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/
Changing the subject. The prophets called Israel "Daughter". So did they father them or what? Why'd they call them (and men at that!) "Daughter?"
You miss the point of bornacatholic's post. He is not seriously proposing that the woman with the issue of blood was Our Lord's daughter in the carnal sense. Rather his pointing to the absurdity of the stance taken by the advocates of 'sola scriptura', that they can read the Scriptures 'literally'--that is without the need for interpretation beyond the face meaning of the passages.
'Brother' must be taken at face value in one passage. 'Daughter' must not in another. 'Do this in rememberance of Me' should be read 'literally', but 'This is My body' is not, and so forth.
Once it is admitted that 'sola scriptura' is not as advertised, but is actually the application of an interpretive tradition alien to the mind of the ancient Church to the Scriptures, its advocates have to explain why their human tradition new minted in the 1500's is superior to that of the Church (and they can do it twice, once for bornacatholic and his Latin bretheren, and once again for us Orthodox).
Nothing ever changes with you guys.
You are, well, boring...
Don't you find the idea of a changeable God fresh, exciting, and new?
You do think His words more important than the words of the old testament prophets, no?
I'm not missing the point of his posts, they're perfectly clear.
sola scriptura is part of the oral tradition of protestantism
No
A8: So in the US, how does logic determine that we should drive on the right side of the road, instead of on the left side of the road?
Spunkets: It's a convention to facilitate the orderly flo of traffic.
Notice, however, that logic or reason does not dictate left or right. The Brits use the left. We use the right. Notice also that there is nothing in "reality" that determines left or right. Only *authority* can establish the *truth* of the *normativity* of right or left. My example refutes your claim that authority never makes a truth to be true, but only deterimes (correctly or incorrectly) some already existing truth. That is patently false, given my example of the normativity of driving on the right or left side of the road.
-A8
well, I gotta jet....nite
I thought so.
Driving on the right side of the road is a convention. It was arbitrarily chosen to facilitate the flow of traffic. That is the truth of the matter.
It is neither good, nor bad. The determination of good and bad can only be made in reference to a moral code. Moral codes protect rights. The only thing that can be said about the convention as far as to describe it, is that it was chosen and the details are what they are. It is good, because it facilitates the flow of traffic and thus protects the rights of the citizens to travel without jeopardizing their property and lives to the chaos that would ensue if folks drove wherever they pleased.
"‘Are Right and Wrong Wired Into Our Brains?’ The article’s author details the work of postdoctoral researcher, Joshua Greene, who has been studying the biochemical reactions within people’s brains when they are faced with moral decisions."
Right and wrong are not hardwired. The brain is a machine that provides for the function of sentience and rational thought. The machine is fully capable of being used in a purely rational fashion, or irrational fashion according to the logic employed by the idividual. Greene is simply pointing at processes that he doesn't even know the function of, let alone understand.
"Greene hypothesizes that our moral judgments are not based solely upon reason alone but also upon emotion."
Moral judgements are rationally based on a moral code of rational construction. Emotionally based, or motivatied thought, or action is neither rational, or moral.
"In the beginning, a holy and immutable (unchanging) God created human beings with a sense of right and wrong built into their very being. This sense of right and wrong is known as God’s moral law."
There is no sense of right and wrong. There is only free will and rational capacity, both in the image and likeness of Gods. Morality requires a rationally constructed moral code to use as a reference.
"Evil and good do objectively exist because they emanate from the fact that there is an unchanging, omniscient (all-knowing), and holy God."
No. The moral code was a creation of a rational mind that serves the purpose of protecting the rights of the individual. Good and evil are objective judgements only when they conform to the moral code which protects rights. The first of those rights is the life and sovereignty of will of each individual. The first persons rights to be protected are God's. They were to be protected against infringement by His creation. Note that those individuals created were given the gift of life and sovereignty of will as an act of unconditional love. That is God's grace. His creation is not His property, nor was it ever.
"There can be no such universal principles as ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ in an evolutionary system as there is no higher authority for such principles than man himself—who is no more valuable than his own opinion would deem him to be."
There sure can be! God came up with the concept of rights and the moral code htat protects them, so can man, because he was made in the image and likeness of God. The principles are universal, because they protect the essence of the sentient rational beings which live. it doesn't matter which sentient being comes up with the truth about what is required to protect the existence of the essence of those beings. What does matter is the logic and perfection of the code's protection of of the life and essence of those beings.
"Good and evil cannot possibly exist within a world that defines everything by chance."
Zimmer understands neither science, or random variables. THe world does not work by chance. It operates by the physics.
"In his evolutionary belief system, only (fallible) human preference can determine ideals of right and wrong, and such preferences may shift from society to society."
The requirement of rationality is that all things be examined in an open and scientific way and that the truth of all matters be known and understood. To that end, honesty, truthfulness and a constant vigil with an open mind apply. Fallibilty only becomes an issue when one fails to examine and make certain of the truth. Like when one stamps a vote as doctrine and maintains it as truth in the face of reality which contradicts it.
" the ghastly implications of evolutionary philosophy."
The evidence contained in reality says that evolution happened and is not a hypothesis.
Correction: God was not a trinity, until He became one. Time and space are coordinates that measure the persistance of existance. The concept of trinity requires the incarnation to have been at least contemplated and decided by God. In order for that to happen time must pass and the dynamical events of thought decision and action must occur along a time line. Time in this world is not the same as in God's world. There is no known transformation eq. that can be used to know His time. It is simple enough to know that God was not incarnate and a trinity infinitely long ago. God was the person of the Holy Spirit infinitely long ago.
Why? The Catholic "concept" of the Trinity does *not* require the incarnation.
-A8
No it doesn't. The authority simply made an arbitrary decision amongst two equally valid decisions. Neither decision involved a judgment of true/false whatsoever. It was impossible for the decision to be false and the corollary applies. The question involved the arbitrary choice of left/right. Completely arbitrary choices are irrelevant.
-A8
I'm not looking to set you up for some gotcha moment. I figure your a pretty good apologist for the RCC and might know.
My perspective is that the Scriptures only give us one example where humans were sent back to Earth and in that instance it was to meet with Jesus. Thus I am very skeptical about where these apparitions are coming from.
The Nicene creed from 325, 381 holds that the incarnation was before creation. Of course co-eternal is true from that point on. the procession of the Holy spirit from the father was always true. The Father's person is the Holy Spirit.
No.
No. None of the councils or creeds or fathers ever said such a thing.
The Father's person is the Holy Spirit.
That's heresy, either a form of Sabellianism or Monarchianism.
-A8
In the links I gave you there is a section that explains the criteria for the approval. As far as I remember there must be no natural explanation and there must be no contradiction with the general revelation. These are the same criteria for any private revelation.
The last thing Rome wants is approving a private revelation that turns out a hoax.
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