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

LifeSiteNews.com ^ | 12/4/2006 | John-Henry Westen

[Pyro7480]

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

By John-Henry Westen

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."

See Fr. Geiger's full review here:
http://airmaria.com/

[samiam1972]

"That's about all the concession I would be willing to give."

I can live with that! Thank you and again, sorry for the misunderstanding!

[annalex]

you are already there, there is no need to pray, just talk to the Lord.

You realize that you just made a case for praying to saints, by the way? If indeed the prayer becomes a more efficacious mode of communication for Timothy in heaven, and if Timothy is asked to intercede for the king while on earth, then Timothy's intercession is thereby more efficacious once Timothy goes to heaven.

[Mad Dawg]

Thanks.

I think there is a lot of agreement to build on. And interesting differences to examine.

Can you say anything about death as punishment or as the wages of sin?

I'm asking because it SEEMS to this untutored person that our Orthodix brethren arw working with a very organic idea of the relationship between the two.

[Blogger]

Scripture please?

There is none because praying to saints is not only not mentioned but is forbidden. You don't pray to dead people, even though their souls live on.

[kosta50]

You know no love, no peace, no joy, no meekness, no temperance, no goodness, no gentleness, no faith, ... either in yourself ... or in your fellow believers ?\

Sure I do. I spurts and moments. Take a look around you next time you drive to work. Or make sure you get out of the way of a little old lady leaving the church...

[Mad Dawg]

You do good when you type fast. I'm beginning to get the flavor. This is very good. Who's the big guy to read on this? (By "this" I guess I mean "sin, death, atonement in Orthodox Thought 101")

Okay, what about what I was calling the "Jesus Stomps the Devil" notion of the atonement. IC XC NIKA is an early graffito somewhere or other and I htink I may hav lost or given away or be too lazy to go find my copy of the Acts of Pilate, and I don't know much about the text, But SOMEBODY was thinking that Jesus went to Hell and tore up the pea-patch. I don't have any other sources for that opinion (except Aslan killing the White Witch -- and somehow that doesn't strike me as ancient).

Any thoughts?

[Mad Dawg]

just talk to the Lord.

This is what prayer is.

We're back at the continuity/discontinuity problem. I THINK that there is no discontinuity. I FEEL that there is, but that's a delusion. God is CLOSER and the saints are more accessible, I think, than folks who haven't died yet.

[Mad Dawg]

In my seminary we said that Lazarus and Jairus's daughter were not "resurrected" in the same sense as that in which Jesus was. The chief difference being that they, I suppose, were going to die again. I used "resuscitate" (maybe imprecisely) for them, because anastasis seems to me to be WAY more than just a body coming back to life.

[Blogger]

Agreed, they did die again. Revive perhaps. One can't be re-vived unless they were Vived to begin with. Jesus is the only one that I know for sure is in a glorified body at this point.

[Quester]

You know no love, no peace, no joy, no meekness, no temperance, no goodness, no gentleness, no faith, ... either in yourself ... or in your fellow believers ?

Sure I do. I spurts and moments. Take a look around you next time you drive to work. Or make sure you get out of the way of a little old lady leaving the church ...

The highway during rush hour is not a place I look to find Christ. But even there, ... I experience Him at times ... when someone slows to let me change lanes ... or stops to let me out into busy traffic. He is out there ... not in everyone ... but enough so that I can recognize Him from time to time.

And my home and church is very Christ-filled ... which is as it should be. We love each other ... we comfort one another ... we encourage each other.

Be encouraged ... Christ is alive ... and lives in the hearts of His people.

[xzins]

If you are praying to this saint, how does he know that you are praying to him?

What if 1 million people are praying to him at the same time....is he omniscient?

[xzins]

I don't expect that person to know that I'm looking at his/her picture at that moment.

How do they know you're looking at their picture or praying to them? They aren't here, and you aren't there.

[Mad Dawg]

I find Catholics tend to say things are inaccurate when, in fact, they are simply an analysis of their own doctrine.

No doubt. On the other hand, sometimes the analysis overlooks something. In the case in question when WE read the sentence we saw three notions about the atonement and I understood you to say that there was only ONE notion and that was the "exemplary" notion. And in answer to this point annalex says there is a "blood atonement" in Catholic thinking.

I would have said that in both the Satisfactory (Anselm) and in the Sacrificial notions blood was central. One "use" of sacrificial blood in Leviticus is to re-make a connection between the Lord and His people, so both the altar and the people are Sprinkled with blood. And we who make so much of the Blood of Christ in the Eucharist, "my blood of the new covenant", I would have expected to be told it's too much a part of our thought and spirituality, not that it's not enough.

I bet we may find a miscommunication on "blood atonement", that's what I bet.

[kosta50]

Honestly I don't know much about how Kyrill and Methodius came up with Cyrillic from Greek...

SS Cyril and Methodius invented the Glagolitic alphabet (something akin to the gruzian or Georgian alphabet) that had absolutely no similarity to anything Greek or Roman.

Glagolitic Alphabet. Glagol in Old Slavonic means word

The Cyrillic alphabet was invented by one of St. Cyrill's disciples (I forget his name), who named it in honor of his teacher.

Vast majority of Cyrillic is Greek.

Cyrillic alphabet (Russian version)

Greek letters in the Cyrillic alphabet are A, V, G, D, E, Z, I/J, K, L, M, N*, O, P, R, S**, T, U, F, and H.

*Cyrillic N looks like H, but it was originally derived from the Greek N, which looks like N.

**The S, written as C, is a variant of Greek sigma (as abbreviate don icons IC XR)

Strictly Slavic letters are zh, ch, ts,, soft and hard signs (yeri and yer), yu, ya, yi, and ye.

The original Church Salvonic Cyrillic had more Greek letters such as izhitsa, and threta, as wlel as omega.

Later on different nations added their own letters.

[Quix]

Thanks for the affirmation.

[HarleyD]

Can you say anything about death as punishment or as the wages of sin?

I'm not sure I completely understand your question. Death in itself is the wages of sin to all mankind. But death is not necessarily punishment, certainly not to a Christian. It's simply one more door to go through. Punishment or glorification is the given after one has gone through the door.

[monkfan]

MONKFAN: Are you seriously asserting that there was no resurrection of the dead ~the reuniting of the immaterial nature of man with the physical body~ BEFORE Christ's ressurection?

If so you are incorrect. Lazarus immediately comes to mind, as does the young girl that Jesus resurrected. That's just New testament. There are also Old Testament examples of dead people being resurrected.

I'll take your point. However, I don't think that's a fair comparison given that, unlike our resurrected Lord, Lazarus was raised into the same fallen body and eventually reposed. But thank you for that observation.

What I've been trying to understand is whether or not Blogger believes that the dead are all still dead, despite Christ's work on the cross. Orthodox Christianity teaches that death was annihilated by Christ when he descended into Hades.

As Kolokotronis posted earlier, quoting St. John Chrysostomos:

"Let no one fear death, for the Death of our Savior has set us free.
He has destroyed it by enduring it.
He destroyed Hell when He descended into it.
He put it into an uproar even as it tasted of His flesh.

Isaiah foretold this when he said,
"You, O Hell, have been troubled by encountering Him below."
Hell was in an uproar because it was done away with.
It was in an uproar because it is mocked.
It was in an uproar, for it is destroyed.
It is in an uproar, for it is annihilated.
It is in an uproar, for it is now made captive.

Hell took a body, and discovered God.
It took earth, and encountered Heaven.
It took what it saw, and was overcome by what it did not see.

O death, where is thy sting?
O Hell, where is thy victory?

Christ is Risen, and you, o death, are annihilated!
Christ is Risen, and the evil ones are cast down!
Christ is Risen, and the angels rejoice!
Christ is Risen, and life is liberated!

Christ is Risen, and the tomb is emptied of its dead;
for Christ having risen from the dead,
is become the first-fruits of those who have fallen asleep."

Do Protestants teach something else?

[HarleyD]

Apparently you haven't read New Advent. This is not Catholic teaching I regret to say.

[Mad Dawg]

What if 1 million people are praying to him at the same time....is he omniscient?

How 'bout "lotsiscient" or "waymoreiscient"?

And there's that whole time/eternity thing which seems to get between some Protestants and some Catholics. I'd say that, at the least, the saints in heaven have all the time in the world to hear our prayers to them. And I suspect they are outside of time, or freer with respect to it that we are: a minute like 1,000 years and vice versa.

[Quix]

Not in my view.

A loose arrangement of folks taking care of widows and orphans etc. is not the same thing as a multi-layered edifice.

Organized bureaucracy of more than a layer or 3; more than a few years of age; more breadth of responsibilities; more rigid structure and rules; has been more or less deadly and inherently man/flesh centered, focused every where I've observed it--particularly when more than 1.5 years or so old.

Sure Paul went around anointing, assigning, disciplining etc.

But he did NOT say to the churches to set up a multi-layered bureaucracy. He said--find some wise old humble fellow to sort out your difference.

That's quite a different thing.