If there’s ever a most-liberal-Church-in-Boston contest, you might want to put a fiver on St. Susanna Parish, where it appears that not only is the personal political, but so is the religious.
St. Susanna, located in the affluent Boston suburb of Dedham, tucked neatly against Bean Town’s southwest border, made news last Christmas when its manger scene was conscripted into the gun control debate by including lists of the scenes of mass shootings and the death counts at each. Church officials say the reaction to this was “mixed.” I’ll bet it was.
This Holy Season, St. Susanna has joined the open-borders lobby by picturing Baby Jesus inside a cage on which there’s a sign saying “deportation.”
How drearily trendy.
These political themes were chosen by the church’s Pax Christi Committee. (And don’t you just bet this bunch is fair, balanced, and unafraid.) The reason for this leftist skylarking, it’s put abroad, is to educate the community on issues of peace and justice. How exactly these tendentious displays educate is anyone’s guess. Provoke maybe, but hardly educate. Church officials also say they want to stimulate conversation about how “immigrants” are treated at the U.S.-Mexico border, as though there isn’t a surfeit of conversation on this matter already, most of it unenlightened shouting. Of course church officials make no attempt to explain how a citizen of another country entering the United State illegally is an immigrant. (More like an invader.)
As offensive as conservative Catholics and other traditional Christians might find this politicizing of the birth of Jesus, and the use of their Savior as a prop, I’m fairly sure that if he knows about it, Pope Francis approves. The current pope is so enchanted by and obsessed with left secular politics that the old gag question, “Is the pope a Catholic?” now leaves one in doubt (though it’s still clear what wild bears do in the woods).
I guess we should consider ourselves lucky that the Peace and Happiness Committee didn’t decide to put a “Resist!” bumper strip on the crèche.
