'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/

[Forest Keeper]

Ping to 7539.

[xzins]

Mother of God....politically correct

I thought the PC comment a bit odd, too.

I doubt that Clinton and Cheney are waiting breathlessly for the next word on this subject.

It's a communication issue. Those who wish to communicate what they mean will say, mother of Jesus the Christ.

[kosta50]

At no time do I believe my Christian walk buys me anything. It just serves as a reflection of the Holy Spirit within me and a desire on my part to serve the LORD well

The first key word is Love. Love is the fulfillment of the Law. [cf Rom 13:10] Unless you do everything out of love, you are not fulfilling the Law.

The second key word is obedience [out of love]. Disobedience is not salvific; obedience is. If you want to call obedience "work," then salvation is "work" based.

The third key word is choice [based on love]. We do not obey because we have to but because we want to. Otherwise it's not obedience.

[Quix]

Good points, imho.

Thx.

[annalex]

There are 8 Jesus statues. There are 20 Mary Statues. There are 12 books on the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. There are 44 on Mary/Rosary. There are 13 Catholic pictures. 7 of them have Mary in them or are all about Mary.

The store in question is www.catholicstore.com.

The books are in about 40 categories. One is Mary / Rosary. Others are on a wide array of issues. Blogger picked one particular topic to illustrate lack of interest in fundamental theology. He could also have picked Reference / Education, (61 items), Philosophy / Theology(64), Sacraments (19), Catechisms (4), Apologetic (83, highly recommend this one), Liturgical / Mass / Issues (41), Encyclicals / Letters / Law (76); Religion & History / Papacy (51), and I am skipping over less weighty devotional or personal growth categories.

Statues of Mary are traditional. Jesus is traditionally shown on a cross (14 categories, did not count items in them, did not count medals and body crosses, or jewelry).

Now, devotions to Mary are indeed strikingly popular in Catholicism, no question. It is a good thing. I am sure some Catholics misunderstand marianism. (I am likewise sure that nearly all Protestants misunderstand the scripture). Overall, if you love Christ you will love Mary. Among the signs of divine election, a friendship of the Blessed Virgin is the surest. Think about it.

[annalex]

Peter was not the Rock upon which Christ was to build His church. Peter's confession was [...] the position of Orthodoxy

I don't have a big argument against it. My point is, these are interpretations. The text does not contain them. There is surely nothing in the text to separate the person of St. Peter from the disembodies confession, as the renaming cannot be done to a confession, but perhaps to the man confessing.

[annalex]

the gay community just loves the Catholic Church

It is true that the Catholic Church will never, ever, close her doors to any sinner, and it will never, ever, change her teaching about sin. What's not to love?

[Alamo-Girl]

Of course, to the extent that influential sectors in the culture are consciously, deliberately making war on God, and thus on His law, I suppose it is to be expected that peoples' expressions to one another will become increasingly self-referring, disordered, irrational, even vicious.

The way I explain this to myself is to say that under God, there is a common, shared ground of being and thus of discourse. The enemies of God and Western culture more generally know this, which explains the hostility towards God -- and towards man by implication.

But one would think that Christians, of all people, would not be prone to the descent into personal abuse of one another on the basis of doctrinal differences.

What an outstanding analysis of the situation and what is "at stake."

Thank God for you, dearest sister in Christ!

[betty boop]

And thank God for you, my dearest sister in Christ! Thank you from my heart for your kind words of encouragement!

[kosta50]

Thanks.

[Forest Keeper]

FK: "... All those involved acted precisely as God had preordained it from before time. That would be the only way to ensure that the scriptures are not only inerrant, but perfect. ..."

Indeed Christ promised to send the Holy Spirit to accomplish just this! In fact there were 7 ecumenical councils where the representatives from EVERY CHURCH came together in the presence of the Holy Spirit to accomplish this. Not only were there hundreds of representatives there, there were thousands of priests, and lay folks there too!

I am glad we seem to be in agreement. I am a little confused about one thing concerning the Councils, though. Did all of the 7 Councils deal with the content of the scriptures in terms of determining them (as opposed to other writings)? I was under the impression that the formal Canon was basically set at only one Council. I could be wrong. :)

[Forest Keeper]

Well, the father of sola fide is Marcion. Some Baptist and reformed individuals see him as the start of the "alternative" church. In my opinion they couldn't have picked a better individual. :)

OK, so we started with baby steps at the beginning. :) One thing I read about Marcion was that all of his actual writings have been lost, so everything we know about him is only through his critics. Even so, from what I read it looked like there were plenty of ideas I would disagree with. I don't think we can be sure how many of them he actually held. In any event, it is one small piece of evidence that Luther did not simply make up what he wrote out of whole cloth.

[Forest Keeper]

This is easy to remedy. When in need of instruction in the faith ask the Catholics or the Orthodox, and it will be better understood.

And this raises a problem I have cited several times. Since the advent of the printing press, the distribution of the Bible has far surpassed the Apostolic Church's ability to personally explain it to every holder. This disparity grows more and more pronounced every year. (I am proud that our Baptist missionaries have a little to do with it. :) Millions of people have no access at all to any Apostolics to ask what they are reading means. Should they have never been given a Bible in the first place?

I'm actually surprised that the respective RC and Orthodox Churches haven't (to my knowledge) written one, definitive, several thousand-page-long work that interprets the Bible verse-by-verse. Then you could distribute that, along with the Bibles you give out.

[bornacatholic]

Jesus obviously could not have forseen any of this. I am sure He did His best. But, come on, establishing an authoritative Church to address the sort of questions you pose?

[D-fendr]

Word cannot be reduced to words.

[annalex]

My advice came in response to 7,198:

Perhaps WAY back in the day, the context would have better understood by the average layman. I'm just saying that today, I don't think it is.

Are you now saying that the printing press made the understanding of the Councils more difficult?

the distribution of the Bible has far surpassed the Apostolic Church's ability to personally explain it

One evident result was growth in Protestant denominations. As you yourself admit, there has been no corresponding growth in understanding.

[Forest Keeper]

FK: "I don't think that touches the idea that God DID, in fact, lay down one complete and perfect scripture."

Of course it touches on it. If one complete and perfect scripture existed, it would be perfect enough to exist forever in a literal form. It also would say so in the scripture itself.

I didn't mean that I'm sure that all the different books have ever been perfectly assembled in one place in their absolute original form. (I don't know.) I meant that at the time of the original writings of each of the books, that they individually were perfect in that moment. The Bible says that all scripture is God-breathed, so unless God's breath has a foul odor, it would seem that the originals were perfect.

[FormerLib]

Was Jesus Christ God, yes or no?

[annalex]

they individually were perfect in that moment

This, too, is a mere hypothesis. What the scripture itself tells us is:

• The Church won't fail (Mt 16:18)
• The Apostles will teach the world (Jn 17:18f)
• Peter will convert his brethren (Lk 22:32) and the Church will be one (Jn 17:22)
• All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable (2 Tim 3:16) together with the Tradition (2 Thess. 2:14)
• No scripture can embrace the knowledge of Christ in full (Jn 14:26, Jn 16:13, Jn 21:25)

[HarleyD]

Statues of Mary are traditional.

Tsk, tsk. And to think that Joseph get's relegated to selling homes.

St. Joseph Statue and Home Sales Kit-Saint Joseph Statue "ASK, AND YOU SHALL RECEIVE".