Catholic News Agency reports on December 9, 2025, that Father Stephen Josoma of St. Susanna Church in Dedham, Massachusetts, has refused to remove a politically charged Nativity scene featuring anti-ICE (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement) messaging despite directives from Archbishop Richard Henning of Boston. The display includes signs stating “ICE Was Here” and explains the Holy Family’s absence by claiming they’re “safe inside” the church building, complete with a hotline for reporting immigration enforcement activity. The Archdiocese condemned the display as inappropriate political exploitation of sacred imagery, ordering its removal to restore the Nativity’s devotional purpose – an order the pastor publicly defied while demanding “dialogue” with his ecclesiastical superior. This act of open defiance encapsulates the conciliar sect’s systemic collapse of ecclesiastical discipline and doctrinal integrity.
Sacred Symbols Profaned for Political Theater
The scandalous display constitutes sacrilegious abuse of liturgical objects expressly forbidden by Canon 1178 of the 1917 Code of Canon Law: “Sacred objects, which are designated for divine worship… cannot be converted to profane uses.” The reduction of the Holy Family’s representation to political propaganda violates the fundamental purpose of sacramentals as defined by Pope Pius XII: “Sacred images receive the imprint of holiness by their very purpose – to raise our minds to God through veneration of the saints they represent” (Mediator Dei, 1947). The pastor’s claim that “some do not agree with our message does not render our display sacrilegious” reveals a modernist distortion of sacramental theology, treating the manger as mere social commentary backdrop rather than sacramentum et exemplum (sacrament and example) of the Incarnate Word.
Subversion of Ecclesiastical Authority
Father Josoma’s public defiance exposes the conciliar sect’s structural disintegration of hierarchical obedience. When the Archbishop’s spokesman correctly invoked canonical norms prohibiting “the use of sacred objects for any purpose other than the devotion of God’s people,” the pastor responded by convening his parish council and “Pax Christi group” – effectively establishing a democratic cabal to override episcopal authority. As demonstrated in the file Defense of Sedevacantism, this mirrors the conciliar revolution’s rejection of Bellarmine’s principle that “the manifest heretic automatically loses jurisdiction” – creating a vacuum filled by anarchic parish-level dissent. The pastor’s appeal to the USCCB’s November 12 statement attempting to justify his disobedience compounds the error, as post-conciliar pseudo-bishops lack legitimate magisterial authority according to pre-1958 ecclesiology.
Naturalism Displacing Supernatural Faith
The display’s complete omission of redemptive suffering and eternal salvation themes reduces the Nativity to temporal political theater. Contrast this with Pius XI’s teaching in Quas Primas: “The Kingdom of Christ is primarily spiritual and relates mainly to spiritual matters… requiring followers to deny themselves and carry their cross.” By framing immigration enforcement as absolute evil rather than addressing the complex moral dimensions of border sovereignty (as acknowledged in Leo XIII’s Immortale Dei), the display embodies the modernist heresy condemned in the Syllabus of Errors: “Human reason is the sole arbiter of truth and falsehood, and of good and evil” (Proposition 3). The telephone hotline for reporting law enforcement completes this diabolical inversion, encouraging vigilante opposition to civil authority contrary to Romans 13:1-7.
Symptomatic of Conciliar Apostasy
This scandal flows inevitably from the post-conciliar church’s embrace of religious indifferentism condemned in Lamentabili sane exitu (Proposition 65): “Contemporary Catholicism cannot be reconciled with true knowledge without transforming it into a certain dogmaless Christianity.” The pastor’s appeal to Cardinal O’Malley’s previous tolerance of political displays (gun control in 2017, climate activism in 2019) confirms this pattern of replacing Catholic devotions with Marxist liberation theology. As Pius X warned against modernist infiltrators in Pascendi Dominici Gregis: “They are found in the ranks of the priesthood… audaciously preaching the alliance between faith and false philosophy.” The absence of any mention of reparation for blasphemies or prayer for conversion of souls in this “Nativity” display reveals its fundamentally anti-Catholic nature.
Canonical and Theological Bankruptcy
The conciliar sect’s paralysis in enforcing Canon 2334 (“Those who join condemned societies… incur excommunication“) against this open rebellion demonstrates its total loss of jurisdiction. As the file Defense of Sedevacantism documents through Bellarmine and Pius IX’s Etsi Multa, legitimate prelates must “cut off the decayed flesh” when confronted with manifest heresy. Instead, the Archdiocese issues weak statements while the pastor publicly mocks his superior – a scene Pius XI foresaw when warning that “the entire human society had to be shaken because it lacked a stable and strong foundation” (Quas Primas). This disgraceful spectacle confirms the conciliar sect’s identity as the “abomination of desolation” predicted in Daniel 9:27 – a pseudo-church where sacraments become political props and shepherds become wolves.
Source:
Boston-area pastor refuses to remove anti-ICE Nativity scene, seeks meeting with archbishop (catholicnewsagency.com)
Date: 09.12.2025