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/
We need to realize that to the Apostles penance and baptism were forgiveness of sin:
Peter said to them: Do penance, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ, for the remission of your sins: and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.(Acts 2:38)
Rise up, and be baptized, and wash away thy sins, invoking his name.
(Acts 22:16)
We have numerous references of the apostles giving baptism. Penance is usually mentioned, and always implied.
Here we have a confession, and context suggests that absolution was given:
And many of them that believed, came confessing and declaring their deeds.(Acts 19:18)
There is a general sense that St. Paul is coming to Corinthianms to sort out their sins at the end of 2 Corinthians, although there is no direct prooftext of a confession.
I am, however, curious why given the command of Christ to forgive sins (John 20:23) should we suspect that the apostles in fact disobeyed Him?
mutilate the sacred Deposit of Faith given the Apostles
The allusion is to the doctrines of Sola Fide, and Sola Scriptura, not in evidence in the scripture and never taught by the Apostles or by the Early Church.
mutilate the Scripture
The reference is primarily to the truncation of the Christian Canon performed by Luther, and also to the horrid translations to vernacular, such as The Message.
the message remains Orthodox Catholic
The assertion is that an unbiased reading of the scripture in any edition still renders the fundamental beliefs that are both Catholic or Orthodox: Scripture is understood through the Church; man must cooperate with grace to reach holiness; Christ leads us to Church life which we share with the Apostles. One may not get things like Assumption of Mary form the scrpture, or whetehr or not to have pews or eat fish on Friday, form the scripture. But fundamnetals of faith one will get, and that will make him 90% Orthodox or Catohlic, and not at all Protestant of any stripe.
have Romans 3:28 say "allein".
Allein, "alone", is what Luther fraudulently inserted in Romans 3:28 to justify his theories "from scripture".
St. John Chrysostom;'s homily that I excerpted for you previously explains what a man of Christian character would be doing when facing a corruption in the Church. You leader did not imitate Christ on this.
Which part? Papacy had moral clout, and at times certain political clout. It hardly ever was imperial.
I read your post three times and still don't understand why do you think so. What, in particular, do you find "leveling" in the renaming of Simon episode?
... Is a woodstock-generation invention not in touch with 2,000 years of Christianity.
For a second time, do you mind using less uppercase?
It would be nice if you did. We do. The problem for you is, it takes mountains of spin to harmonize James 2 with Sola Fide.
To the contrary. It is not a problem to harmonize the two at all. And it doesn't involve throwing out Paul unless you can tweak just a tiny bit of support to spin your way to support Catholicism.
and also to the horrid translations to vernacular, such as The Message.
= = =
Hogwash. Perhaps there's a lack of understanding the degree to which the originals were in the vernacular of the people. THE MESSAGE is much more of an accurate return to the spirit, intent, tone, wording of the originals than any other translation I know of.
Which part? Papacy had moral clout, and at times certain political clout. It hardly ever was imperial.
= = =
Hmmmmm. I'm beginning to think that the RC edifice has a rubber publishing house. First rubber Bibles, then rubber dictionaries and now rubber histories.
"having at times political clout" doesn't come near describing the troops sent at the Pope's word to ruthlessly destroy whole families, communities for daring to question his absolute rule and absolute construction on reality.
"not imperial???"
Evidently we are now talking about a galactic cluster far, far, far away and never having had anything to do with this planet.
The history I know of describes a super imperial papacy for many centuries of it's existence.
In my experience Roman Catholic sanctioned church history is one thing.. Accurate church history is quite another.. at least for the first 300 years a.d...
I don't think I have the skills sufficient to explain it any better.
Christ speaking of the faith Holy Spirit had imparted to the little pebble Peter in support of Christ the Chief Cornerstone; GOD THE ROCK OF OUR SALVATION, OUR HIGH TOWER . . .
communicated that the faith imparted to Peter by Holy Spirit would be the faith in all believers upon which Christ would build His church. Throughout all Scripture that faith is key--as Hebrews articulates so well.
And, I think I have failed yet again to articulate it well. But I fear I can't do better.
HOLY SPIRIT LED WORSHIP DEVOID OF SCRIPTED LITURGY???
... Is a woodstock-generation invention not in touch with 2,000 years of Christianity.
For a second time, do you mind using less uppercase?
= = =
I can't imagine that Holy Spirit is impressed at being labeled "woodstock" but that will have to be an issue with Him.
Yeah, I do mind. It's a blessing to my eyes as well as a number of other aspects of who I am and what I'm about.
I am still waiting on a non-pauline example of MT preference. All you showed Kosta was that the NT writers corrected both from time to time (perhaps, because they were quoting form memory). You did not show that anyone other than St. Paul preferred MT.
the LXX illuminates the thinking of the pre-Apostolic Jewish translators
That too, but to me as a Christian it is the thinking of the Apostles that is of paramount importance. The Hebrew original is of course important, but it is the mind of the Early Church that I need to know.
I do go to the Church for guidance--just not your church
You do not go to anything that looks for historical continuity with the Aposotles if your basic theology is Baptist, as I suspect it to be.
the Apostles went out of their way to keep Jewish Tradition as well as the Torah (cf. Acts 21:20-26)--they just didn't make it a requirement for Gentiles.
True. In other words, the Church as a whole deprecated the Jewish tradition even though it did not wish to purge it. This is generally what we see about Tradition: that its criticism is always pointed against a particular superstition or when used a s a hypocritical cover. In generall, Christ and the Apostles did not mind the Christian Tradition at all, and when used in the general sense, as in 2 Thess 2:14, it is praised.
Jewish authority before Christianity as to the canon is very important, since it tells us what Bible Yeshua and His disciples used
They were using the Septuagint alongside with the Hebrew scripture, did they not? They read the Deuterocanon. So should we.
This is easy to remedy. When in need of instriction in the faith ask the Catholics or the Orthodox, and it will be better understood.
Far from my reality. Will try and . . . let me see . . .
Reviewing James 2, I find no problem . . . is there a particular part taken to be a problem?
Yes, that is accurate. One perhaps would also need a footnote that says that since God foreknows anything, He also knows His Elect form the foundation of the world, even though they need to cooperate with His grace in order to actualize their election.
This is why I generally tolerate epithets like work-based salvation, but I also make sure to explain that this does not negate election and does not negate the sacrifice of Christ as the only source of salvation. I suspect that soem groups (Salvation Army? Pelagius, for sure) have "works based salvation" in the sense that we find heretical.
It is not just St. Paul who saw a problem with the Judaizers. St. Peter received a vision that lead him to abolish the major tenet of Judaism, the dietary laws. It was adopted by the Jerusalem Council.
The moving of the Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday has nothing to do with St. Paul either.
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.
God gave us the Church. She gives us the Holy Scripture, the holy Liturgy, the Holy Tradition and the living grace of God.
Thanks for the thoughful, history based reply.
"But while the ECF whose writings have been preserved for us were anti-Torah, we have evidence in their writings that a Torah-observant yet Messiah-believing Jewish remnant still remained, from the perplexed tolerance of Justin Martyr in the second century to the anti-Semitic screed of John Crysostom in the fourth. Indeed, the mere fact that so many of the Fathers found it necessary to write missives condemning keeping the Torah as "Judaizing" tells us that it was a persistent phenomenon through the ante-Nicean church."
This is consistent with what I have been taught over the years by a former Chief Rabbi of Budapest, a 90 year old rabbi who tried manfully to teach me hebrew 35 years ago and a very wise and holy Greek archimandrite down in the old country. By the way, the connection was not only with messianic Jews (not a good one at all), but with "regular" Jews (a much more irenic one), at least well into the 3rd century. The connection was so close that in Sardis, the main church structure was connected to the synagogue by a simple door in the wall. Greek and Antiochian Orthodoxy has always laid great stress on it Jewish "roots", which are most apparent in our liturgical forms and the endless use of the Psalms in our devotions and services. The old chief rabbi regularly remarks to me that when he attends a Greek Orthodox liturgy or service, he feels as if he is at a Temple ceremony.
I won't get into what +John Chrysostomos was sermonizing against save to say it wasn't the Jews, it was the Judaizers which I suspect in his times meant the messianic jews based on what you have said. His sermons seem quite well based in NT scripture, B, though I don't doubt for a minute that given the nature of the Eastern Roman state, the power of that state was behind him with all it meant to those who crossed the state, as +John himself found out.
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