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/
Oh brother. I see how spiritually "alive" you are when you make such comments. Disagree if you want, but don't presume to know an ENTIRE COMMUNITY'S spirituality. That is just plain stupid.
Regards
Anyone even marginally familiar with history would know, for example, that Constantine did not establish Christianity as state religion; that throughout the history of church-state relations in the West conflict was frequent (look up “investiture controversy” for starters). Anyone who would bother to read ante-nicene fathers will find that the Church was eucharistic and hierarchical as early as when St. Ignatius coined the word “Catholic” sometime at the close of 1st c.
It always interests me how people can say election is a “mystery”. Yet when we say that it is clearly defined, we’re told we’re wrong. Well, if it is such a mystery to you, how do you know we’re wrong? Maybe we’re right. You don’t know since it’s a mystery. We know because to us it isn’t a mystery.
This proves (to me) that what the body is, what the soul is, and what the spirit is, and how they relate to each other, is base knowledge to determining pretty much anything spiritual.. How can you(somebody) know what most/many verses even mean without that base..
This question is NOT MINUTIA... IMO.
“First, my forebears were not Protestant, they were Baptists, which were never part of the RCC.”
J.M. Carroll’s 19th century “Trail of Blood” theory?
“Second, Rome did as you state, hold the primary role among the areas established by Constantine after he ‘legalized’ it.”
No, Rome’s primacy long preexisted Constantine. The legalization of The Church by the emperor neither added to nor detracted from the Church of Rome’s position. However, Constantine’s establishment of the seat of the empire at Constantinople did indeed detract from Rome’s position and benefited that of the Patriarchate of Constantinople.
“Thus, the State and Church united together began with Constantine in the 4th century and its ‘Roman wing’ with it.”
This has already been dealt with. If you are speaking of the institution of a state church, like we see today or have seen since about 1400, that didn’t exist in the 4th century. In fact, there were a number of schismatic groups around throughout antiquity which worshipped quite freely and openly, with their own churches and hierarchies. In the east what we now call the Orthodox Church did indeed become a state church before the Mohammedan conquest, but, outside of Russia in the high middle ages and later, it hardly had an exclusive, enforced franchise on religious expression, unlike what happened in the West.
” Actually, the ‘Byzantine’ wing (Eastern) began breaking with Rome.(Western) almost immediately.
Why?
Because you did not like the idea of the Roman Pope telling you what to do”
You are speaking of two different things here. The quote from the GOA website explains it pretty well from an Orthodox pov. At base, when the Great Schism finally happened, it was pretty much for the reason you stated. Orthodoxy would have none of what it then perceived to be Roman imposed heresies and distorted ecclesiology. As far as the East was concerned, The Church of Rome left The Church. Rome of course disagrees and disagreed.
“As for your opinions on Christian disagreements with Romanism, I could care less, since your ‘Church’ is as ‘spiritually dead’ as they are.”
I have thought long and hard about whether to respond to this expression of hatred. I really have nothing to say expect to observe that your remark seems pretty representative of Western non-Roman attitudes (with some glaring exceptions) towards Orthodoxy I have experienced here on FR, especially on this thread.
I agree with you historically, but part of the blame goes to the Roman Catholic Church which teaches (at least in traditional circles) that Constantine was "Catholic." You can listen and watch traditional Catholic sermons on You Tube and hear exactly that!
The West was exposed to the RCC and the Reformation was expressly a reaction to Vatican's autocratic tendencies, just as the Schism came out of a power struggle for universal jurisdiction of the popes. We are to a great extent, to this day, unwilling to share our Eucharist with the Latins and their followers from other rites precisely because of that same reason.
We generally consider any early church father Catholic, as well as, of course, Orthodox. The precedent was set for St. Ignatius in the Letter to the Smyrnaeans.
In the case of Emperor Constantine it is problematic because he was not baptized till his deathbed. Is it why you consider it improper to call him Catholic?
AMEN! THX.
So much heat on all sides based mostly on . . . conjecture, inference, assumption, extrapolation . . . sigh.
Hmmmm....I've been rather busy lately but I noticed this conversation and thought it was rather interesting. Actually Dr. E and 1000's remark took me by surprise and I had to look it up. They have a very good point that souls were created before the world. Here is a rather interesting article about the two views:
While I think Dr. Turretin makes many valuable points, I think one of the most interesting verses is:
This would indicate that the spirit is given to us (like Adam) and returns to God. One has to apply this to our Lord Jesus who gave up His Spirit. Did Christ's spirit exist before He was created and, how exactly is Christ's spirit created?
I believe Dr. Turretin brings up a number of very valuable points showing the human soul being created in the beginning, not propagated.
Personally, I don't understand how any of this is "Gnostic". It is a fun term to throw around.
Jimmy Carter considers himself wiser and more holy and accurate than St Paul, too.
I don’t think such hair splittings will turn out, in eternity, to have meant near as much as the attitudes about them turned out to mean for those holding them.
I’m merely persisting in the contention that
The Roman church was essentially a political creation and that some several hundred years after Christ.
That’s all. Seems to me, that’s pretty historically accurate.
But I have been known and certainly accused of being wrong a time or 3.
Coining the word catholic
and the church of the first century, 2nd century and 3rd century all being
100% equal to, identical with
the politically established ROMAN EDIFICE
is a much bigger stretch than my understanding of history is able or willing to make.
What?
You don’t believe in angels-on-pin-heads-theology?
What a heretic!
LOL.
Love it.
I think your construction on historical reality is pretty close to my understanding. Don’t know where it might differ at present.
Thanks for your elaboration.
We are not made up of body, soul and spirit. The error of Trichotomy is a direct misinterpretation of +Paul's teaching.
from the Catholic Encyclopedia [emphases added]:
This Pauline system, presented to a world already prepossessed in favour of a quasi-Platonic Dualism, occasioned one of the earliest widespread forms of error among Christian writers -- the doctrine of the Trichotomy.
According to this, man, perfect man (teleios) consists of three parts: body, soul, spirit (soma, psyche, pneuma).
Body and soul come by natural generation; spirit is given to the regenerate Christian alone. Thus, the "newness of life", of which St. Paul speaks, was conceived by some as a superadded entity, a kind of oversoul sublimating the "natural man" into a higher species.
This doctrine was variously distorted in the different Gnostic systems. The Gnostics divided man into three classes: pneumatici or spiritual, psychici or animal, choici or earthy..."
The Gnostics gave each of of the three a separate source (continuing the same thread). Their writings are claim +Paul as their source, and one can indeed find similarities in Gnsotic texts with modern Protestant leanings, indicated with emphases and square bracket comments:
Even in this life they are exempted from the possibility of a fall [assured salvation] from their high calling; they therefore stand in no need of good works, and have nothing to fear from the contaminations of the world and the flesh [Luther's pecca fortiter...]. This class consists of course of the Gnostics themselves. [i.e. the 'elect']
The psychici are in a lower position: they have capacities for spiritual life which they must cultivate by good works. They stand in a middle place, and may either rise to the spiritual or sink to the hylic level. In this category stands the Christian Church at large.
Lastly, the earthy souls are a mere material emanation, destined to perish: the matter of which they are composed being incapable of salvation (me gar einai ten hylen dektiken soterias). This class contains the multitudes of the merely natural man.
True I'm a heretic.. since I'm a member of a cult with one member...
Just kidding... kinda sorta... ;)
Who says?..
I don't consider it improper. I consider it misleading visa vis non-catholic/orthodox. To us, as to you (plural), the Church is catholic and the faith orthodox, so members of the Church are Catholic and Orthodox at the same time.
All the popes before the Schism were orthodox as far as we are concerned (i.e. professing the Orthodox Faith, as per Creed). Any Roman Catholic or eastern Orthodox will automatically consider all Fathers of the Church both 'catholic' and 'orthodox' belonging to the one and the same undivided Church.
But to the Protestant ears when they hear "Constatine was Catholic" they say "aha, he made the Catholic Church..." In the 19th century, the Orthodox Church was much more adamant about stressing its catholicism, which is apart of the official name of the Church (Orthodox Catholic Church), but the term "catholic" has indelibly been etched into everyone's mind as being Latin and Roman. Perhaps Latins and Romans need to be more aware of how their message comes across.
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