The baby Jesus’ place in the manger was empty. The spaces for the images of Joseph and Mary, parents of the child Jesus, remained vacant. A large sign occupies the feeder: “ICE was here”. Below the sign it says: “The Holy Family is safe in the sanctuary of our church. If you see ICE, call Luce.” The Massachusetts Immigration Justice Network is known as Luce.
This unusual nativity scene was installed at Santa Susana Catholic Church, a parish in Dedham, Massachusetts (United States). The head of the parish and the author of the idea of the crèche is Father Stephen Josoma.
CJ Doyle, executive director of the Catholic Action League of Massachusetts, was unhappy with the use of the nativity scene to criticize the Donald Trump administration’s political treatment of immigrants. According to Doyle, “the initiative divides Catholics, disrespects religious symbols and moves away from the essence of the Christmas message.”
What would be the essence of the Christmas message? It is difficult to recount the facts recorded in the gospels concerning the birth of Jesus without addressing the political aspects. Joseph and Mary arrived in Bethlehem and found no place to stay. If the couple from Nazaré had arrived in Balneário Camboriú, they would have received a return ticket, as they did not have an address in the town.
After his birth, according to the evangelist Luke, Jesus was found by the shepherds lying in a manger, literally a trough – the place where food is put for the animals. It is the portrait of a homeless family. They were not yet immigrants, since they were within their country, but they were without threshold, a rhyme born in Portugal and popularized in Brazil.
The immigration record of the holy family was given by the evangelist Mateus. Joseph, the father of Jesus, was warned in a dream by an angel to flee with Jesus and Mary to Egypt. The reason for this escape was to escape infanticide perpetrated by the wicked King Herod.
Nothing in the above report is an invention of human rights activists intended to offend the Christian religion. The social and political conditions of the birth of Jesus are highlighted by the canonical gospels. Father Josoma’s nativity scene is not a disrespectful politicization of religion. It is about establishing a comparison between the socio-economic conditions at the birth of Jesus and the condition of immigrants in the United States under Trump.
The Santa Susana Parish Facebook page was flooded with hundreds of comments for and against. Josoma is labeled by critics as a satanic and left-wing priest and his detractors are calling for him to be punished and expelled from the parish.
Supporters say they are proud of the priest and point out that his example in defending immigrants should be followed by all churches in the Diocese of Massachusetts.
Lisa H. Thurau, a member of Santa Susana, questioned the Diocese of Massachusetts: Does rejecting the Nativity scene because it violates Catholic doctrine or because it displeases supporters of the Trump administration cause political division among Catholics? She responds by saying that this is obviously a political reason.
The debate over whether the political positions of churches and religious leaders are right or wrong has no easy resolution. There are certainly gray areas between politics and religion.
However, Christians who are uncomfortable with the ethical implications of the story of Jesus’ birth and the comparisons made to the situation of immigrants today should perhaps ask themselves if they have chosen to worship the wrong God. After all, the Christian God came into the world “without area or boundary,” according to official doctrine.
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