It was a quiet night in Bethlehem. Maybe a few dogs might have barked at the two figures moving swiftly out of town on a donkey, the mother holding a precious Child warmly to her bosom. Perhaps the angel guiding their way from above alerted the few vigilant canines. Everyone else was sleeping, safe in their abodes. No harm could come to them in this refuge they called home. And then day broke.
One can only imagine the horror of that day. Soldiers storming about. Women shrieking in sorrow. The sound of swords doing their evil. Blood on the hands dripping to the stones. The murder of the innocents in Bethlehem. An image so horrible that one hides behind mere sweeping words to avoid the unmitigated evil. But can one hide for long? Is there any respite from such horror in a society ever more warped and sinister than that which called Herod their ruler?
Now, a little over 2000 years later, we once again have arrived at that day which recalls the slaughter of the Holy Innocents. No, it is not the feast of the Holy Innocents, commemorated by the Church on December 28th each year. Rather it is the feast of the abominable - the anniversary of the horrendous Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision that forever put a black mark on these United States and tore at the Sorrowful Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary whose Immaculate Heart this country is supposedly consecrated to.
Those images of an ancient horror in Bethlehem and surrounding areas mingle with a current one. Can the blood be distinguished? Is it not ironic, tragic, and revealing that Roe v. Wade came into being in the very week the Church commemorates so many martyrs? Perhaps irony has nothing to do with this. Perhaps the only message here is an unmitigated slap in the face to a society, which has surrendered itself to, for want of a better term, The Herod Principle.
An Ancient Evil Still Going Strong
There is ample evidence of infant sacrifice among many ancient societies, who would toss children into pits, dead or alive, as a sacrifice to the gods to seek some favor or, believe it or not, avoid some perceived calamity. Moses even warned the Israelites that they should avoid such peoples and their practices, which were obviously contrary to the Laws of God. This society likes to examine ancient societies as if they were ants in an ant farm. We like to make cursory and sweeping comments and judgments on their practices and lifestyles as if we were some all-knowing gods winking at ignorance. And, if we don't like what we see, well we just rewrite it to suit our modern narrow thinking. It's called revisionist history.
However, no matter how they spin it, are we not still as ignorant and evil as any ancient society could ever be?
Do we not still toss our infants into the pit of death as a sacrifice to our gods of materialism, convenience, comfort, selfishness, greed, and arrogance? Are we any different than the Aztecs who held human sacrifice as the ultimate high, offering up millions on the fires of their altars? This killing stopped only after Our Lady appeared at Guadalupe to a simple Indian - Juan Diego and, through the voice of this peasant - an entire civilization was converted. Think of it. Can it happen here?
We would like to think and hope so. When you compare the motives of the ancient pagans, the difference was that more often than not they offered virgins - unsullied and noble, if you can call such 'noble' - sacrifices to appease their gods. In other words, it was a 'sacrifice' - they gave up something. So, too, today this society gives up something with the 'sacrifice of the unborn' - its collective soul!
The fact is that this society is every bit as evil and selfish as any Herod or any barbaric nation could ever be. The difference is that civilization today has added a quite a bit more hi-tech, sinister methods and motives added to the recipe for extra flavor to hide their hideous deeds! Yet, no different than Herod. In fact, much worse, if that is possible. Sadly, it is!
The Herod Principle
We all know that Herod murdered innocent children because he was a warped, sick coward who would stop at nothing to keep his pathetic grasp on an even more pathetic crown. His actions reveal a principle we may "grace" with his name for posterity: The Herod Principle. The Herod Principle simply states that I am justified in doing whatever is necessary to maintain my lifestyle, my place, and my "crown" because this world is a jungle and it is up to me to protect my turf.
Children, the elderly, the infirm, are just obstacles in the way under the Herod Principle, and their death is merely collateral damage in the fight to keep what is mine, what I have "earned" through my sweat. There are not even the motives of sacrifice. It is pure selfishness.
Given this philosophy, the murder of the innocents at Bethlehem, in New York, Los Angeles, Wichita, or anywhere else and by anyone like Herod, is unavoidable and expected. The eraser used to remove the innocent is no longer fire, but chemicals. It is no longer swords, but clamps and scalpels. It is no longer a thirst for a royal crown, but a hunger for the slew of crowns which this lost society sells that motivates an inexcusable evil. Yes, sadly, the Herod Principle is alive and well and living in your neighborhood. The soldiers are not storming about looking for your young. They are waiting patiently for you to take your young for slaughter.
Our high-tech evil and hypocrisy has carried the Herod Principle to more detestable and disgusting depths. The hypocrisy of the New Order has carried this crime to the depths of depravity! While Herod's "reason" was surely a pathetic and evil one, he was clearly the enemy, the hunter, of those innocent lives. Who are the "enemies", the hunters, now? Either a society, which has allowed materialism, selfishness, and arrogance to blind its vision of humanity, of decency, or heartless ghouls who view their own children as hair to be cut when whim decides! Groups such as Planned Parenthood, NARAL, The National Organization of Women, or Reproductive Rights profit from murder, and waste no time or effort in pushing their agenda. Women and couples who need that bigger house, that better job, the extra car, the nicer outfit, the trip to Cancun, the better figure.
Greed and self are paramount. Think about it, a couple has just had an abortion and to ease the trauma they take a trip to Cancun or to Acapulco to forget; or an abortion doctor takes his family on a vacation to Cuernavaca. And what do they do? More often than not they play tourist and take a side trip to an ancient Mayan or Aztec ruin, the old pyramids and shudder to themselves that these barbaric peoples would sacrifice their own! "Oh, how could they?" they mutter outloud in mocked outrage. Talk about the beam in thine own eye!
They'll take a few snapshots or video of this savage site and then return to their modern hotels and all the comforts of Babylon. So dulled are their consciences, so much in denial they are that they will not associate the uncivilized behavior of the barbarians to the modern barbarians. After all, they are part of a more enlightened society. Man is evolving and because of this he is becoming a god himself. There is no need for the old out-moded rules and constricting boundaries. Today we are free. Tell that to the countless innocents slaughtered in the womb.
While Herod's reasons were pathetic, they were honestly evil. He made no bones about his plans. One does not need a PhD in history or psychology to figure out why he did what he did. He used simple, brute, unsophisticated methods to reach his detestable goal. What of this society? Is it not just as evil yet infinitely more hypocritical? Are our reasons ever more trivial, idiotic, cowardly, selfish? Are our justifications ever more pathetic, ironic, and insulting?
The New Order Mindset Intact
The New Order is all about comfort, self, "freedom", "rights", and spin. Life is located somewhere after convenience, financial status, personal comfort, and travel miles on the priority totem pole of the New Order. The Novus Ordo Seclorum and the Novus Ordo Ecclesiam come from the same cloth. They are more concerned with things of this world, then the next. Is this not evident from the emphasis placed on humanism by the New Order of Rome? Both New Orders are more concerned with protecting seals and trees than its own innocent children. Look at the scandalizing actions and inactions of the bishops from their covering up child abusers to failing to enforce excommunications of pro-abort Catholic politicians.
Idiots argue that women can do what they wish with their own bodies when the "body part" they are aborting has different genes and perhaps even a different blood type! Those same morons would not argue that a woman can kill herself or take drugs, but wouldn't that be doing what she wishes with her body? The same society that wants children to get parental consent to go to the zoo wants to ignore that consent when that child wants to kill her own unborn child! Hypocrites fight for "women's rights" because they want votes and power.
These are the same people who applaud liberal judges for removing the Ten Commandments from courtyards and fight for the rights to stage the "V Monologues" in their schools or community, to allow pornography and obscene art to go unchecked because of 'freedom of speech.' Yet the unborn have no freedom of speech. And anyone speaking up for them, well, we all know the liberals' tactics there. Freedom of choice at any cost, as long as it is what they choose.
If the New Order is not pushing this crime, it is drugging us with a pervasive apathy or helplessness or intimidation, which allows us to stand by while the murder continues.
It all begins with the language and approach taken with this clear and absolute evil.
It is not an issue or a debate or a controversy or a political position or something that calls for dialoguing over. It is murder plain and simple. To debate this crime as an issue is to fall prey to the New Order strategy of legitimizing wrong, debating it, and accepting it It is happening in our secular society and it is happening in our ecclesial society. Things that would have shocked even the most hardened offender thirty, forty years ago are accepted as the norm - 'what can you do?' - attitude today. Murder in the womb, sin itself, are of little importance today. It is the here and now that takes priority over the hereafter.
Yes, somewhere an innocent life is being put to the sword, but this time the hunter is mom and the society, which has convinced her that travel miles, income, and waistline inches matter more.
Meanwhile everyone seems to be in an amoral slumber, seemingly safe in their abodes of conformity. No harm could come to them in this refuge they call home. So also the growing fetuses of human beings, forming flesh in their mothers' wombs. The safest place in the world. No harm could come to them here. And then day broke.
The edict of Roe v. Wade swept in with the blood red dawning sun of January 22, 1973.
One can only imagine the horror of that day and every day since. Soldiers in smocks and masks storming about. Women shrieking in sorrow. The sound of scalpels and knives doing their evil. Blood on the hands dripping to the stones and to the boardrooms, backrooms and bank vaults of Planned Parenthood, NARAL, and the United Nations; innocent blood soaking into the chairs of Congress, the judicial benches; the ink turning red as it pours out over the print media and seeping onto the celluloid of Hollywood agenda-setters interested only in blood money; and the blood of the innocent unborn martyrs being ignored from the pulpits of lukewarm shepherds for fear of offending anyone. Not thousands, but millions upon untold millions of innocent lives sacrificed on the altar of convenience. Thirty-one years later we still haven't learned for the truth is we don't want to. It would upset our lifestyles and goals. Such is logic of The Herod Principle.
The Herod Principle
