FROM “The Slaughter of the Holy Innocents and the Value of Children” by the Rt. Rev. William Stang, D.D. Bishop of Fall River, 1905:
There is a massacre of innocents going on, and though we do not hear the cries of mothers or the moans of little children, yet the slaughter is more cruel than that of King Herod recorded in St. Matthew’s Gospel, for it deprives of physical and spiritual life; it sends children unbaptized into eternity, and brings about race suicide. And not only is thie destruction of the child’s life within the nine months before its birth a fearful deed forbidden by the fifth commandment of God, but any wilful act or desire to prevent human life, in any shape or form, is a crime against Nature which the God of Nature will visit with dreadful punishments. The small family, brought about by the effective wish of husband and wife, is an immoral condition which ruins souls and bodies. Those who set limits to divine Providence by preventing the offspring, violate the holy laws of God, defeat the end for which marriage was instituted, brutalize the sacred relations between man and wife, and criminally contribute to the physical, mental and moral degeneracy of the nation.
The small family is the result of religious decay in the land. Wherever religion flourishes, homes are thronged with happy children; where religion has disappeared, horses, dogs and cats are given the care that belongs to human beings. Want of confidence in a God who provides with fatherly solicitude for all His children makes a man dread a large family. A low view of the end of human life, a frantic, suicidal craze for sensual pleasure and enjoyment, are further causes of the ugly evil.
The woman who avoids the trials of childbirth is degrading herself. Her highest glory is to bear children, and thus to be the co-worker of God, who entrusts to her maternal care what He has best in all creation, a human being. Motherhood is woman’s highest crown. Mary, the highest type of womanhood, appears loveliest and most charming when holding the divine Infant in her arms. We learn from the Old Testament how highly motherhood was prized among Hebrew women, while barrenness was considered as a great affliction. Every Christian woman appreciates the dignity of motherhood and is willing to risk her health and life itself in order to bring children into the world. She scorns the unnatural and unscientific advice of the doctor to refrain from the noble duties of maternity; she knows her life to rest securely in God’s hands. She realizes that God alone can give and take life, that He sends the child, and father and mother welcome it as a heavenly guest.
