'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."

Good afternoon Alamo Girl,

Your comment of "Also God has given us a lot of "wiggle room" in understanding..." is true. I believe science really expands on that room and helps us understand more. Many verses can be taken to a deeper level but I don't believe it can negate the original thought. I have been taught, and belive, that there can be three different meanings, messages, in a verse but they will never contradict the other. Just my thoughts.

As you, I do not value my thoughts or others above those of God but if they are validated in scripture, with 2 witnesses, I trust them and feel they are God's way of speaking. Part of that is being led by the Holy Spirit. What I do not understand is, does everyone feel that way? As I have said before, there is only one Bible but look at the different ideas taken from it. And, everyone believes they are right, that they have the way. Is this part of God's overall plan?

Your statement of "Likewise,in Gen.2 God declares that He created the seeds before they were in the earth", made me want to tap my forehead and say, Wow, I could have had a V8 - in other words, now that you have pointed it out I can't believe I missed it. Thank you for that insight. I love gems like that.

I went to the scripture you gave, Colossians 1 about the creation, spiritual and physical. In vs.26, the "mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to His saints." What do you think that mystery is? My understanding is that there was an age before our present one and the seeds, which He created before they were in the earth, are our souls, planted here to see how we bloom, what fruit we produce. That is part of the mystery that has been hidden. The other part has to do with some of the souls that were planted.

The 1,000 years rings true for me too but the fly in the ointment is the following, if it is true:
1.Gen.1:1 In "the" beginning...should be, In "a" beginning.
2. 5 ....And the evening and the morning were
the "first day". That should read, and the
morning was "day one".

I believe the 7 days in Genesis should be counted as 1,000 years to God (but again, I think this is the beginning of the 2nd earth age) If the above "day one" is accurate, shouldn't the clock start there? Why would that phrase be different than the rest of the days given?

Thank you for your recommendation. I will take it to heart. I left God when I was very young because of fairy tales. I wrapped all of it up in a Santa Clause/easter bunny package and tossed it. I tripped over that package a few years ago and since then I have searched. I hate lies, I do not want to be misled nor mislead anyone else. I pray each day that Father lets me discern truth and to help me take that truth to others.

Thank you Alamo Girl - you're a gentle spirit.

For what it's worth, Whitley Streiber claims to have been taken to an alien city that vast on another planet. But it would have to be CURVED to follow the curvature of a SPHERICAL planet. If it was a pure pyramid, half of an octahedron, the square base would be some 145 miles below the surface. And only the corners would be at the surface, the sides would also be curved, rising well above 200'.

As an architect, an object HALF the diameter of the moon(3000 miles)seems outlandishly LARGE for a planet only 8000 miles in diameter. Furlongs, stadia, leagues....with the number 12,000....obviously the writer was playing with decimals. A city 1.5 miles x 1.5 miles, with 200 foot high walls sounds about right. That's about the size of a mountain, still HUGE by human standards.

Stick around long enough though and you'll see it coming down on anti-gravity pads, made by computers and robots on the planet mercury(w/o hands)where there's LOTS of AU 79.

As to GOLD being the material-of-choice, PEOPLE value it because it doesn't rust/oxidize. It has a single outer electron which gives it excellent electrical/thermal(phonons) conduction properties, as well as excellent reflective albedo. It has some 10 isotopes, all being short-lived except AU 79 which is stable.

Other than its SCIENTIFIC values in instruments, technology, I have no use for it. I'm not one that LUSTS after it as so many do, the love of MONEY is the root of all evil. How many have KILLED others over a pile of gold? And yet all the known gold reserves on the earth would fill a 50'x50'x50' cubical volume.

Or as our lord said : what doeth it profit a man to own all the GOLD in the world, and lose his own SOUL? As a BUILDING material though, it has its pluses and minuses, perhaps not the best choice for a MOUNTAIN sized building. But then I'm a mere architect, not the SUPREME architect....

But all that is introduction to asking if you would care to say more about the good and bad aspects of pressure valves.

I suppose in normal human interaction I do not have a problem with pressure valves. For example, I support the concept and implementation of the US presidency. But the most a president can do is to order many other people what to do. In a sense, a Pope has much greater power I think, because he can order a billion people not only in what to do, but in what to think and believe. I see that as potentially very dangerous in the hands of a single man, UNLESS he really did have a supernatural pipeline to God. Of course, such is not part of my faith.

Through time I am sure there have been many wonderful Popes, men of God who served well, and for whom I can have great respect, even if I disagree on some things. However, there have been some Popes who have not lived up to this standard, and so that leads me to believe that the office itself is not actually protected in the way it seems it must be to live up to the authority claimed.

We talk different languages. By ocean bottom I mean ocean of AIR, about 4/5ths nitrogen(N2)and 1/5th oxygen(O2). You see, physically you are a bottom dwelling fish in an OCEAN of some 10^15 tons of AIR. Jesus referred to people as "fish", an early christian symbol was a FISH, remember? The first disciples were FISHermen.

Genetically you are descended from FISH. Way back when you were a lung fish crawling out of the water ocean onto a sandy beach, escaping PREDATORS. Many, many evolutionary iterations later you are STILL a FISH of sorts : bony spine, lungs; even our cross-wired right/left brains were already there in FISH.

You've even internalized ocean currents : your blood flow. Ever TASTED your blood, salty as the ocean, yes? Look at vast crowds of people walking along an urban street, how different is that from a stream of fish swimming in an ocean?

You need to read Erdman's critique of the bible, the obviously outlandish numbers. 600,000 MEN leave with moses and go into the desert? NONSENSE! It was more like 600 or even 6,000; but NOT 600,000! With wives + 2 children/couple that's over 2.4 MILLION people. READ the subsequent exodus account and it's not talking about 2.4 MILLION people, 2400 people sounds more rational.

Or Jesus being crucified on good friday. THREE DAYS and THREE NIGHTS in the grave, remember? The early catholics got it WRONG! He was crucified on THURSDAY, the day before the high holy day of preparation(friday)before the saturday sabbath. THAT makes THREE DAYS and THREE NIGHTS.

Or Jesus' birthday on Dec 25(3 days before the winter solstice and the "birth" of a new year - days get longer again). That was the Roman God JUPITER'S birthday, thus JESUS replaced JUPITER in early catholic mythology. He was ACTUALLY born in early january as the eastern orthodox church believes.

Two biblical accounts of Saul/Paul's being ZAPPED by our lord on the road to damascus, but they don't agree! How come? Simple : these are VERBAL accounts passed down through the years, the generations; and finally written down, in TWO DIFFERENT VERSIONS!

So you see what I mean : HUMAN mis-communication of GOD'S WORD. Look at any average e-mail : how many mis-spellings, diction mistakes, do you see? The same fumble bunny-scribes were writing the bible way back when.

So you can thunderously POUND on the bible, or hide under it like linus under his blanket, but if you were an honest, righteous man, worthy of heaven, you would see it as a grab bag of human mis-translation; a glimmer of eternal truth here and there, and a whole lot of errata that is a result of imperfect human COPYING.

Xerox a sheet of text on paper, then xerox that copy, then another and another, a 1000 times. With the 1000th copy you have a meaningless blur. Go ahead, try it with a ream of paper and all afternoon in front of a xerox machine.

Or why does a new and improved bible come out every decade or so? New standard revised, etc, etc. And thus you see why modern, scientifically trained minds see the bible as fairy tales, full of errata, the obviously false numbers...you'll NEVER convert them until YOU have the righteous COURAGE to correct the flaws in the bible. And the koran, with its terrorist fanatics, is out there, as a COMPETITOR!

So, get your own house in order before you do battle with them. What did our lord say about the splinter in your brother's eye, and the LOG in yours?

Hi Joe! -

[Alex to FK:] "Mother of Christ is fine. Mother of God is more precise, that is all. We do not object to the first, but you object to the second."

Joe: "This is an example of why, after 8000 posts later, some people just refuse to be swayed or see common sense, despite being given Bible verses that make this all crystal clear and not worth arguing over.......... Apparently, "Mother of God" is wrong because Catholics call Mary the Mother of God, so some feel they must argue against it for a minimum of 5000 posts, "

Alex, perhaps you did not see my earlier posting on this issue, but your description does not fit me. Further, I don't think it fits the other Protestants' comments toward the reasons given or implied above. Earlier on this thread, I made it pretty clear that I did not have a problem with Theotokos, AS LONG AS it accompanied an explanation. Among two Apostolic speakers, perhaps an explanation is unnecessary. However, to anyone not familiar with how the term is used, it could lead to a very wrong impression that you do not intend. That's all I was saying.

I also think that was what the other Protestants were saying too. I saw several posts along the lines that "mother of Christ", or "mother of Jesus", or "mother of the second person in the Trinity" were all preferable on their faces, because they stand alone better and do not need much explanation, if any. I have seen no Protestant posts denying that the baby Mary gave birth to was all God and all man.

I would like to hear an explanation that Mary is the Mother of something OTHER than God in this verse... [Luke 1:41-43]

No explanation needed, Joe. :) We understand the meaning in the same way, but we might use different terms first to express the same idea.

Okay, thanks.

I remember reading about Lincoln vetoing some bill of Congress because he thought it was unconstitutional. There's a POTUS acitng in the way I tink of the Pope qacting on BIG stuff. Those who know more church history than I (shouldn't be hard to find) may check me on this, but my impression is that in the BIG stuff, the Pope is more a brake than an engine. Just in terms of social dynamics, leaving religion out of it, the wonder is not that, for example, the Immaculate Conception was declared but that it was not declared earlier.

Canonizing JPII or making a tripe here or there, or declaring oh whatever, such and such a year to be the year of the Sacred Heart (for an example plucked out of my imagination) on such things I imagine the Pope taking the initiative.

I sometimes imagine what it would be like to be the leader of a billion people -- any kind of leader in any capacity. How do you know what they're doing? what they're thinking what they want? what they need? A BILLION?

Zowie! My alleged point is that I think we need to do some thinking about the realities of this mega-super-tanker of an organization, and how hard it would be to get it to turn, and so forth -- how hard it would be to get it to actg with any kind of unity or cooperation at all! Such thinking helps me keep my imaginings about the Pope saying "Jump," and the US bishops saying,'How high?" I bet it's way more like, "With all filial obedience and devotion, we raise the sacred purple to our lips and intend to spend the next ten years studying the meaning of jumping in the larger ccontext of the American culture, whether jumps should be understood as metric or Rnglish system or converted to the Roman stadia. Then after diocesan, archdioceasn, regional and national councils we will convey our findings to the Holy See and await further excuses to have a bunch of conferences. With Fraternal and Filial and we are our own granpa in a spiritual sense affection we beg the honor to remain, yours etc."

As I've said elsewhere, The RC church is NOT a well-oiled bureacratci machine. It's more like a slow inexorable avalanche, seen from a distance, soundlessly, and chaotically rolling down a hill ... Just my guess. I don't know and I don't want to know much.

Funny thing, though, for all the criticisms leveled at the Bible, the least of those who simply read it through faith in Christ, while looking towards God and in truth, have the Holy Spirit to reveal to them even more deeply all the truths of Scripture to their spirit.

Thank you for that, Cvengr. I pinged you Blogger, because I wanted to share this with you.

Whatever else is true, and whatever differences there may be in this or that proposition, it is, I think, just a Cvengr says -- if I were to tweak it at all it would be to say that in this kind of reading we get to know not the book but the author, and at that point what we say is way less important that what HE says.

Uh Oh. Time for the pre-pre kickoff commentary show advertisements!

FK, are you saying the Church fathers who put together the Christian canon were guided by the Spirit (which is why you read their Bible) but were wrong when it came to deuterocanical books?

I have never given credit to the Church Fathers for putting together the Bible in the sense that the Church Fathers "created the Bible". You just can't tell me that the Deuterocanonical books were not controversial among the Apostolics. Why is there such a thing as the "Deuterocanon"? If Luther had banned the book of John, do you really think a new Council would have had to be called to "reinsert" it? I don't think so.

Now, I must retire from FR for a few hours for a religious experience. :)

How do I have any less faith than any other man? Again, the bible is FULL of implausible numbers, myths, errata. You grab the WHOLE THING to your breast from wall to wall as perfect truth. I'm doing a bit of righteous early spring house cleaning, throwing out the implausible numbers, obvious myths, errata; getting to the TRUTH of God's Word.

My lord Jesus did the same thing when he overthrew the money changers tables in the temple, about the only VIOLENT act he ever did. My father's house is for prayers, not thieves!

You are no different than those money changers, garbaging up the BIBLE TEMPLE with implausible numbers, myths, errata. If you had 1/10th the righteousness of our lord Jesus you would cleanse it as he did with the money changer's tables. Can you do it?

Again, the bible is FULL of implausible numbers, myths, errata....I'm doing a bit of righteous early spring house cleaning, throwing out the implausible numbers, obvious myths, errata; getting to the TRUTH of God's Word.

And how precisely do you determine what is true and what isn't? Is the virgin birth true? Is Paul account on the Road to Damascus accurate? Did our Lord really say all those things on the Sermon on the Mount or were they inserted by some zealot church father?

People who start down this road end up like Thomas Jefferson, clipping out the things he found offensive. In the end he only had 1/10 of the Bible that he felt comfortable with. But he was happy.

Hi Timer,

WHY ARE YOU SO ANGRY ?????. PLEASE STOP YELLING AT ME.

Now, that's out of my system so let's continue.

Of course we talk two different languages. You have a scientific mind and I'm an artist. But the point about you meaning walking on an ocean of air instead of the "bottom of the ocean" is tripe, as you've shown by going on to tell me I descended from fish (I am a Pisces however, does that count?). Do you really connect Jesus telling us to fish for men as meaning we were fish? Do you really think that because we have blood flowing, or that it taste salty, or we walk in crowds in a flow that we were fish. Gosh, if you believe that you might even fall for the really ridiculous idea that apes are our ancestors. Nah, not even you could think that.

You are absolutely correct about the crucifixion. It should be Passover, not easter Sunday. If you have a problem about how it has been passed down you should take it up with the church, with the MEN that decided to change it and not follow what the BIBLE said.

I also agree that the birth of Christ was not on December 25th. Not only was it Jupiter's birthday but almost all the other pagan god's as well. The really strange and wonderful thing though is that was the date of the conception of Christ. His birth was not in January but was September 29, the date of The Feast of Tabernacles. The dates used to compute Mary's pregnancy are found in Luke. Again, don't say the Bible is misleading you, men did that.

Born on the Feast of Tabernacles, crucified on Passover. Do you think that was by chance?

As far as Saul/Paul's conversion on the road to Damascus. I didn't know there was a discrepency, please quote verses. I do know there are differences in the telling of Christ's story. Different people see things in a different way, example: us. In the telling of a story we would write it in a different way, from our perspective.

I agree with you on the numbers. They sound way out of whack to me too. That sounds like a job for a Hebrew scholar to work on and explain.

I cannot agree with you about the rest though. The text has remained the same, it has not changed. Changes came about when man translated. Even the King James Bible, that I love, had a disclaimer that it tried to faithfully copy but mistakes were made. The Hebrew manuscripts cannot change because they are locked in with the Massorah. For us today the best Bible to use is the King James because you can use the concordance with it to see the meaning of the Hebrew & Greek words. The new and improved Bibles come out every few years because MEN want them to, not God.

Timer, I'm not hiding under any blanket. I am seeking truth and as we both have pointed out, the mistakes come from man. Nor am I thunderously POUNDING on a Bible but I do not see it as you do. It is not full of mistakes with a glimmer of truth here and there.

The fairy tales you see aren't in the Bible but some churches teach them. It's up to us to understand the truth without trashing God's Word. He "foretold us all things".

You have a beautiful mind Timer but you make it difficult for people to learn from it.

Thank you for your reply.

So, in God's 'tool shop' He drew up a list of those He will make for heaven and those He will make for Hell? Lovely. Yet the Bible says that Hell was only for the devil and his angels (cf Mat. 25:41)

Yes, and it is lovely. :) Thank Him that He decided to save any of us. I don't see how your verse changes anything. I'm not sure if the Bible is explicit or not, but I always had the impression that God banished satan before He created man. If that's true, then God created hell for satan and friends. That many men would also wind up there does not speak to the original creation of hell. What is your position in the alternative, that God didn't know that men were going to hell until the first lost person wound up there?

Anyway, what you are saying is that God saved the 'elect' before He even created them? Were they in any danger? I mean, to be saved means that you have to be in need of saving, FK. You'd have to be on the road to perdition before you were on the road to perdition if you know what I mean.

I think I know what you mean. Yes, from GOD'S POV I would say the elect are saved before they are created. This speaks to the 100% certainty that His chosen will be saved. It is also identical to say, more from man's POV, that they are predestined "to be" saved. Normally, the elect spend the first part of their lives in the state of being "lost". Then they accept Christ and are "saved". Since this is absolutely guaranteed to happen for the elect, it is just two different ways of saying the same thing. While we spend our time as lost, we are definitely on the road to perdition, and fully in need of a Savior. Only God knows whom He will touch to remedy that situation.

Why not just cut through the chase and call it the way it is in the Reformed theology: God decided to create mankind destined to hell, but decided to 'save' some.

I don't have a problem with that. Every human who was ever born came into the world destined to hell. This much is fully Biblical.

If this is Reformed theology, it has no biblical basis; God did not create man destined to hell in need of saving.

Well, if you are saying that God's "man" experiment didn't turn out the way He planned it originally, then that speaks to your view of God's sovereignty and omnipotence, etc. The Bible says that God created Adam and Eve without sin already in them. The Bible also says that all humans, including the dynamic duo, were in need of saving after the fall. The way you appear to be describing it, it sort of makes God look like a failure in what He did. It was a disaster from the beginning. Reformers say that everything happened exactly as God wanted it.

FK: "At any time during the life of an elect, God will grace that person with saving grace. The result of that grace will always be true faith, 100% of the time."

Oy, vay! Not even the Apostles who walked with our Lord had true faith 100% of the time.

LOL! I can see how you took it that way. :) Just a misunderstanding. What I meant was that with each particular person whom God chose to grace, that person would always come to a saving faith, 100% of the time. Not that the faith would always be perfect, just that every one who was chosen would in fact be saved. I meant that God's success rate was 100%.

The reason there is such a thing as 'deuterocanonical' is that St. Jerome, and Luther after him, mistakenly believed that the redaction of the Old Testament on the basis of the Babylonian Hebrew Text adopted by the Christ-denying Rabbis of the Council of Jamnia was a true reflection of the pre-Christian Jewish Scriptures.

In fact, the only pre-Christian manuscripts we have of the Old Testament Scriptures are the Greek LXX (oldest ms. dates c 250 B.C.) and the Dead Sea Scrolls, which confirm the LXX, not the Masorete. The oldest extant Masoretic text dates c 1000 A.D.

You keep vainly trying to claim that the Latins 'added' the rest of the Old Testament at Trent. This theory is patently false: the Orthodox, for whom Trent was a conventicle of Latin heretics, regard all of the books you call 'the Apocrypha' and the Latins call 'Deuterocanonical', as part of canonical Scripture on the basis of the Council of Carthage and the Fourth and Sixth Ecumenical Councils. We have always used them, just as the Latins did. No books were added at Trent. Luther removed books.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.