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November 09, 2006
It is as it was?
The Nativity Story will premeire....at the Vatican.
The Nativity Story will become the first film ever to premiere at the Vatican, the film's distributor has announced. The film, which is due to be released December 1, will be shown on Sunday, November 26 at the Vatican's Pope Paul VI Hall to an audience of appproximately 7,000 invited guests, including director Catherine Hardwick, actors Shohreh Aghdashloo and Oscar Isaac, producers Marty Bowen and Wyck Godfrey, and screenwriter Mike Rich. The screening will benefit the construction of a school in Mughar, Israel, 40 miles from Nazareth. Rolf Mittweg, New Line President and COO of Worldwide Distribution and Marketing, said of the film, "We are very proud of The Nativity Story and extremely grateful that the Vatican has embraced the film in this way," says Mittweg. "We believe it is the perfect venue to present the film's universal message of hope and faith, a message we are sure will resonate around the world."
Interestingly, the press release makes no mention of Keisha Castle-Hughes, the 16-year-old actress who plays Mary in the film -- who, it was announced last month, is now herself pregnant out of wedlock. I'm curious whether Castle-Hughes was invited to the Vatican affair; I would sincerely hope that she was, and that she herself chose not to attend for whatever reason.
I'd think that it was probably a joint decision, all round - her presence and unusual circumstances would undoubtedly take attention away from the film. (FYI, Castle-Hughes, whom you might remember as the lead in Whale Rider, is pregnant by a long-time (well..relatively) boyfriend.)
The Paul VI Hall is where the General Audiences are held when the weather's bad.
Posted by Amy Welborn | Permalink
Comments
Poor kid. Poor kids, in fact. We should pray for all three of them, as I'm sure Mary and Joseph are doing....
Posted by: Maureen at Nov 10, 2006 9:28:13 AM
We should just be thrilled she chose to have the baby. I think it is a great thing for the prolife movement whan a celrity teen decides against abortion. It may be the role she was playing impacted her decision. Hopefully it impacts a lot more in her life.
Posted by: Randy at Nov 10, 2006 9:47:40 AM
This is truly a reflection of a very sad state of affairs. On account of the (often-justified) fear of an unwed teen or college student terminating a pregnancy through intentional abortion, people feel constrained to overlook the very real and grave sin that resulted in their getting pregnant in the first place.
The social stigma that once was attached to unwed mothers was an effective incentive for all but a few girls to say "no" to their boyfriends or dates. Between the removal of this stigma (driven, in no small part, by the emergence of the even worse alternative, legal abortion) and the proliferation of "pink pills" and other rather effective contraceptive methods, now pile on top of it all a pop culture that goes over the top in pushing irresponsible sexual activity, and we now have a generation of teens and college kids for whom virginity is an intolerable state.
In a similar way, we wouldn't now be talking about "gay" "marriage" if it weren't for the way our society has taken for granted (1) divorces and remarriages: thus destroying the notion of marriage as a lifetime covenant of grave obligation; and (2) unmarried cohabitation, and especially raising children in such a situation. These two things, put together, utterly altered the popular notion of what marriage is, and this change is what the "gay" lobby is leveraging, and quite effectively. (Never mind the referenda against same-sex "marriage" that have succeeded: the real story is in the acceptance of such perversion by most people under the age of 30.)
Posted by: Somerset '76 at Nov 10, 2006 10:24:17 PM
Well, ok, scandal, sin, whatever. I kind of wish she were attending. Can you imagine what an opportunity for conversion that would be for the young girl? Pregnant, possibly dealing with "stuff," and then going to the Vatican. She'd get to overhear conversations of people talking about Jesus, and people might even engage her in dialogue about faith.
I think it's a missed opportunity.
Posted by: Dennis at Nov 11, 2006 7:52:16 AM
Well, considering what happened with Lauren Hill, there are some opportunities better missed.
Posted by: JonathanR. at Nov 12, 2006 1:15:51 PM
