to his great antagonist, and who said of him in the very heat of the eucharistic controversy: "Luther is so excellent a warrior of God, and searches the Scriptures with such great earnestness as no one on earth for these thousand years has done; and no one has ever equalled him in manly, unshaken spirit with which he has attacked the pope of Rome. He was the true David whom the Lord himself appointed to slay Goliath. He hurled the stones taken from the heavenly brook so skilfully that the giant fell prostrate on the ground. Saul has slain thousands, but David tens of thousands. He was the Hercules who rushed always to the post of danger in battle ... Therefore we should justly thank God for having raised such an instrument for his honor; and this we do with pleasure."

In behavior, I would much rather take Zwingli's attitude than Luther's. However, both are mere men. Both are sinners as am I. So casting Luther, Calvin, and Zwingli aside - I want to be like Christ.

THE CONFESSION OF CYRIL LUKARIS

Chapter 12

We believe that the Church on earth is sanctified and instructed by the Holy Spirit, for He is the true comforter, whom Christ sends from the Father to teach the truth and to expel darkness form the understanding of the faithful. For it is true and certain that the Church on earth may err, choosing falsehood instead of truth, from which error the light and doctrine of the Holy Spirit alone frees us, not of mortal man, although by mediation of the labors of the faithful ministers of the Church this may be done.

Chapter 13

We believe that man is justified by faith and not by works. But when we say by faith, we understand the correlative or object of faith, which is the righteousness of Christ, which, as if by hand, faith apprehends and applies unto us for our salvation. This we say without any prejudice to good works, for truth itself teaches us that works must not be neglected, that they are necessary means to testify to our faith and confirm our calling. But that works are sufficient for our salvation, that they can enable one to appear before the tribunal of Christ and that of their own merit they can confer salvation, human frailty witnesses to be false; but the righteousness of Christ being applied to the penitent, alone justifies and saves the faithful.

Chapter 14

We believe that free will is dead in the unregenerate, because they can do no good thing, and whatsoever they do is sin; but in the regenerate by the grace of the Holy Spirit the will is excited and in deed works but not without the assistance of grace. In order, therefore, that man should be born again and do good, it is necessary that grace should go before; otherwise man is wounded having received as many wounds as that man received who going from Jerusalem down to Jericho fell into the hands of thieves, so that of himself he cannot do anything.

Sounds good to me.

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