[Vision2020] Caged Holy Family

[Nicholas Gier]

[image: image.png]

A Christmas nativity display outside a Methodist church in southern
California <https://www.foxla.com/video/633354> features a separated and
caged Holy Family, in direct criticism of inhumane administration policies
that have included attacks on refugees and the forcible separation of
thousands of asylum-seekers and their families at the southern border.

Karen Clark Ristine, senior pastor at Claremont United Methodist Church,
originally posted a photo on her Facebook page depicting Jesus, Mary, and
Joseph separated from one another and jailed in cages. Lining the top is
barbed wire fencing. Mary and Joseph, on either side of Jesus, are both
turned to him with arms outstretched, clearly longing to hold their child
once again.

“In a time in our country when refugee families seek asylum at our borders
and are unwillingly separated from one another, we consider the most
well-known refugee family in the world. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, the Holy
Family,” the church said in a statement.
<https://mashable.com/article/claremont-umc-nativity-scene-family-separation/>
“Shortly
after the birth of Jesus, Joseph and Mary were forced to flee with their
young son from Nazareth to Egypt to escape King Herod, a tyrant. They
feared persecution and death. What if this family sought refuge in our
country today?”

Claremont United Methodist Church, which has a history of pro-immigrant
advocacy, then invokes the thousands of kids who have been torn from their
families by the Trump administration since 2017.
<https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2019/11/5/1897387/-Nearly-5-500-migrant-kids-were-stolen-from-their-families-by-Trump-admin-since-2017-ACLU-says>
“Imagine
Joseph and Mary separated at the border and Jesus no older than two taken
from his mother and placed behind the fences of a Border Patrol detention
center as more than 5,500 children have been the past three years. In the
Claremont United Methodist Church nativity scene this Christmas, the Holy
Family takes the place of the thousands of nameless families separated at
our borders,” the statement continued. Churches across the nation have
taken aim on the administration’s inhumane—and deadly
<https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2019/12/9/1904462/-Advocates-remember-seven-year-old-Jakelin-Maquin-on-one-year-anniversary-of-death-in-U-S-custody>—immigration
policies for several years now.

Last year, St. Susanna Parish near Boston, Massachusetts, also depicted
Jesus in a cage
<https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/12/5/1817227/-Massachusetts-church-s-nativity-scene-features-infant-Jesus-in-a-cage-wise-men-separated-by-fence>
as the
three wise men were separated from the Holy Family by fencing. A sign
reading,
<https://www.wcvb.com/article/church-sends-political-message-in-nativity-scene/25403183>
 “Peace on Earth?” hung above the display. “Is this what peace on earth
looks like?” Father Steve Josoma asked at the time. “It’s hard to say we
are a people of peace when we are sending soldiers with tear gas to stop
people.”

While not a Christmas display, Christ Church Cathedral in Indianapolis,
Indiana, held the Holy Family “in detention”
<https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/7/3/1777692/-In-Mike-Pence-s-home-state-church-detains-Holy-Family-in-condemnation-of-family-separation>
during
the height of media attention around family separation last summer. “Holy
scripture is clear about how we are to treat people trying to find safety
for their families,” Dean and Rector Steve Carlson said. “We are to show
mercy and welcome them. Jesus, Mary and Joseph were homeless and fled
danger to seek asylum.”

 175

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-- 

A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they
shall never sit in.

-Greek proverb

“Enlightenment is man’s emergence from his self-imposed immaturity.
Immaturity is the inability to use one’s understanding without guidance
from another. This immaturity is self- imposed when its cause lies not in
lack of understanding, but in lack of resolve and courage to use it without
guidance from another. Sapere Aude! ‘Have courage to use your own
understand-ing!—that is the motto of enlightenment.

--Immanuel Kant
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