Leaders at St. Susanna’s Parish said they will keep the “ICE was here” sign in a half-empty manger outside of the church despite condemnation from some Catholic leaders and community members.
Statues of Jesus, Mary and Joseph are missing from the Dedham church’s annual nativity scene this year. In their place was the sign about ICE, implying that immigration agents had taken the religious icons.
Below it was a smaller sign that read “The Holy Family is safe in our Church … If you see ICE please call LUCE at 617-370-5023.”
Father Stephen Josoma said he chose to focus the nativity on immigration after speaking with several of the refugee families the church has worked with in the past few years. Several of his congregants, who come from countries like Honduras, Guatemala and Afghanistan, expressed fear about what the stepped-up deportations could mean if they were sent back to the violence they fled.
“These are folks who carry a lot of scars with them. Some of them are physical scars, but most are emotional. They’ve seen their folks killed in front of them,” Josoma said.
He said the display is meant to show “the context Christmas is happening in this year,” adding that current immigration policies feel “brutal” and threaten the status of people who have already settled in the U.S.
The Archdiocese of Boston on Friday called the sign and missing figures a “politically divisive display” and said the parish should restore the créche to its “proper sacred purpose.”
“The people of God have the right to expect that, when they come to church, they will encounter genuine opportunities for prayer and Catholic worship — not divisive political messaging,” the statement read.
The Archdiocese also said St. Susanna did not request or receive permission for the display and said church norms “prohibit the use of sacred objects” for purposes other than worship.
A spokesperson for the Archdiocese, Terrence Donilon, pointed WBUR to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ long-standing statements on immigration, which call for more humane treatment of migrants — especially in detention — while also recognizing a country’s right to regulate its borders. The bishops oppose mass deportation and condemn dehumanizing rhetoric toward both immigrants and law enforcement.
This isn’t the first time St. Susanna’s has clashed with critics over its nativity messaging. For more than a decade, the parish has turned the display into a form of political art, tackling issues like gun control, climate change and other immigration policies.
In 2018, under Josoma’s leadership, the nativity featured a baby Jesus figure in a cage, protesting the Trump administration’s policy that separated immigrant families at the border.
CJ Doyle, head of the Catholic Action League, said he was furious about this year’s scene after receiving complaints from local residents. He accused the parish and Josoma of creating “sacrilegious” political theater.
“This is a case of a dissident priest who has a long history of these crackpot, publicity stunts,” Doyle said. “He’s politicizing Christmas, he’s exploiting the Holy Family, he’s trivializing it and he’s using his position as a pastor to promote his left-wing political ideology.”
Josoma rejected those criticisms, and said this is exactly the kind of moral witness churches should take up.
“I think the role of all churches is to speak out on issues, that’s what the Gospel is about,” he said. “How we treat the least among us is how we ultimately treat Christ.”
He said religious art is meant to provoke reflection, even discomfort, and that critics’ anger toward the display says more about people’s priorities than the installation itself.
“A lot of responses haven’t been anywhere near civil conversation,” he said. “If you ignore the facts, that’s fine, but you can’t have a real dialogue if you don’t accept the reality of what is there.”
