The massacre of the Holy Innocents and the return of the Herodian state

Posted by Brendan Malone

Today the Catholic Church commemorates the Massacre of the Holy Innocents.

It is on this day that we remember the vile act of infanticide carried out by King Herod the Great, who ordered the killing of all males under the age of two in Bethlehem because he considered the young King of the Jews to be a serious threat to his power, wealth and status.

The cruel brutality and evil of this act stands in stark contrast to the joyful celebration of the birth of Christ that we commemorated just three days ago.

Sadly, the Herodian state, which considers some young human beings to be such a great threat that eliminating them becomes an acceptable thing to do, did not die with the passing of King Herod.

Only weeks ago a cross-party select committee in our own country issued a report which called the act of aborting an unborn human being an ?important human right?, and which suggested that NZ abortion laws should be further liberalized.

Just like the unplanned Messiah, NZ?s own unplanned children are considered, by many, to be a threat to some perceived future happiness.

Herod carried out his act of infanticide in order to secure his future, yet the grand irony is that within 10 years of doing this he would be dead, and less than 70 years after that his crowning masterpiece of power and status, the Second Jewish Temple, would be completely destroyed by the Romans.

So it is today, where many women, men, couples and families now carry around the hidden scars of an act that they were led to believe was going to bring them future happiness and security, not loss and pain.

Ultimately we all suffer when we live under a Herodian state where human life is valued based solely on some subjective criteria or utilitarian outcome.

As Pope Francis recently reminded us in his Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium (emphasis added):

?[The] defence of unborn life is closely linked to the defence of each and every other human right. It involves the conviction that a human being is always sacred and inviolable, in any situation and at every stage of development. Human beings are ends in themselves and never a means of resolving other problems. Once this conviction disappears, so do solid and lasting foundations for the defence of human rights, which would always be subject to the passing whims of the powers that be?

I recently saw an Internet meme doing the rounds which read: ?What if the cure for cancer is trapped inside the mind of someone who can?t afford an education??

My first thought was; ?what if the cure for cancer has been lost to the world along with someone we have already aborted??