February 9, 2020
When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Wise Men, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Wise Men. Then what was said through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled:
“A voice is heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning,
Matthew 2:16-18
Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted,
because they are no more.”
The babies of Bethlehem were totally vulnerable to the tyrannical fear of Herod. There was no advocate to plead their cause, no law or court they could appeal to, no public outcry. Snatched from the hysterical grasp of their mothers, their deaths were brutal. We shudder to contemplate such scenes of violence. Yet over the centuries they have been remembered and honoured annually in such ways as the Feast of the Holy Innocents.
Have you ever wondered how many children of Bethlehem were thus slaughtered? There have been astronomical numbers quoted: 14,000 and even higher. On the other hand, a more disciplined analysis – based on a population of Bethlehem in the time of Jesus to be around 300 people – would indicate around 10 to 15 baby boys killed.
That’s about the same number of teenagers from the Wild Boars soccer team in Thailand that were trapped in the Tham Luang cave in June 2018.
But the story of these kids is a vastly different story to that of the Holy Innocents. The only common element was their vulnerability. Having decided to “pop into” the cave before returning home from soccer practice, the members of the soccer team found themselves trapped by flooding waters nearly one kilometre underneath the mountain and some two kilometres from the mouth of the cave. In total darkness. Without food. For nine days. With no hope of getting out. Even after being discovered on the 10th day, it took another 8 days before they were all safely extricated from their tomb of darkness.
That exemplifies vulnerability. Threatened existence.
Their story is an extraordinary example of nations uniting together to save vulnerable children. Not only individual people acting, but governments; not only small groups but a multitude of agencies committed to the rescue of thirteen teenage kids – and their assistant coach – who were doomed to death. Their rescue was watched and acclaimed by billions around the world. An incredible feat of resilience on the part of the boys and their diminutive coach “Ake” Chantawong; an amazing story of courage on the part of the cave divers from all over the world, with a native Thai SEAL losing his life in seeking to find the boys; a heart-thumping story of people from different cultures, backgrounds, languages and ideologies coming together in a common task that seemed doomed to failure from the outset; finally, a creative story of risk-taking and discipline on the part of the Australian anaesthetist Richard Harries who carried the threat of failure and the possibility of life upon his shoulders.
Why are these so few such ventures? Why so few instances of a common and united reach-out to vulnerable children throughout the world? Consequently, so few times when a common humanity can rejoice with gladness in the rescue of children from their threatened existence.
There is no numbering the vulnerable children in our world, children whose lives are menaced by poverty, war, sickness, discrimination, political manoeuvring … and so on, and so on.
Finally, what has the united voice of the Church as an institution in society had to say about vulnerable children? Where are the loud cries of Church communities organizing for, advocating on behalf of, demanding an end to the interminable suffering of vulnerable children, children already born and children yet to be born?
The National Council of Bishops in America recently raised its fractured voice. It announced, though not unanimously, that their Number One priority this year was Abortion, the prevention thereof.
Is there not a quality of perversity here? To single out one sector only of children whose existence is threatened, those yet to be born. Thus – and deliberately – to ignore the vast numbers of children already born whose existence is daily threatened?
Let it be clear: this is not a numbers game. The fact that possibly 13 baby boys were killed by Herod instead of an impossible 14,000 DOES NOT LESSEN THE CRIME. It is the violence that matters, not the number; the murder of, the violence to, even one child is a crime against humanity.
If twelve of the Tham Luang cave boys survived the rescue but one had died, would there not have been an outpouring of grief for that one who perished?
All life is one. Children still in the womb are brothers and sisters to the multitude of children already born.
All life is precious. We do not quantify that one life is more precious than another.
The perversity of the statement by the Council of Bishops in America is that they have divorced unborn children from their world-wide brothers and sisters already born. They have quantified these children to a special status distinct from other children.
They could have announced their Number One priority was VULNERABLE CHILDREN! Then also raised their united voice against President Trump separating 5,000 children from their mothers and imprisoning them in cages in his Homestead venture.
Why? And Why Not? These are the questions.
Why single out Abortion as the Number One issue? Why not include all forms of violence and death against children? And campaign for all God’s children …
The Council of Bishops sided with Trump when he proclaimed there would be no abortions in America and cut funding to any and all NGOs working in third world countries who provide medical and life assistance to countless women in oppressive regimes. The Council of Bishops did not raise their united voice against Trump’s violence to children of illegal migrants.
So, as it is asked, what’s going on here? The National Council of American Bishops is fractured with the largest faction strongly pushing against Pope Francis. A smaller faction sought to make their statement more inclusive (of other issues). They were upholding the message of Pope Francis wherein the pope criticized the “ideological error” of people believing that “the only thing that counts is one particular ethical issue or cause that they themselves defend.”
“Our defence of innocent unborn, for example, needs to be clear, firm and passionate,” continued the pope. “Equally sacred, however, are the lives of the poor, those already born, the destitute, the abandoned and the underprivileged, the vulnerable infirm and elderly exposed to covert euthanasia, the victims of human trafficking, new forms of slavery, and every form of rejection.”
The church does so, the pope continued, by “serving the weakest and most marginalized, in particular forced migrants, who represent at this time a cry in the desert of our humanity” and are “the symbol of all those thrown away by our globalized society.”
The church, he said, “is called to testify that for God no one is a ‘stranger’ or ‘excluded.’ It is called to awaken consciences numbed by indifference to the reality of the Mediterranean Sea, which has become for many, too many, a cemetery.”
Inclusiveness in the response to vulnerable children will lead to support and advocacy for child victims of domestic violence, will prompt a search to understand why people – mothers and fathers – seek an abortion; it will lead a Christian community to campaign for social structures and attitudes that assist individuals, both married and single, in times of hardship and pressure. Inclusiveness will also blunt the image of a campaign that is focused on preventing a violation of God’s law to a campaign of compassion in the care for people.
The essence of Christian faith is not doctrine and law, it is the carrying on of the mission of Jesus as clearly detailed by Pope Francis. Keeping church law and carrying out prescribed rituals will be enlivened and enlightened by a faith that awakens us from slumber, calls us into the future, makes us attentive to the cry of the children. Children wherever they may be, of whatever colour and language they are and regardless of ideology and religion. True Christian faith is a dangerous faith, it has no boundaries, knows no limits and entails risk-taking.
Thus, inclusiveness will direct us into areas which may be politically and socially “messy”, areas that hold no fears for Pope Francis. He campaigns strongly for boat people and forced migrants as well as for a new ecological era wherein the future of today’s children will be more secure and the riches of the earth more evenly shared.
- Have we campaigned for the release of children from detention camps?
- Have we looked with compassion and understanding, rather than judgment and rejection, at the plight of indigenous children?
- Have we cried out for the abandoned children of former ISIS members and supported a campaign to bring them back to Australia?
- Have we cried for the victims of Australian paedophiles operating in south-east Asia?
- Have we sought a more open embrace of strangers and the excluded, as directed by Pope Francis?
At the Last Judgement we will not be asked about our sexual orientation, nor how many prayers we have said. We will be asked how we have fed the hungry and clothed the naked.
Perhaps we will also be asked how we heard the cry of the children and how we cried for the children.
