Toss Vatican’s Thoroughly Modern Mary Into The River Tiber

NATIVITY scene traditionalists have taken to social media to scream bloody murder over the Vatican’s 2020 take on the birth of Jesus, with one Twitter user suggesting that the characters featured in the display should go the way of the Pachamama statues during last year’s Amazon Synod – into the Tiber.

The National Catholic Reporter quotes Rome-based art historian Elizabeth Lev as saying:

It’s so divisive, I don’t hear a lot of people defending it.

People look to the Vatican in particular “for the tradition of beauty,” she added.

We keep beautiful things in there so that no matter how awful your life is, you can walk into St. Peter’s and that’s yours, that’s part of who you are, and it reflects who you are and the glory of who you are.

I don’t understand why we’d turn our back on that. It seems to be part of this strange, modern loathing and rejection of our traditions.

In its description of the Nativity scene, the Vatican said it was influenced by ancient Greek, Egyptian and Sumerian sculpture – something art historian Andrea Cionci, writing in the Italian daily Libero Quotidiano, traces back to the “liberal historical-critical method of interpreting Scripture” that “took over after the Second Vatican Council.” That approach, he said, has:

A tendency to demystify everything that is supernatural in the Catholic faith.

A Vatican statement said last month ahead of the unveiling of the “disgusting” figures:

This year, more than ever, the staging of the traditional space dedicated to Christmas in St. Peter’s Square is meant to be a sign of hope and trust for the whole world. It expresses the certainty that Jesus comes among his people to save and console them, an important message in this difficult time due to the COVID-19 health emergency.

The word “disgusting”, according to LifeSiteNews, was used by “popular Catholic commentator” Taylor Marshall.

LSN added two more comments tweeted by Lev:

So the Vatican presepe has been unveiled….turns out 2020 could get worse.

And:

It has nothing uplifting or transcendent about it. After a year of ugliness, the least they could have done was offer some beauty. This is shapeless, unappealing and unworthy of the joy we are trying [to] muster after this difficult year.

Joseph Sciambra, “a chaste same-sex attracted man and Church commentator” entered the fray, saying:

Better than the homoerotic one from a few years ago.

Better because he didn’t get a raging hard-on?

He was referring to the Vatican’s 2017 nativity scene, above, which was “sexually suggestive” and was praised by an LGBT activst group as an “important symbol of inclusion.”

Fide Post, an independent Catholic media site, commented:

No joke: This is the modernist Nativity scene they just installed in the occupied Vatican. Crazy how they manage to surpass themselves each year.

Comparisons with toddlers’ toys, aliens, deep sea divers, and even fireplugs have been endless.

The Catholic Traveler tweeted:

A sneak peek at the Vatican Nativity. Official unveiling tomorrow. Looks like some car parts, kid toys, and an astronaut … Spark plug angel and a kidnapped Baby Jesus.

Said William Mahoney, PhD:

This year’s Vatican nativity scene is apparently based on Fisher-Price Little People, but they forgot the angry ginger kid

According to the Vatican, the nativity set was created over the course of several years during the 1960s until the 1970s by teachers and alumni of an art institute in the Abruzzo region.

Writing for The National Catholic Reporter, Edward Pentin said:

Not since Pope St. John Paul II began the tradition in 1982 has the Vatican’s Nativity scene drawn such ire or departed so far from the conventional image of a manger and larger-than-life sized figures of Mary, Joseph, the shepherds, the Magi and accompanying animals.

The 2017 Nativity scene was previously the most controversial, causing an outcry after it featured a semi-naked man (which some viewed as homoerotic), a corpse and no sheep or oxen in front of what appeared to be a bombed-out church. The scene, called a ‘Nativity of Mercy,’ came from an Italian abbey that turned out to be a favorite pilgrimage destination of LGBT activists.

One Twitter user said: