The Holy Family, the Holy Innocents and the Flight into Egypt

A voice was heard in Ramah, sobbing and loud lamentation; Rachel weeping for her children, and she would not be consoled, since they were no more- Matthew 2:18

December 28 is the usually the Feast of the Holy Innocents, the boys of Bethlehem two years old and younger who were massacred by order of King Herod in his attempt to kill the newborn King of the Jews This year, December 28 falls on the Sunday after Christmas, which is the Feast of the Holy Family on the General Roman Calendar. The Gospel for this feast is about the Flight into Egypt, which was a reaction to the attempt by Herod to kill the newborn king of the Jews by massacring all boys in Bethlehem two years old and younger. Because it is Year A, the Gospel reading for the Holy Family is taken from the Gospel according to Matthew and is about the Flight into Egypt, which occurred after an angel warned St. Joseph about Herod’s plans in a dream. However, the Lectionary skips over the reference to the massacre itself so most Catholics will not hear about the Holy Innocents this year.

Holy Innocents: Patrons of the Pro-Life Movement

Members of the pro-life movement have long seen the Holy Innocents as special patrons of the unborn, in danger from abortion. It is not difficult to see the parallels between the Holy Innocents and the modern victims of abortion. The victims of abortion are murdered because they are inconvenient. They are threats to the lifestyles and “freedom” of their parents. Their mothers and fathers pay for their murder out of fear, just as Herod ordered the slaughter of the Innocents out of fear that he would be supplanted by the newborn King of the Jews. Although the mothers are often complicit in the murder of their children, unlike the mothers of the Innocents, more often than not, when the mothers fully realize what they have done, there is guilt, regret and “sobbing and loud lamentation; Rachel weeping for her children”

 The political power aspect is even more pertinent given the politicizing of the abortion issue since the Roe v. Wade decision in 1973. Thanks be to God, Roe was overturned in 2022 with the case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, but that decision did not criminalize abortion throughout the country. Rather, Dobbs returned the question to the states, allowing them to make their own policy on the issue. Currently only 13 states outright ban abortion, while 13 others are considered "hostile" to abortion by the Center for Reproductive Rights. While Democrats are not directly ordering the deaths of unborn children as Herod ordered the deaths of the Innocents, they have pledged to support and expand access to abortion and “reproductive rights.” Ultimately, they support the murder of unborn children in the womb out of political convenience. What is worse, is that there are some in their number, who, even by their own admission, are “personally opposed” to abortion, let tow the party line and support “a woman’s right to choose” in order to not to lose votes or even be rejected from their political party, which has made it abundantly clear that dissent on the abortion issue will not be tolerated.

GOP: God's Own Party?

Of course, this wholesale support for what is arguably the greatest evil the nation, to say nothing of the world, has ever seen by one of the nation’s two major political parties has led Christians, including many Catholics, to wholeheartedly support the opposing party, if only as the lesser of two evils. This has led to the further polarization of the two sides of the political debate and the exacerbation of dualistic dichotomy between the two parties. This had the sad effect of many automatically rejecting anything stated by the other side, without stopping to consider the argument on its own merits.

This is perhaps seen most clearly on the issue of immigration, which has been all over the news since President Donald J. Trump, became the second President to win non-consecutive terms in 2025. Trump’s immigration policies have been roundly condemned by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, as well as Leo XIV, the first American born Pope, who ascended the Throne of St. Peter, less than five months after Trump’s second inauguration.

Politicizing Christmas

Before the Trump presidency, the Christmas narrative had largely belonged to the Christian Right. Not only was there the anti-abortion angle of Herod’s slaughter of the Innocents, but Christ’s birth itself came to be seen as a “crisis pregnancy” with the Virgin Mary as an unwed teenage mother who chose life.

This is, of course, inaccurate as Mary was betrothed to Joseph, which in Jewish culture meant that she was legally married but just had not come to live with her husband yet. If this were not the case, Joseph would not have been contemplating divorcing her quietly. Nevertheless, this does not negate Our Lady’s fiat in agreeing to become the Mother to the Son of God, a baby whose father was not her husband. Thus, it fell to St. Joseph to trust the message of the angel that the baby with whom Mary was pregnant was “conceived of the Holy Spirit.” (Although there are some who would argue that St. Joseph never doubted the purity of his wife, and for that reason wanted to divorce her out of “fear and awe” this is clearly not supported by the plain text of Scripture.)

Not willing to let the Religious Right monopolize the debate on Christian values in the political sphere, the Christian Left had already weaponized the exhortations to care for the poor in both the Old and New Testaments in an effort to draw Christian values voters to the Left. However, with immigration, the Left now had an issue with which to stake a claim on the Christmas narrative as well. Ironically, it would focus on the exact same story that the Right used for the pro-life cause.

Jesus, Mary and Joseph: Holy Family of Immigrants

The Left began to equate the Holy Family with the migrants fleeing danger in Latin America and trying to reach safety in the United States. As the Right did with their pro-life comparison, however, facts were sometimes ignored in order to make the comparison. Joseph and Mary, after all, were not refugees when they travelled to Bethlehem, despite their inability to find a place to stay. Joseph and Mary were travelling to Bethlehem in obedience to a legal order from the lawful secular authority (Caesar Augustus) to travel to the territory of Joseph’s ancestry in order to be enrolled for purposes of taxation. (Take that, Libertarians!) Furthermore, they were travelling within the geographic territory of the Roman province in which they lived, which at that time was all under the rule of King Herod.

This is a much more significant inaccuracy than Our Lady not being an unwed mother. However, the Holy Family do become refugees after the birth of Our Lord and specifically after the visit of the Magi. The angel appears to St. Joseph in a dream and warns to flee to Egypt in order to protect the Baby Jesus from being murdered by Herod. Although Aegyptus and Iudaea were both provinces of the Roman Empire, it was very much a foreign country for the Holy Family. Moreover, regardless of the jurisdictional authority, leaving one’s homeland in fear for the life of one’s child is exactly what refugees do. And it was the same situation that immigrant advocates claim is faced by most of the families attempting to cross the border with Mexico into the United States, who are being denied asylum by the Trump administration.

"We will not obey the king’s words by turning aside from our religion to the right hand or to the left."-I Maccabees 2:22

Thus the same Gospel account becomes a weapon in the culture war between the Religious Right and the Christian Left. What is most frustrating is that the advocates of the pet causes of pro-life on the Right and immigration on the Left will absolutely reject any argument in favor of the opposite cause. An immigrant advocate might mention the plight of immigrant children and get “What about the unborn children?” in response, and vice versa. Even a truly pro-life person on the Christian Left will often justify supporting a Democrat candidate against Trump and other Republican candidates because they believe it “do more good” to oppose his policies, especially since his opposition to abortion is half-hearted at best, even with Catholic J.D. Vance as his Vice-President.  

It must be stated that abortion is the far graver moral evil. Unborn babies are murdered. Children have died in the custody of ICE. This is an unmitigated tragedy but the goal of these detention camps (unlike the Nazi extermination to which they are so often ridiculously compared) is not to kill the children or their parents. The attitude of many towards these immigrants, and the way they are being treated, is unquestionably an affront to human dignity but not an intrinsic evil like abortion. Even attempting to end the treatment of and policies toward immigrants is not a valid reason to vote for a Democrat who supports abortion (and nearly all of them do).

However, as Catholics we follow the whole Gospel: not just the parts that conveniently line up with our political beliefs. We cannot truly welcome Our Lord and His Holy Family, hidden in today’s refugees, if it causes us to ignore or minimize the plight of today’s Holy Innocents, massacred in the name of convenience. And we cannot fight for the right to life of the modern Holy Innocents if we refuse to welcome Our Lord, Jesus Christ hidden among those coming across the border, lest we hear Him say to us,  “ I was a stranger and you did not welcome me” (Matthew 25:43)