The Feast of the Holy Innocents

St. Francis, Port Glasgow 28th December 2011

Today the Church remembers and honours the little children who were murdered by King Herod in his futile search for Jesus. The Church calls these children the Holy Innocents and honours them as martyrs. They are honoured as martyrs because their blood was shed as a witness to the new-born Jesus whom we acknowledge to be the incarnate Son of God, the Emmanuel, God-with-us. The mystery of Christmas, then, is fully present in the liturgical feast of the Holy Innocents, and again, today, we worship Jesus born of Mary.

The children we call the Holy Innocents were murdered for political motives. King Herod feared the expected Messiah. His Roman masters allowed him to have some power over the people of Palestine. He enjoyed that power and did not want to risk losing it to the person who would come as God’s anointed one. Once he learned that the Holy One would be a boy-child, he resolved to kill him. The savage and unlawful killing of the Holy Innocents was the result of his murderous political ambition.

This feast also has a symbolic power. The Holy Innocents are symbols of all children who are mistreated, abused, and killed because of the twisted needs, ambitions and convenience of people who have power over them, and they cry out to the world to respect and protect the innocence of infants and children. Above all, the Holy Innocents have become symbols of those innocent unborn babies whose lives have been done away with by legalised abortion.

Since abortion was legalised in 1967, there have been more than 7,000,000 abortions in the UK. Without labouring the statistics, we can say that in effect we have abortion on demand. Tragically, the lives of unborn children are done away with for reasons mostly of choice and convenience, and successive governments have connived at this to protect and enhance their political power. As the Holy Innocents show us, convenience, ambition and power can be a deadly combination for children and especially for the unborn.

However all is not yet lost in the battle against abortion. A recent ruling from the European Court in Strasbourg stated that the human embryo cannot be manipulated to create human stem cells, which is an implicit recognition of the human dignity of the embryo. It is heartening too to hear that leaders in the field are pulling out of embryonic embryo research because such research is unproductive – not the highest of reasons, perhaps, but, in the protection of unborn life, we can be thankful even for small mercies.

There are also some fleeting signs from this country and from round the world that people have had enough of the abortion holocaust and are at least beginning to say that there are far too many. Also some countries in South America, Africa and Asia are having some success in withstanding the pressure of the United Nations to make abortion lawful in the their countries and are similarly resisting the less-than-subtle blandishments of some western governments which tie its foreign aid to developing countries to packages which include women’s reproductive rights, which is simply code for abortion services. Sadly, although with some notable and welcome exceptions, western politicians are the most intransigent pro-abortionists: they are afraid to protect unborn human life lest they risk losing their hold on power. They will have to answer to God for their calculated and heartless disregard for innocent unborn human life.

In this context, the work of the Society of the Innocents and other similar organisations which defend and protect the lives of unborn children is essential to our society as a witness to the sacredness of unborn life. It is very important also that you are there to offer women an alternative to abortion and to give them support both before they have their child and afterwards. On behalf of the Church, I want to thank you, support you unreservedly and encourage you in your work.

The feast of the Nativity of the Lord is always a source of new hope for those who believe in Jesus because He is the Emmanuel, God-with-us. As we adore the baby Jesus, born of Mary, we humbly ask his pardon on behalf of our contemporaries for the sin of abortion; trustingly we commend the souls of these innocent ones to his care; and we ask prayerfully for his help to continue to hope and work for a change of heart in human beings so that the right to life of unborn children will be protected and respected.