The Season

NATIVITY SCENE IN DALEY PLAZA CELEBRATES 30TH ANNIVERSARY

Photo from 2013 Nativity Scene showing

CHICAGO - Saturday, Chicago's new Archbishop Blase Cupich blessed the 30th showing of the Nativity Scene in Chicago's Daley Plaza. 

"This Christmas display represents classic free speech and free exercise of faith by private citizens in the public square," a statement from Chicago Thomas More Society said. "The manger scene depicting the baby Jesus has been part of Chicago’s holiday tradition for three decades, but its appearance at Daley Plaza was not without controversy."

In 1984, city and county officials nearly shut down the Daley Plaza Nativity Scene, silencing Christians’ expression of their faith in that traditional public forum. Protection of the Nativity Scene came in the form of a lawsuit, which spared the manger scene statues from physical destruction. Late Chief U.S. District Judge James B. Parsons prohibited the local authorities from discriminating against religious expression on Daley Plaza, a regular venue for political rallies.

“The First Amendment protects religious speech, equally as political speech,” said Tom Brejcha, President and Chief Counsel of the Thomas More Society. “If you can get up on your soapbox and plead for a candidate or a point of view in a public forum such as Daley Plaza, then you may likewise get on the soapbox to proclaim the joyous, hopeful message of the Christ Child!”

“Government is neither censor nor endorser of such religious speech,” added Brejcha. “The Daley Plaza nativity display is privately funded and sponsored, bereft of any government aid or endorsement, and therefore it is clothed and armored with the full protection of the First Amendment of our U.S. Constitution.”

The Daley Plaza Nativity Scene Committee's organizers Jim Finnegan, Terry Hodges, and Ed O’Malley work with the American Nativity Scene Committee.  They have helped place Nativity Scenes in public places in twenty-one states.

This year, the Thomas More Society is co-sponsoring crèches at the State Capitol building in Illinois, Florida, Georgia, Rhode Island, and Texas.

“We are very pleased to be celebrating the thirtieth year of the nativity scene in Daley Plaza,” said Finnegan. “We are especially grateful that Chicago’s new Archbishop, Blase Cupich, is joining us. A joyous Christmas to all!”