On the feast of St. Stephen, the first martyr, Pope Francis went to Rome’s Rebibbia Prison to open the holy door he established there. In his subsequent Angelus address (linked below), Francis focused on “martyrs” and those “persecuted.” And while he did not make an explicit connection to his prison visit, the suggestion of some connection was there (for more on this, see here).

It’s this kind of “what’s-said-though-not-explicitly-said” approach of Francis’s Vatican that I find disturbing, in part because I’m old enough to remember this as a tactic for advancing the “spirit” of “Vatican II” in the 1970s absent any explicit mandate to do certain things (e.g., Communion in the hand). It leaves “plausible deniability” while pushing an agenda.

“Martyrs” and those “persecuted” for their faith are not comparable to prisoners, most of whom are justly being punished for real crimes. Prison is not intrinsically evil, nor is its sole purpose rehabilitative. Society has a right to punish and make an example for the civil community. This morally benefits them as well as the larger community. If you want to see the consequences of not recognizing that fact, take a ride on the New York City subway any time — and especially late in the evening or before a holiday.

Blurring lines serves no one except those who want to hitchhike on established ecclesiastical teaching to advance their “progressive” agendas. St. Stephen was a martyr. He was never a “prisoner” as much as the victim of a lynch mob. Even if he was a “prisoner” (as Jesus was), those kangaroo trials are certainly not comparable to the normal due process found in most countries today.

But bait-and-switch is not limited to St. Stephen’s feast.

December 28 is the Feast of the Holy Innocents. Just three days after the birth of Jesus, the Church commemorates the massacre of baby boys in Bethlehem because of His birth. The liturgical calendar condenses what in real life probably took place over a much longer period (e.g., Herod’s targeting male infants two years of age or younger suggests some time had elapsed since the birth of “the newborn king of the Jews” about whom the Magi were supposed to report back). We commemorate the Holy Innocents before we even get to Epiphany, even though, chronologically, the two events would have occurred in opposite order. Herod’s massacre was certainly in keeping with his character, since he even executed his wife, Mariamne, as well as several of his own sons.

Ever since Roe v. Wade legalized abortion-on-demand-throughout-pregnancy in 1973, there have been those (myself included) who have thought the Feast of the Holy Innocents should also be more explicitly associated with what Protestant theologian David Noebel called the “slaughter of the innocents” by abortion. For Catholics, however, January 22 — Roe’s anniversary — acquired that association, especially since many Catholic parishes launched their buses for the March for Life with morning Mass that day and eventually a youth-focused Mass came to be celebrated that day in the Archdiocese of Washington. Eventually, too, the bishops designated January 22 as “Day of Prayer for the Legal Protection of the Unborn.”

With the demise of Roe, perhaps the association ought to be revisited. With Dobbs shifting abortion policy back to the states, there are those who question why we continue a national March for Life (which I believe is necessary). Even with the Constitutional roadblock Roe interposed to the protection of the unborn having been removed, we still face a culture of death where many voters freely choose to enact the abortion-on-demand regime Roe once compelled. January 22 remains a national focal point; December 28 would be a more Catholic one. We need both, to maintain the “moral ecumenism” of the pro-life movement and to re-sensitize Catholics to oppose what Vatican II called an “unspeakable crime” against God and man (Gaudium et spes, #51).

Which is why I want to warn loudly about what I consider a “bait-and-switch” operation against December 28.

Advocates of unrestricted or illegal immigration have sought to refocus December 28 as a feast of the “refugee” Holy Family, forced to leave Judea for Egypt. Two memorable forays into this bait-and-switch are social media posts by Fr. James Martin, S.J., and papal biographer Austin Ivereigh.

I decry this “bait-and-switch” because I consider it a subtle effort to revive Cardinal Bernadin’s old “seamless garment” approach to life issues. I have opposed that approach because it conflates issues in a way that downplays the gravity of the worst human offenses, abortion and infanticide. Yes, it’s nice to have a permanent home, a reliable income, and a better standard of living. But none of those things really matters if you are dead. So, before we start talking about the rest of “life” issues that are ultimately about quality of life (you can live, even if it’s harder, in an unstable country or in poverty), we need to handle abortion and infanticide, which are about living itself.

I also object to the seamless garment approach because I deem it a cloak to shield politicians (especially Democratic ones) that some bishops and USCCB lobbyists might like but differ with over abortion. The seamless garment lets both sides pretend that a politician who has voted 100% for abortion-on-demand might somehow be called “pro-life” (albeit in need of unending “dialogue”) because of his votes on other issues. The seamless garment has created unjustified moral equivalencies, if not in theory then in practical politics.

The effort to turn December 28 into a “refugee day” serves a similar purpose. It lets us acknowledge sotto voce the “unspeakable crime” of killing babies while tempering it by throwing in “see, good Catholics, you should also be backing our prudential judgments on immigration policy because the Holy Family fled persecution!” This sidelines the core and essential issue while slipping in the new political focus. As I have noted before: “the Church wears red because babies were dead, not because the Holy Family fled.”

Let us not forget that the significance of December 28 lies not just in the fact that Herod massacred infants. Its significance also lies in another persistent reality: that civil authority allows for killing as a legitimate policy option. Governments claim no absolute obligation to protect the sanctity of each and every human life, whereas life is an inalienable right not subject to majoritarian waiver. Whether it is Herod deciding that murder protects his political interests, Hitler seeking to protect German racial purity, New Yorkers saying that prenatal murder protects their “rights,” or Justin Trudeau pretending suicide with a doctor’s help is a legitimate “choice,” there is one common thread here: killing can sometimes be a legitimate policy option of the state. And that is something Catholics must uncompromisingly and unabashedly say: no it cannot.

Which is why the focus of December 28 must remain intact and unwarranted connections or associations resisted.

(A link to the Pope’s Dec. 26 Angelus address is here.)