A Christmas nativity scene outside St. Susanna Parish near Boston, Massachusetts, features the infant Jesus in a cage in a display that church leaders hope, reports the Boston Globe, “will provoke conversations about how immigrants are being treated at the U.S.-Mexico border, including the controversial separation of children from their parents.”
The nativity scene, conceived by a church committee, also features the three wise men separated from the Holy Family by a fence. A sign reading, “Peace on Earth?” hangs above the display. “We thought we would kind of put a mirror image of what it would look like if this happened 2,000 years ago,” said Father Stephen Josoma. “It’s kind of a mirror image of where we are at today.”
Currently more than 100 children separated from parents at the southern border continue to remain in U.S. custody, as Trump administration continues to illegally block asylum seekers, who, like the Holy Family, also fled their homes to save their children’s lives. “Is this what peace on earth looks like?” Father Josoma asked. “It’s hard to say we are a people of peace when we are sending soldiers with tear gas to stop people.”
During the height of family separation crisis earlier this year, a church in Mike Pence’s home state “detained” the Holy Family in one display, and later replaced the Holy Family with a mirror, so that anyone who walked by would see their own reflection through the chain link fence.
“Holy scripture is clear about how we are to treat people trying to find safety for their families,” Christ Church Cathedral Dean and Rector Steve Carlson said at the time. “We are to show mercy and welcome them. Jesus, Mary and Joseph were homeless and fled danger to seek asylum.”
