Posted on 12/04/2006 7:52:47 PM PST by 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/
As to "tone", this is a "hot" medium, I think, and "tone" is easy to mistake. What left one keyboard gently shows up on the monitor as rough. It's a mystery (Another Catholic thing.)
NO one is in a perfect or 'one true church.' We're all pilgrims on a journey to God and I, for one, as well as many of the Christian protestants here, want to see people of all religions 'make it' and not depend on their traditions.
Your first sentence is a theological - specifically ecclesiological - opinion, one held by many and disputed by some. Those of us (like me) who think there is one Church, visible, and manifest in varying degrees of "fullness" (or whatever weasel word you'd like) don't (for the most part) think so condescendingly. I'm not saying I'm "better" than you because I'm a calflick and you aren't. On the contrary, if anything, I'm in more of a pickle. And anyone with eyes and a couple of cerebral neurons (with half a wit?) (with two wits to rub together?) can tell that while we claim "perfection" for the Church, we can't spend TOO much time bragging, as though perfection were an accomplishment of ours -- not if we read the papers, or look into our hearts. If it is perfect, as we hold, it is so in spite of us, not because of us.
YES, it's a scandalous idea. I can see why some would be offended. But it is not a declaration of any intrinsic (and that's the key word, I think) excellence on that part of the individuals involved, with notable exceptions, such as the blessed J2P2, but as a happy declaration that God has not left us comfortless. The Church is what she is, we think, not because of Her, but because of what Christ gives her.
Now I KNOW that there is another entire train of thoughts about the church, which for shorthand I call "the invisible church" school. And I don't mean any disparagement by that term. It's a difference of opinion. Naturally I think the one i hold is better, or I wouldn't hold it. You think the one you hold is better or ditto.
But I do not hold my opinion as a "Neener Neener we're better'n you" thing.
As a global comment, because people come on these threads ready to do battle, we rarely take the time to savor the opinions of others and to see what is good in them and why a reasonable person of good will might hold those opinions. Some on both "sides" seem to think that they have a duty to show contempt for the opinions of others, and seem to think there is nothing wrong with painting those opinions in the worst possible light. I have read the most astonishing mischaracterizations of both Protestant and Catholic thought here, delivered in the most offensive ways.
Personally, I hate that. I don't see that there is a reasonable point to it. It seems intended ore to drive people away than either to communicate or to draw them close. It makes my tummy hurt.
Look, the majesty of Calvinism has as at least one part the ringing declaration of the sovereignty of God. Nothing is outside His will. Whatever we RCs may think, we should never abandon that perception. One aspect of what we think of Church is based on a sense of God's loving faithfulness, his "hesed"/loving-kindness/covenant-loyalty, and our eagerness to cast ourselves on His promised mercy. I think that's a good thing.
Yeah,we think the Calvinists err is where they go with the Sovereignty thing, they think we err in how we think God shows His mercy. At least that's how I see the disagreement. The chances for fellowship and agreement usually are out on the edges of the dogmas, and, I think, are only seen after much prayer and fellowship and patience.
And anybody who reads one of my long posts has shown that a lack of patience is not his or her problem.
"It certainly does appear to me that the East has been much more consistent than the Latin Church over time."
Indeed we have in both theology and praxis and the scriptures have always been available to the people. The preachers have always hammered on reading them...yet we have not chnaged our beliefs and as one other poster remarked, when the hierarchy got out of line, the people and the lower clergy straightened them out.
Here's a thought I've been pondering on. Is it possible that in fact Rome keeping the scripture from the people did contribute to the Protestant revolution in this way. By keeping the bible from the people through centuries of barbarism in the West, which the East didn't experience, the people and even the lower clergy forgot their proper role in the working of The Church. As society became feudal in the West, so did The Church there such that the people's role in The Church became like their role in society...serfs subject to the whim of their overlords. Once the people did read the bible, that knowledge gave them power and that power, once unleashed lead to a true revolution. The Church in the West, untethered from the restraining ecclesiology of the East, reacted rigidly as overlords are wont to do. By the time The Church realized the extent of the reforms necessary, a full blown "French Revolution" was underway and it was too late to stop it. In the meantime, the reformers, having cut themselves off from The Church and its "oneness" and "apostolicity" and, frankly, its holiness, spun off into all sorts of directions, leaving not only those aspects of the Latin Church which likely should have been left behind, but also those essential elements, the "esse" of The Church without which the 30,000 Protestant groups we see today became inevitable. One of the early and truly classic examples of this failure to separate the wheat from the chaff is the correspondence between the Thubingen divines a generation after Luther and the Ecumenical Patriarch Jeremias II.
Meantime, in the East, we sat and watched from our incense filled Divine Liturgies and monasteries...and didn't change.
Looking at all this today I think is difficult because the chasm which opened between Rome and the Protestant communities has become so broad and deep and what started out at base as a sort of religiously inspired social revolution, with all the excesses we usually and historically see with such revolutions has become the basis of a whole segment of Western culture. This is why I have said, sitting on the outside of all this, that it appears to me that Protestants, whether you guys notice it or not, still define yourselves as "not Roman".
I wonder what would have happened if Rome's ecclesiology had been like Orthodoxy's. Would that have made it more flexible? Would the laity have felt more confident of their to reform from within? I don't doubt that there would have been a reformation under even this scenario, but maybe it wouldn't have lead to the Protestanism we see today.
I'm pinging Alex, Blogger, HD, xzins and Jo for their comments.
LOL!!!
Well, I have to agree that there might have been a more diplomatic way of expressing that. (Ya think?)(At least he could have put a big 'S' on Satan.)
Here's what I think: Guffaws to the max (hereinafter "GTTM") isn't a proposition, it's a statement of a feeling, an emotikonal reaction, right? The closest to a sentence that it comes is, "That [or 'you'] make(s) me laugh, that idea is [ or 'you are'] risible." Who can argue with that? But who will learn theology from that? It just means,"Bad! Negative! Silly! Stupid!" It's what my 3 year old said when she didn't like something, whether or not it was good for her.
What I will learn from it is that when I struggle to express my religious commitment, something intimate and dear to me, I will be laughed at. After a while I won't take the trouble, and conversation will languish.
The "lure to hell" idea, while (carelessly? unwisely?) provocatively (to say the least) expressed, at least is a proposition: to wit: dissent from the One Church is or provides a tool for the bad guys. So when we wipe the spit off our face, we can say stuff like, "Dissent?" "One Church?" "Tool?" "bad guys?" and start doing some, ah, parsing and examining.
Another point: What I learn from my mere 275 hours of t-group was that I could choose when and how to interact from among a variety of ways, that what is appropriate for a t-group may not be appropriate for a seminar, and it's up to me which of a whole battery of commo styles I use. To me the idea of psycho therapy is to expand my range of choices and to develop my freedom to choose among them.
See post 8736
Discuss the issues all you want, but do NOT make it personal.
Here you go:
Apologies for butting in univited (or is it 'unpingend?'). Kolo, Protestant revolt was directed, initially, at corrupt practices of a powerful Church in the West, and not at its theology. The aim was to reform the practices and not the Church.
The Church in the East was struggling for survival under Turkish occupation. Its modesty and humility have been imposed, and its suffering along with the people made it one with them (look at the Ecumenical Patriarchy even today!).
That wasn't always so. When the East was the seat of Imperial power, during the last five centuries of the 1st millennium, corruption and — indeed the worst heresies — came out of it.
It was +John Chrysostom who, as the Bishop of Imperial Constantinople, initiated first reforms with regard to the arrogance, lack of modesty and privileges practiced by the clergy and the laity. He made enemies with the highest echelons of the Imperial Court when he corrected the Empress for her bejeweled appearances in the church.
Protestant revolt, however, started off as an attempt to reform corrupt practices and ended reforming, in fact — rewriting, the 1,500 year-old theology.
When the Lutheran divines approached Ecumenical Patriarch Jeremiah II, hoping to find allies in the Eastern Church, he rebuked them — three times — not over their revolt against corrupt practices of the clergy, but over their corrupt theology.
It is their theology that makes it — ultimately — a different faith and not a disagreement over the same faith (as is the case in the Orthodox and Catholic divisions). Protestant theology is Pauline Christianity.
It was Luther's reinterpretation of theology, and not attempts to correct corrupt practices, that created Protestantism. it could have just as easily happened in the East had the East not been in virtual prison and stripped of its imperial majesty.
Thoughtful, fitting post.
Thanks.
I don't know about defining ourselves as not-Roman. I don't think so.
I think most of us think of ourselves as God/Bible centered in faith, doctrine, practice--whether it's literally true or not is another matter of significant variance in each individual life--as is true in all confessions.
That is--either without hierarchy of any great depth or quite apart from a hierarchy seen maybe as necessary/useful idiots but not arbiters of truth--we hold the truth in our hands and can have our own sense of it apart from the professional pontificators.
Now, in practice . . . even in the loosey goosiest Pentecostal house church . . . whatever shallow hierarchy evolves is still likely to begin to think of itself more highly than it ought--especially over time . . . and too many of the flock are too likely to seek the leader's approval more than God's and to work more energetically, earnestly to people please the leaders, more than God.
On those scores, at those times, the "Roman phenomena" with the hierarchy has begun because it's a very HUMAN thing.
And, because it's such a sinful man insideously ingrained thing . . . I believe all the more reason why God set up I Cor 12-14 quite askew from any overwhelming dependence on such a hierarchy. It is, instead, to be a hierarchy of humility and wisdom with the AUTHORITY of Holy Spirit ebbing and flowing AS HE WILLS vs as the professional pontificators or the professional magesterical wills.
There's LESS room for authoritarian grabbing, power mongering, horrendous error producing pride TAKING HEAVY HANDED CONTROL that way.
Of course, IF God flows consistently through 2-3 people in dramatic ways in any group . . . then those persons begin to be elevated whether they do so, or not. And the walk along the pride cliff is off and running. I think that's one reason why God seems at least reluctant to allow such if there's any alternative in the group at all.
imho, once the price prance along the cliff has begun, Holy Spriit begins to pull back, if not wholesale withdraw His overt operations. Folks can go through the same dance, prance and practices but the results don't flow from His Spirit.
my 25 cents worth.
What I will learn from it is that when I struggle to express my religious commitment, something intimate and dear to me, I will be laughed at. After a while I won't take the trouble, and conversation will languish.
The "lure to hell" idea, while (carelessly? unwisely?) provocatively (to say the least) expressed, at least is a proposition: to wit: dissent from the One Church is or provides a tool for the bad guys. So when we wipe the spit off our face, we can say stuff like, "Dissent?" "One Church?" "Tool?" "bad guys?" and start doing some, ah, parsing and examining.
Another point: What I learn from my mere 275 hours of t-group was that I could choose when and how to interact from among a variety of ways, that what is appropriate for a t-group may not be appropriate for a seminar, and it's up to me which of a whole battery of commo styles I use. To me the idea of psycho therapy is to expand my range of choices and to develop my freedom to choose among them.
= = =
Good points.
But goodness, dawg, a roaring rauchus t-group is such FUN! LOL. Besides, without all that, the intense group hug and at the end would be far more muted and hollow! LOL.
Part of what drives me blitheringly to distractions is that such . . . seemingly unassailable assertions as:
"dissent from the One Church is or provides a tool for the bad guys."
are also inherently cheeky; prideful; authoritarian on hollow foundation; parochial to the max; smug; offensive.
AT most levels--so what. Lots of things all kinds of people believe are prideful, hazardous, offensive. So what.
But when the demeanor, tone, content, argument etc. is relentlessly that ours' don't stink but yours do . . . the overwhelming urge is to let a few more for good measure and right in the biggest, most loftily held noses.
And, at least, for my case, it is NOT just to defend my personhood [that has daily cross sessions anyway] or my philosophy or my manhood or my rights to be right or any such . . . it IS an important, to me, theological point, fact, truth:
ALL HAVE SINNED AND COME SHORT OF THE GLORY OF GOD. And organizations, MORE SO.
NO ONE AND NO GROUP HAS A CORNER ON GOD NOR ON GOD'S TRUTH. He hasn't allowed it. Pretending and pontificating otherwise doesn't make it so. Perhaps the Reformation, in part, was a screaming statement of that fact. This or that individual or group may have a corner on a microscopic part of God's truth--for a time. But they'd better treat it well and live it well or they will get wildly askew in no time.
And before long, a rabid atheist will be better off than the "Christians'" arrogant lukewarmness or rabid off the wall-ness.
That's one reason I think UNITY OF SPIRIT is, especially in the short term, the best and most unity we can realistically expect.
Thankfully, that is enormously awesome and powerful in and of itself. It's not to be dissmissed lightly. But it DOES require a laying down of personal notions of majors and minors and a willingness to flow with Holy Spirit's obvious majors in that setting at that moment.
I absolutely guarantee anyone reading these humble words . . . those communities which have a diversity of Christian churches coming together to pray earnestly and authentically in Love and humility for their area and our country will have far less and far less horrible disruptions from natural disasters and terrorism in the coming months and years.
Those communities where each Christian congregation is standing up on their soap box distinctives demanding that all the others bow or capitulate or defer to THEM . . . may well suffer the most--at least plenty given that judgment begins at the house of God.
I think those areas with the most political, eccleastical, moral corruption and person to person violence and abuse will have the worst of disasters and terror.
God WILL HAVE A PEOPLE. Father WILL HAVE A CHURCH UNIVERSAL WITHOUT SPOT OR WRINKLE AS A BRIDE FOR HIS SON.
And all the finger pointing and proud pontificating will quickly be seen as a stain, a horrible stinking stain of great hazard to one's relationship with God.
The wise ones will quickly flush such and ask God to cleanse, burn such out of them wholesale so that they miss out on nothing He has to offer . . . and so that they may live a bit longer in this life.
We will live to see the day when this is far from a friendly or not so friendly academic issue. It will be a life or death issue. We will treat AND FEEL toward our RC or Calvinist or Pentecostal brother AS TRUE BROTHERS AND SISTERS or we'll be outside the camp. I'm not saying it will mean loss of salvation though in some cases that may be a hazard. But outside the camp will at least mean not surviving in this life as long as might have been the plan.
God is not playing tiddldee winks. Paul didn't scribe a lot of that rich stuff about relationships as an idle after thought. We treat those verses as optional. They are not.
We will come to find out crucial God considers them. We might all do better to practice better, now.
I think I'm still and have been behaving very kosherly.
Have I? Am I?
"Apologies for butting in univited (or is it 'unpingend?')."
Yeah, like that would stop you! :)
"Kolo, Protestant revolt was directed, initially, at corrupt practices of a powerful Church in the West, and not at its theology. The aim was to reform the practices and not the Church."
That was my point. I apparently was inartful in the way I presented it.
"When the East was the seat of Imperial power, during the last five centuries of the 1st millennium, corruption and — indeed the worst heresies — came out of it."
And they were crushed.
"It was +John Chrysostom who, as the Bishop of Imperial Constantinople, initiated first reforms with regard to the arrogance, lack of modesty and privileges practiced by the clergy and the laity. He made enemies with the highest echelons of the Imperial Court when he corrected the Empress for her bejeweled appearances in the church."
Not simply of the clergy and laity, but of the hierarchy also. "The floor of hell is paved with the skulls of bishops". But none of this lead to anything like the Protestant Reformation or its aftermath. I propose that it didn't because of the ecclesiology of The Church in the East.
"When the Lutheran divines approached Ecumenical Patriarch Jeremiah II, hoping to find allies in the Eastern Church, he rebuked them — three times — not over their revolt against corrupt practices of the clergy, but over their corrupt theology."
I agree wholeheartedly. But this theology came about, I think it can be argued, as a justification ex post facto of the revolt itself and the reaction of the Latin Church to that revolt.
Much appreciate the "thick skins" compliments from each of you!
Ah, the smell of burning draft cards in the morning. :) You must have seen quite a few interesting things around there in those days.
Moral of story: Make your plans, but hedge your bets, except where Jesus is concerned. There go for broke.
Sounds like pretty good advice.
Interesting quote Kosta.
Back to the original topic, wouldn't this be a clear admonition to not fall down and pray to apparitions, or build doctrines around a dead human having supernatural powers?
FWIW, I think we forget that there is a spiritual war going on all around us.
Amen!
Pondering the role of works I started thinking can you work to have FAITH? I think you can study, to learn and believe but that is not Faith.
Faith for me is just blindly trusting JESUS. I think you either have it or you don't.
The gift of the Holy Spirit
Thanks to whom? To Rome. Once the Church split along the east-west fault line, there was no balance. The Latin Church became the hyper-Church and the Greek Church became a pauper and a virtual prisoner of the Ottoman Empire.
The checks and balances were gone, no one to oppose, no one to account to. Five centuries later, it reached the critical mass and exploded.
Choices have parameters. I am free to choose to become a clerk at a 7-11, but I am not free to choose to become a professional baseball pitcher. Yet, as to occupation I still say I have free choice. The important parameter to note here is consistency with one's own nature. We say that God is free and sovereign to do whatever He wants. However, He is not free to choose to cease existing. That is outside His nature, yet we still say He is free. Similarly, a lost person has choice, but he is not free to choose to do good in God's eyes. That is outside his nature. Once God changes his nature, through salvation, then he is free to do good.
They don't have to be apparitions. They can be our own mental projections, our wishes, our illusions as well as our delusions. When someone says "the Spirit guides me," I raise my eyebrows.
Let me tell you: everyone says that. The name of the Lord, Holy Spirit, is probably the most blasphemed name of God, for it is used like spare change. And we know what the Bible says about that. [Mark 3:29, Luke 12:10]
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