Church sparks controversy with empty Nativity scene and ICE enforcement message: ‘Politicizing Christmas’

A Massachusetts church is causing controversy with what’s missing from and the accompanying statement displayed in its annual Nativity scene.

St. Susanna, a Catholic Church in the Boston suburb of Dedham, displayed a Nativity scene outside the church with an empty manger and a sign that reads, “ICE was here,” followed by contact info for a group that monitors immigration operations in the state.

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C.J. Doyle, executive director of the Catholic Action League of Massachusetts, said he was called by a parishioner upset by the display missing the Holy Family — Jesus, Mary and Joseph — and the statement.

“I think it’s very offensive,” Doyle told Fox News Digital. “[Father Stephen Jasoma] is politicizing Christmas, he’s exploiting and trivializing the Holy Family, and he’s using his Catholic parish as a platform to promote his left-winged ideology.”

St. Susanna Catholic Church in Dedham, a Boston suburb, sparked controversy with their annual nativity scene, featuring an empty manger and “ICE was here,” sign. (WFXT)

In response, Jasoma told Boston 25 News that he felt this was a good way to show the “dynamic of what’s going on in the world today.” 

Jasoma has become known for making waves with his Nativity scenes over the last decade. He and the parish peace and justice group have made statements on mass shootings, global warming and immigration issues in previous years.

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“This is a stance that I would hope all churches would take,” Jasoma told the news station. “We should be a welcoming community.”

In 2018, in an apparent nod to the then southern border crisis, the parish put a cage around baby Jesus and walled off the Magi in the Nativity scene, according to reports.

St. Susanna Catholic Church is known for making political statements in its annual Nativity scenes. One year, it put the baby Jesus in a cage, commentary on the southern border crisis. (WFXT)

“This is a case of a dissident priest who has a long history of these kinds of ‘crack-pot’ publicity students aimed at political activism,” Doyle said. “This has nothing to do with the birth of our Savior and everything to do with ventilating [Jasoma’s] own political projects.”

While Doyle acknowledges Jasoma’s history of mixing politics and religion, he feels that the true “enabler” is the Archdiocese of Boston.

“The archdiocese has tolerated this behavior in the past,” Doyle said. “They should tell him to stop, pure and simple.” 

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Doyle referenced a recent statement made by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops that states, “We pray for an end to dehumanizing rhetoric and violence, whether directed at immigrants or at law enforcement.”

When asked if the display was “dehumanizing” towards law enforcement, Doyle responded, “Of course it is.”

St. Susanna is not alone this Christmas season in making political statements with its Nativity scenes. 

In Illinois, a church displayed a manger scene that featured baby Jesus’ hands zip-tied together and gas masks on Mary and Joseph. The church cited the display “reimagines the nativity as a scene of forced family separation.”

The church urges people to call a number if they see ICE. Opponents of the display called the message “dehumanizing” to law enforcement. (WFXT)

Jillian Westerfield, an associate minister at Lake Street Church of Evanston, told Fox News Digital that the church felt the imagery resonates with the current time and the story of Jesus’ birth.

“This installation is not subtle because the crisis it addresses is not abstract,” the church explained in a Facebook post. “The Holy Family were refugees … By witnessing this familiar story through the reality faced by migrants today, we hope to restore its radical edge, and to ask what it means to celebrate the birth of a refugee child while turning away those who follow in that child’s footsteps.”

Lake Street Church of Evanston is a Baptist church, and according to Westerfield, she said she feels that it’s the church’s place to “talk about what to us is a moral issue.”

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“We’re not coming out in favor or against any political party,” Westerfield said. “No one is doing what we think needs to be done for the people of Illinois and for the American people.”

Meanwhile, Jasoma told Boston 25 News that he’s received pushback and was called a “murderer,” but he claims this is “his way of holding a mirror to the world for reflection.”

Jasoma and the Archdiocese of Boston did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.