The nativity scene was placed on the Grote Markt on Friday, 28 November 2025.
Brussels and the Faceless Nativity Scene: a Heinous and Symbolic Attack on the Incarnation
The nativity scene installed this year in Brussels immediately caused unease among many Catholics. The figures supposed to represent the Holy Family have no faces: instead, they are a patchwork of anonymous squares, like a pixelated mosaic.
At first glance, some might see this as an ‘artistic approach.’ But for anyone familiar with the spiritual and cultural significance of the Nativity, this nativity scene raises serious questions. It is not just a matter of bad taste: it expresses, consciously or not, the deeply revolutionary ideological orientations of the present era. The Brussels nativity scene is fundamentally anti-Christian. On the contrary, it is perfectly Islam-compatible.
Every year, Catholics await Christmas as a moment of grace when the soul spontaneously rises to the mystery of the Incarnation: a God who takes on a face, a name, a mother, a family. "And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us” (John 1:14). A God who makes Himself seen, loved, and touched. And now, this year, Brussels offers us a ’nativity scene" that is no longer one: anonymous silhouettes, faceless, draped in dull fabrics, resembling exhibition mannequins. For Belgian interior designer Victoria Maria Geyer, who created this new design with the help of Atelier By Souveraine, the aim is to allow everyone to see themselves in it, to find themselves in it, in a deliberate spirit of inclusivity.
This installation has caused deep unease among the faithful, unease that is not merely a matter of aesthetic whim. For those who look closely, this nativity scene does not merely represent contemporary bad taste: it expresses a worldview. It carries a message — and that message is anti-Christian. It would be futile to deny that what we see here is a form of subtle blasphemy, a gentle but real desecration of the mystery of Christmas.
The Absence of a Face is a Denial of the Person
The first thing that strikes us is the absence of faces. And this is not a minor detail.
The face is the window to the soul, the mark of the person, the expression of presence. Throughout Christian tradition—whether in icons, altarpieces, medieval sculptures, or Italian frescoes—the faces of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph are treated with particular tenderness, for it is through their features that we contemplate the love of God.
Removing the face from a nativity scene is tantamount to denying something essential. It is denying the person. It is denying humanity. It is denying the Incarnation itself. Christianity is not the religion of an abstract principle: it is the religion of a God made man, of a child who really smiled, cried and breathed. A God Who manifested His divinity through His gaze.
In the silhouettes displayed in Brussels, the human disappears behind a patchwork of anonymous squares. It looks like a pixelated mosaic, a deliberately blurred face. It is no longer the Christ Child: it is a ‘non-being’. It is no longer Mary: it is a "neutral element ." It is no longer Joseph: it is a mannequin.
There is something deeply contrary to faith here. And even, let's say it, something that borders on the occult: a faceless human representation always evokes, in the traditional imagination, the absence of a soul. In universal symbolism, the erased face signals depersonalisation, even dehumanisation.
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The Negation of all Hierarchy
The other striking element is the negation of all hierarchy. For centuries, the Christian nativity scene has reflected a natural and supernatural order: the centre is the Child Jesus; Mary and Joseph surround Him with their own dignity; then come the shepherds, the Magi, the angels. Each has its place, its function, its distinctive sign. It is a microcosm in which the entire Creation is structured around the Incarnate Word.
In the Brussels nativity scene, all this is removed. Mary and Joseph are interchangeable silhouettes. The Child Jesus Himself seems to be dissolved in a bed where nothing distinguishes Him. The sheep placed behind them seems to be as important as the parents of the Saviour. Everything is levelled. Everything is equalised. Everything is anonymised.
This desire to destroy the natural order evokes contemporary ideologies that dream of a society without verticality, without roles, without fatherhood, without motherhood, without distinction between sexes, missions, or functions. Wokism does not seek to elevate: it seeks to flatten.
This nativity scene, consciously or not, becomes a reflection of this: a world where no figure is identifiable, where no excellence is possible, where nothing stands out anymore — a world where Christ Himself is diluted in uniformity.
The Denial of Beauty
Finally, any Catholic with a modicum of aesthetic sense immediately perceives the denial of beauty. The colours are pale, dull, deliberately discordant. The fabrics seem to have been chosen for their total lack of nobility. The staging is stripped down, not of Franciscan poverty — which is spiritual beauty — but of aesthetic poverty, of poverty of meaning. This is not simplicity: it is ugliness. This is not sobriety: it is emptiness. This is not humility: it is negation.
This deliberate ugliness fits perfectly with the current ideological spirit that seeks to uproot Christian traditions and destroy symbols. Wokism has understood that Christian beauty is subversive to it; that a statue of the Virgin, a Gothic altarpiece or a traditional nativity scene awakens in souls a light that the spirit of the world would like to extinguish. So beauty is replaced by the neutral, the sacred by the abstract, the incarnation by geometry.
A nativity scene that is supposed to reflect ‘inclusion’ paradoxically becomes the greatest exclusion: God is excluded from it. Humanity is excluded from it. Joy is excluded from it. Even childhood is excluded from it.
A ‘halal’ Nativity Scene?
Islam denies the divinity of Jesus Christ, which it equates with a form of idolatry. Allah can do anything except take flesh. An unbridgeable gap separates him from his creatures: he is forever unattainable, nameless and faceless. When Muhammad seized Mecca, his first act was to destroy the idols worshipped in the Kaaba. This building, now emptied of all representations, has become the most sacred place in Islam.
From its origins, Islam has been profoundly iconoclastic. It prohibits the representation of human features, and even more so those of prophets – including Isa, Jesus, whom it considers to be one of them – fearing that any figurative representation will lead to idolatry. In Hagia Sophia, once one of the most sacred shrines of Christianity, the last mosaics of the Virgin and Child have been hidden under heavy drapes at the request of President Erdogan, who is keen to avoid any ‘idolatry’ in a place that has once again become an Islamic place of worship. In the West, Salafists even encourage the sale of faceless dolls to children.
The Brussels nativity scene is fundamentally anti-Christian. Conversely, it is perfectly Islam-compatible. How can we not see these faceless effigies displayed on the Grand Place as an act of implicit submission to the Islamist networks that are very active in the Belgian capital? Around a third of Brussels' inhabitants are now Muslim, and Islam could become the majority religion in the city within less than a decade. The most radical movements are firmly established there, particularly in Molenbeek, a stone's throw from the Grand Place.
The Tragic Effect on Children
And this is perhaps where the most tragic aspect lies: the effect on children. A faceless nativity scene is a nativity scene where love can no longer be felt. How can a child recognise Jesus if Jesus no longer has eyes? How can they feel maternal tenderness if the Virgin Mary has no face? How could they become attached to the Holy Family if it appears to them as a series of silent mannequins?
This is no longer a Christmas that awakens innocence: it is a Christmas that disturbs it. It is no longer the light of Bethlehem: it is an abstract twilight. It is no longer the sweetness of the Nativity: it is a coldness that freezes the soul.
There is a perverse effect in this nativity scene: a child who contemplates it no longer receives the message of love that the Holy Family should convey to him. On the contrary, he receives a message of indifference, neutrality, and the erasure of the human.
No to this Disfigurement of the Mystery of the Incarnation
Faced with this, it is up to us—with courage and firmness—to say no. No to this disfigurement of the mystery. No to this dissolution of the Incarnation. No to this nativity scene that is no longer a nativity scene but an ideological manifesto. Under the pretext of practising inclusion, it excludes childhood, joy, humanity and, of course, God.
Catholics are not asking for luxurious or sophisticated installations. They are simply asking that the Nativity remain what it should be: the humble and sublime proclamation that God took on human form to save mankind. A faceless nativity scene is a denial of Christmas. A faceless nativity scene is a denial of humanity. A faceless nativity scene is a denial of God.
And if we are told that we are exaggerating, let us remember that the devil has never needed gross profanities to act: indifference, emptiness, and absence are often enough. Evil thrives in subtle forms of blasphemy.
It is up to us, then, to defend beauty, to defend faith, to defend Christmas—this Christmas that belongs to our children, our families, our traditions, and above all to the One who gave us His face: the Child Jesus.
The Adoration of the Christ Child (15th century): In Christian art the face occupies a central and sacred place.
The Role of the Face in Sacred Art
In Christian art, and especially in medieval art, the face occupies a central and sacred place. It is the place of revelation, the mirror of the soul, the point of contact between man and God.
From the earliest centuries, Byzantine icons did not seek to represent a photographic likeness, but rather a spiritual presence through the features of the face. The enlarged eyes, the frontal gaze, the silent peace of the iconographic faces: all this expresses the contemplation of eternity.
In the Western Middle Ages, Romanesque and then Gothic artists sculpted faces with particular intensity. The Virgin smiles tenderly, Christ gazes majestically, the saints bear the light of grace. Stained glass windows, frescoes, capitals and illuminations are inhabited by expressive faces, embodying holiness, pain, joy or divine gentleness.
The face is never neutral. It always conveys a truth. The gaze of Christ on the cross is overwhelming; that of the Virgin and Child is soothing; that of Saint Michael terrifies demons. Children in the Middle Ages learned to pray by looking at these faces, which became windows open to Heaven.
Christian art has therefore never tolerated the erasure of the face. On the contrary, the face is the sacred place of encounter between God and man. By removing it, we remove not only beauty, but also connection, love and filiation.
The faceless nativity scene in Brussels is thus a violent break with this thousand-year-old tradition. It denies everything that Christian art has sought to convey throughout the centuries. And in this, it is more than an aesthetic scandal: it is a deliberate spiritual amnesia, a desire to cut modern man off from the sacred heritage of his ancestors.
That is why it must be denounced. Not as an isolated incident, but as a symptom. And it must be opposed not with anger, but with fidelity. Fidelity to the Incarnation. Fidelity to the face of Christ. Fidelity to the sacred greatness of the mysteries that the Church teaches us.
Sources:
www.causeur.fr/et-bruxelles-inventa-le-concept-de-creche-inclusive-319456
https://fr.aleteia.org/2025/11/28/a-bruxelles-la-nouvelle-creche-privee-de-visages-qui-ne-passe-pas/
https://www.bvoltaire.fr/au-marche-plaisirs-dhiver-de-bruxelles-une-creche-inclusive-sans-visages/