For one church in Claremont, the act of depicting the Nativity scene at Christmas is more than a tradition.
Over the past decade, Claremont United Methodist Church has made it a point to highlight social justice issues from mass incarceration and detention of families at the U.S.-Mexico border to Black Lives Matter and racial equity.
This year, the church is calling attention to the perils of environmental pollution and climate change. The display this year features an industrial scene in the background with smoke and pollution and the Holy Family standing in front of it with scorched earth in the foreground.
The church’s Creative Peacemaking Committee decided that this year’s Nativity scene, displayed in front of the church at 211 W. Foothill Blvd., would focus on the concern for the environment, said the Rev. Martha Morales, associate pastor.
“This idea for the Nativity scene was born out of wanting it to be a prophetic message about our faith and how we act and live it out in the world,” she said. “Christmas is not just the story of the birth of Jesus. This is not just a time when we feel all calm and peaceful and give each other nice presents. The story of Christmas is a deep and challenging story of a marginalized family that fled their home to go to Egypt. We tend to ignore the really challenging parts of the Christmas story….”
The above comes from a Dec. 16 story in the DailyBulletin.com.
Focusing pastoral efforts and all attention on “Climate Change”…one more subtle and insidious way to weaken or deny the true and living faith by placing too much emphasis on the enlightenment focus on the passing physical world (Siècle des Lumières) and not enough on spiritual reality of the world that is to come (Siècle des Siècles).
This is why the Church doesn’t permit female clergy.
This is: That doesn’t make any sense. By a woman the savior came to us. If you have such shallow opinions of women perhaps you ought to say a few Hail Marys
Yes but unlike Our Blessed Mother, these harridans would never say “be it done to me according thy will”. These are feminists who detest the fact of God is Father. Their hatred of men always come first
Wny, not. I’ve heard plenty of ridiculous (to put it kindly) things from the mouths and “pens” of bishops, priests and deacons. There are serious reasons why we don’t ordain women. Stupidity seems not to be an impediment to ordination, even in the Catholic Church.
No, that’s not why the Church doesn’t permit ordination of women. This is why:
https://www.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/apost_letters/1994/documents/hf_jp-ii_apl_19940522_ordinatio-sacerdotalis.html
If being a progressive axe grinder was enough to impede ordination there would be a lot fewer German bishops.
You’re welcome
If a motu proprio can almost eliminate the Mass of the Ages, a motu proprio can change John Paul’s teaching too.
No, it can’t.
I, Pope Francis, Successor of Peter, exercising the apostolic authority and extraordinary magisterium granted to me as Supreme Pontiff, do hereby teach and declare as Catholic Faith that women may validly receive the Sacrament of Holy Orders and be ordained deacons, priests and bishops in the Catholic Church, and that this teaching is binding on all the Catholic faithful such that all must receive and assent to it as de fide, as being part of the deposit of faith.
It would be as easy and simple as that.
“No, it can’t.” Patience, may I ask as one who does not know the answer — why could not Pope Francis do as Anonymous at 1:40 p.m. writes and as motu suggests? Is there a degree of solemnity on JP II’s decree higher than a motu proprio?
Anonymous, that is not how it works and Pope Francis promulgated this revision to canon law:
“Can. 1379 § 3. Both a person who attempts to confer a sacred order on a woman, and the woman who attempts to receive the sacred order, incur a latae sententiae excommunication reserved to the Apostolic See; a cleric, moreover, may be punished by dismissal from the clerical state.”
Dan, yes.
In 1994, Pope John Paul II declared, “The Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church’s faithful.”
A pope cannot change this.
That question has been answered 1000 times and the answer is and always wil be NO! If you want to know why then look it up but stop wasting time with posting questions that have been answered.
Regrettably I have to agree. Keep women out of the Sanctuary.
United Methodist churches celebrate and promote some types of pollution. Pollution also comes from idolatry and immorality, which are closely related. See Acts 15:20, Titus 1:15, James 1:27, Jeremiah 3:1, Proverbs 25:26, Ezra 9:11, Zephaniah 3:4, Malachi 1:7,12 and other Scriptures. We should be fighting all types of pollution, spiritual and environmental. No one is arguing that we should trash the environment, so it’s easy to be for the physical environment. Yet, some say we should pollute the moral life of the young and too often we’re silent about that, including even many Catholic leaders. And, some, like Rev. James Martin SJ, promote moral pollution by not calling all people to chastity, as our loving Lord does. Let’s fight all types of pollution.
meh…it’s the Methodists. Let them have their little theater. Keeps a lot of it out of the Church.
John Wesley might be turning over in his grave to see what’s happened to Methodism. The Method to holiness has been abandoned. And, Charles, who wrote Hark! The Herald Angels Sing! is likely equally distressed. They were Anglican and sacramental and, though separated from the Church, not the “church” which now embraces the gay lifestyle and virtually every woke fashion that comes down the progressive pike.
I grew up Methodist and have no complaints about my experience from my days and years there. But I left before this kind of nonsense started. To be “Woke” is to have abandoned Christianity for a philosophy of insanity.
“This year, the church is calling attention to the perils of environmental pollution and climate change. The display this year features an industrial scene in the background with smoke and pollution and the Holy Family standing in front of it with scorched earth in the foreground.
The church’s Creative Peacemaking Committee decided that this year’s Nativity scene, displayed in front of the church at 211 W. Foothill Blvd., would focus on the concern for the environment, said the Rev. Martha Morales, associate pastor.”….does Rev. Morales obtain her data from accredited environmental laboratories?
The Church should call attention to Jesus Christ and the meaning of his birth for the Salvation of mankind. We are not a social service organization. We are a religion! Let’s act like one.