'The Nativity Story' Movie Problematic for Catholics, "Unsuitable" for Young Children

'The Nativity Story' Movie Problematic for Catholics, "Unsuitable" for Young Children

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."

Well such became apparent when reading Annalex's post.

We look at Scripture through completely different lenses. I try to look at Scripture from the context of Scripture itself. If James says we are justified by works and Paul says we are justified by faith, I look at the testimony of the rest of Scripture and try to see how those two thoughts are reconciled. Only on very very very rare occasion is there something that I just have to say "I don't know" about, because I believe the testimony of Scripture is reconcilable.

What I have witnessed on this thread is that we have a heavy reliance on Paul and interpret James by Paul and the other letters in Scripture. We believe when the Spirit inspired Paul to say that salvation is by grace through faith and not of works that this included ALL works. We also believe that a true Christian WILL work and if works are absent then that is often indicative that there is a big problem with one's faith being real.

When I hear differentiations such as when Paul was speaking of those kinds of works (i.e., works of the law or social works) verses the other kinds of works, I bristle. Scripture does not make a distinction. There was the law that is in nature that God has revealed to man such as that in Romans 1, and there was the written law with all of its rituals and ceremonies and "Stuff to do" in order to be acceptable. One is unclean if they do this or don't do that. The priest needs to make a special atonement for this or that. If a person is unclean, by going outside of the camp for a while they could get over their uncleanness and be reconciled to the society. And in all of these rules and regulations which people tried to keep in order to get God to accept, when really the only thing that could make them accepted was Christ Himself and Him alone. Roman Catholicism mirrors the old Judaic legal system. Jesus kinda kick-starts the salvation process but then it is up to us to do the right things in order to merit heaven. Such is not Scriptural. Rather, when I look at the Scriptures three things are apparent. 1)Hebrews 7:19
For the law made nothing perfect, but the bringing in of a better hope did; by the which we draw nigh unto God.and 2) 1 John 5:4.. whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith; and, 3)finally we are reliant upon Jesus who is that .. author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.

God wrote our live's story. He chose us to salvation and specifically determined that we would be His workmanship, His masterpience, ordained to do good works. But He Himself authored it all - and look what else it says - He Himself is the finisher of our faith. Given to Christ by God the Father, we can rest assured that our salvation rests in Him alone. And of all the Father gives Him, He will lose nothing.

As the Holy Spirit illumines Scripture, these truths become so clear. Sadly, formulations and false teachings cloud the plain text on the page so that salvation is no longer a free gift from God to His children but is a reward to be gained if one takes all the right steps and does all of the right things. If one doesn't, then there is always Purgatory - which is another issue altogether.

FK: "Whenever the Bible is allowed to speak for itself, there is greater understanding."

You got audio books? :)

From the Prophet himself :). It also appears they are having a rather Christian sale. :)

If this book only method causes "greater understanding" why didn't our Lord send forth scribes instead of teachers?

He sent both at the same time. I have often referred to the authors of the Bible as "scribes" in the sense that they wrote down God's word exactly as He wanted it written down. Those same scribes, especially in the NT, also were great teachers. They taught in accordance with what they wrote, before and after. In my view, a teacher is only as good as the scripture he keeps to. Naturally, I believe that many of those coming after the Apostles veered away from that scripture to some degree.

I think I've told you this about Noah before. It is a small but true story wrapped in mythical fish story telling; much like the grit in the clam's craw that gets overlain with pearl layers.

The key number is 15 cubits(the water prevailed upward 15 cubits). A cubit is between 15 inches to 18 inches, depending on how long your arm is between elbow and outstretched fingertips. Thus 15 x 15/12 = 18' 9" deep water; 18 x 15/12 = 22' 6" deep water.

Mount Ararat's peak is some 16,000 feet high, a tad more than 22' feet deep water, yes? But 22' is PERFECT for a hurricane's storm surge, ie, the "dirty" NE quadrant where low pressure and CCW rotation around the eyewall pile up the ocean water that high. Just ask Gulf Coast residents about the NE quadrant of a hurricane.

Then you have noah's ark washing ashore on an outer sand bar and they have to wait for low tide(water assuages is their terminology)to wade to the true shore.

So, the TRUE story : Noah was a pakistani farmer/orchardist living in the delta region of the Indus River, much like our mississippi delta. He, his father, his grandfather; had been flooded out before, the Indus River floods irreguarly, unlike the Nile.

So, although he's illiterate and has never even traveled to the ocean shore, he is a sharp cookie and builds a 3 layer log RAFT with goat skin tent on it, 8 ft wide, 4.5 ft high, and 45 ft long; on the high point of his land. He ties it to 2 or 3 tree bases and intends to ride the next flood out.

Instead, along comes a KATRINA and its storm surge. It just covers the tops of his fruit trees which he KNOWS are 15 cubits high. The current forces are too STRONG, thus he has to cut his tree-anchors(or they are pulled out by the raft's buoyancy and shearing force).

Of course all the farm critters head for the raft/high point in the rising floodwaters, thus the ark full of animals. And the hurricane is FOUR days of rain, not 40...

And so the raft gets washed out to sea(Arabian Gulf)much like some lucky few who got washed out to sea on floating debris in the Galveston 1900 hurricane, and lived to tell about it.

So, out on the CURVED OCEAN it looks to noah like the whole WORLD is covered with water, and he's deeply impressed by a RAINBOW. Since there is a slow CounterClockWise(CCW) gyre in the Arabian Gulf(Northern hemisphere)the raft is carried around in a circle for a week or two, finally washing up on an outer sand bar of the delta region. They have to wait for low tide to wade to the true shore.

Noah goes back to farming but practically the whole region has been de-populated by the storm surge(hurricane Camille in MS in the 1960s). So later he gets drunk, parties naked, etc, etc. His 3 sons vividly remember all of this and it gets passed down as family lore by ILLITERATE goat/sheep herders, 7 generations worth(about 150 years).

Then, one night, sitting around a campfire in the plains of shinar(iraq), sipping the local brew and telling fish stories, this old family tale of sea survival gets JAZZED up. 4 days of rain become 40 days(an old jewish bankers trick : fool with decimals).

The flood waters cover Mt Ararat. If they had known about Mt Everest, IDIOTS today would be finding noah's ark all over ITS slopes. The raft gets bumped up into the Queen Mary in size, the animals on/in the raft become all the animals in the world(so why do kangaroos only live in australia?). On and on goes this fish story.

Now why? Simple : the tower of babel : people from all over and EVERYONE is a GOD or SON of GOD, ie, macho monkey breast beating. Everyone has his myth as to why HE is the KING of the religious jungle...so these pakistani goat herders invent their own myth using the noah TRUE STORY as their "grit" to spin their pearl around.

Another 7 generations go by and one of THEIR descendents is a young 5 year old boy named ABRAM. You can convince a 5 year old of ANYTHING, a 95 year old of NOTHING. That then is how the noah-myth made it into genesis : ABRAHAM, the father of many nations.

Myths : Aryan Superiority, made up by Hitler, remember? And yet it was that underlying MYTH that justified the slaughter of millions of people. This then is why many people reject the bible as "fairy tales" for children, and thus throwing out the baby(biblical truths) with the bathwater(of fabrications).

The NOAH MYTH had been around as a core jewish belief for some 2000 years before our Lord Jesus got here. It was practically imprinted in their genetic code as justification for their "superiority". If he had TOLD them the REAL story of noah the hurricane survivor, they probably would have stoned him to death on the spot.

Look, it's basic psychology : a homely woman LIKES to hear that someone think she's beautiful, even though she knows it's a LIE, it still SOUNDS nice. Same thing with Hitler and Aryan Superiority(myths in general) : sweet LIES sound better than harsh TRUTHS. How do you think the scam artist, the flim-flam man matriculates so many students? MYTHS!!!

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