The month of October is designated every year by the Bishops of the United States as Respect Life Month. The pro-life message is even more relevant this year when we consider all the energy and attention that has been given to the Covid-19 pandemic. Many lives have been lost to this virus and many heroic doctors and nurses have made great sacrifices to help the sick and the suffering. 

            Yet the lives lost to Covid-19 are still small compared to the lives lost to legalized abortion in our country. According to Worldometer,⁽¹⁾www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ the United States has had about 210,000 deaths from Covid-19 from January 2020 to the end of September. If this rate stays the same until the end of the year, the total number of deaths from Covid-19 in 2020 will be about 280,000 in the United States. The most recent statistics from The Guttmacher Institute (Planned Parenthood’s research arm which despite its flawed purposes normally has the best statistics on abortion) report that there are 862,000 abortions annually in the United States.⁽²⁾www.guttmacher.org/fact-sheet/induced-abortion-united-states. These numbers are from 2017, the most recent numbers available. It does not include deaths caused by abortifacients, such as the Pill, or In Vitro Fertilization. Assuming these statistics are true, think of all of the energy and time our nation has spent trying to end a plague which has claimed 280,000 lives rather than one that has claimed 862,000 lives. 

            Our nation has confused priorities, as if unborn children have not the same dignity as those who are older. Nonetheless, the United States is not the only nation in history that has blindly sacrificed its offspring without recognizing the consequences. Many nations in history have cultivated the horrific practice of child sacrifice, including God’s chosen people, the Israelites. 

            In this article, I will explain from the Scriptures the history of Israel’s practice of child sacrifice. I will focus on God’s final plea that came through His prophet, Jeremiah. This holy man, chosen while still in the womb, becomes a inspiration for those in the pro-life movement today, particularly for those who feel called to sidewalk counseling as the last opportunity before the murder of the unborn baby occurs, and then who suffer the consequences of their convictions. Jeremiah was the final prophet sent to God’s chosen people, calling them to repent. The Israelites refused to acknowledge their guilt and this refusal resulted in the worst calamity known in Israel’s history, the destruction of the Temple and the Babylonian exile. All of this becomes an ominous and frightening lesson for our own times. 

Child Sacrifice in the History of the Israelites

            Almost 1300 years before the birth of Christ, Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt, and the Lord gave the people a warning not to offer any of its children as sacrifices to the foreign god, Molech: “You shall not give any of your children to devote them by fire to Molech, and so profane the name of the Lord your God” (Leviticus 18:21, Deuteronomy 12:29-31).  Molech was one of the gods venerated by the people of Sepharvaim who were settled in Samaria, north of Jerusalem.  As a god, he was associated with human sacrifice, and making one’s children pass through fire (Leviticus 20:1-3, Deuteronomy 18:10; 2 Kings 23:10). 

            Nonetheless, when the Israelites finally entered the Promised Land they did not listen to the Lord’s warning: “They served their idols, which became a snare to them. They sacrificed their sons and their daughters to the demons, they poured out innocent blood, the blood of their sons and daughters, whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan; and the land was polluted with blood” (Ps 105: 34-38).  

            The most detailed account of child sacrifice in the Old Testament came during the 8^thand 7^thCentury B.C. The Jews were at that time divided into the northern kingdom of Israel, and the southern kingdom of Judah. The kingdom of Israel did evil in the sight of God by worshipping false gods, and even sacrificing “their sons as offerings” (2 Kings 17:17).  They were repeatedly warned by every prophet and seer, but they continued to turn their backs on God. Therefore, the Lord allowed their enemies, the Assyrians, to destroy them. The northern kingdom of Israel was captured and sent into exile in the year 721 B.C. (Cf. 2 Kings 17). Only the southern Kingdom of Judah was left. 

            Although the kingdom of Judah thought it was protected because it possessed the holy city of Jerusalem with the Temple of God, it was no more faithful than Israel. King Ahaz of Judah, who ruled from 735 – 715 B.C., made an alliance with the Assyrian king, Tiglath-pileser, out of fear of the Assyrians, which forced Judah to become a subordinate vassal to the Assyrian empire. This had religious consequences, such as accepting foreign cults. Not only did the people practice child sacrifice, but King Ahaz “even burned his [own] son as an offering according to the abominable practices of the nations whom the Lord drove out before the people of Israel” (2 Kings 16:3). 

            Nonetheless, the most offensive king was Manasseh, who ruled from 687 – 642 B.C. This king also made an alliance with the Assyrians, despite warnings from the prophets, which required that the religious cult of Assyria be maintained in Judah. Manasseh then severely offended the Lord by building altars to foreign gods where he “…burned his son as an offering” (2 Kings 21:6). The Scripture says that he did more evil than any other foreign nation until innocent blood “had filled Jerusalem from one end to the other” (2 Kings 21:16). The Lord’s wrath was kindled, and the Lord promised that He would bring tremendous evil to Judah by allowing their enemies to triumph over them: “I will wipe Jerusalem as one wipes a dish, wiping it and turning it upside down” (2 Kings 21:13). These words were to be fulfilled in the next generation of kings and prophets.

            After Manasseh’s reign, Amon ruled for two short years before being murdered, and his loyal son, Josiah, was proclaimed king of Judah, ruling from 640 – 609 B.C. However, unlike Manasseh, King Josiah proved to be faithful servant of God, a righteous king, who did what was pleasing to the Lord. Furthermore, because of the fall of the Assyrian empire, Josiah destroyed all of the altars to false gods built by Kings Ahaz and Manasseh, and burned all of their statues. He also went to “the location where child sacrifice was practiced”, called “Topeth”, in the “valley of the sons of Hinnon”. This valley was just outside the gates of the holy city of Jerusalem, on the southwest side of the city.  King Josiah destroyed all the altars in the valley of sons of Hinnon so that child sacrifice could no longer continue (Cf. 2 Kings 23:4-10).  

            Because of Josiah’s fidelity, the Lord promised that the punishment for the sins of Manasseh would not happen during his lifetime (2 King 22:18-20). However, the Lord was unrelenting in his fierce anger over the idol worship and child sacrifices during the reign of Manasseh, and the punishment would eventually come. “Still the Lord did not turn from the fierceness of his great wrath, by which his anger was kindled against Judah, because of all the provocations with which Manasseh had provoked him. And the Lord said, ‘I will remove Judah also out of my sight, as I have removed Israel’” (2 Kings 23:26-27, Cf. Jeremiah 15:4). 

Jeremiah: Judah’s Pro-life Activist

            During the time when this faithful King Josiah was ruling, God raised up a great prophet to bear the heavy burden of calling Judah to repentance. The Lord told Jeremiah, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.” (Jeremiah 1:5).  God’s holy words were placed in his mouth with the power “…to pluck up and to break down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant” (Jeremiah 1:10).  Although this was not needed during Josiah’s reign, the Lord was preparing Jeremiah for events that would occur after Josiah’s death.  

            King Josiah was killed in a battle with the Egyptians in 609 B.C., and his descendants who became kings once again returned to the evil practices of their fathers (Cf. 2 Kings 24). They worshiped false gods and condemned children to be sacrificed in the “valley of the sons of Hinnon”. 

            Jeremiah was about 30 years old when Josiah was killed and he would have witnessed Judah’s dramatic regression back to idol worship and child sacrifice. The time for which God had been preparing him had now arrived. Not only did God send Jeremiah to call the people to repentance, and to condemn their false prophets who told them lies (Cf. Jeremiah 23:16-17), but the Lord sent him directly to the kings of Judah, telling them to “do justice and righteousness.” (Jeremiah 22:3). He warned that if they did not change, God would forsake them by allowing the Babylonians to conquer them. Yet Judah and its kings would not repent and God explained it in plain terms: “[Judah] saw that for all the adulteries of that faithless one, Israel, I had sent her away with a decree of divorce; yet her false sister Judah did not fear, but she too went and played the harlot” (Jeremiah 3:8). 

            During one of the most dramatic points in the book, the Lord sent Jeremiah out of Jerusalem to the infamous “valley of the sons of Hinnon”, where the people “burn their sons in the fire” to foreign gods. As commanded by God, Jeremiah went down into this place of bloodshed with a potter’s earthen flask, calling the elders of the people and the senior priests of the Temple to join him there. Once gathered, he confronted these leaders with the reality that they have “filled this place with the blood of innocents” and that unless they stop, so much evil will fall on them, that “everyone who hears of it will tingle,” and the place will no longer be called “Topheth or the valley of the son of Hinnon, but the valley of Slaughter”. Finally, he smashed the flask in the sight of them all, crying out: “Thus says the Lord of hosts, ‘So I will break this people and this city, as one breaks a potter’s vessel, so that it can never be mended” (Cf. Jeremiah 19).

            This was too much for the priests of the Temple. The chief officer of the Temple, Pashhur, beat Jeremiah, and then put him in the stocks (Jeremiah 20:1-2). Jeremiah then began one of the most passionate prayers of despair in all of Scripture. “O Lord, thou hast deceived me, and I was deceived…I have become a laughingstock all the day; everyone mocks me” (Jeremiah 20:7-8). 

             Nevertheless, Jeremiah’s prophecies began to come true. During the reign of Zedekiah, the Babylonians, led by Nebuchadnezzar, came and destroyed Jerusalem in 587 B.C., and took the Israelites into exile. King Zedekiah, who remained obstinate to Jeremiah’s preaching, was taken captive to Riblah, his sons murdered in his sight, then his eyes were torn out. Still alive, he was led captive to Babylon to join the rest of Judah’s exiles (2 Kings 25:7). 

            Most horrific of all for the Jews, the glorious Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem was destroyed. This was the holy place where God dwelled among them but now it was no more. However, Jeremiah, having received an oracle from the Lord, had the Ark of the Covenant smuggled out ahead of time and sealed in a cave (Cf. 2 Maccabees 2:1-8). The Ark of the Covenant would never be found again. Scripture explains that all this was due to the shedding of innocent blood by Manasseh who allowed child sacrifice, and he even sacrificed his own son in the valley of the sons of Hinnon. (2 Kings 24:3-4, Jeremiah 32:35). The Babylonian exile was the worst destruction that ever fell upon the Israelites in all the Old Testament.

            One last prophecy of Jeremiah was still to come true. When Jeremiah was in the valley of the sons of Hinnon, he prophesied that it would now become a cursed name (Jeremiah 19:6). In Hebrew, the valley is called Gehinnom, which was made into the Greek word, Geenna, which eventually became Gehenna. In the times of the New Testament, this valley of Gehenna became a dump for permanently burning rubbish, and became synonymous as the place of eternal torment reserved for the damned after death. Christ Himself refers to Gehenna numerous times during His ministry, stating that this was the place where the damned would eternally suffer (Matt 5:22, 5:29, 10:28, 18:9). Hence, the place where countless babies were sacrificed became the place of hell. 

Lessons for Today

             It is not difficult to see the similarity between the callousness towards child sacrifice in the time of Jeremiah and the callousness toward legalized abortion today. Many people have grown accustomed to these inhuman crimes and accept it as part of our culture. Pope St. John Paul II effectively summarized this attitude in his encyclical Evangelium Vitae:

“But today, in many people’s consciences, the perception of its gravity has become progressively obscured. The acceptance of abortion in the popular mind, in behavior and even in law itself, is a telling sign of an extremely dangerous crisis of the moral sense, which is becoming more and more incapable of distinguishing between good and evil, even when the fundamental right to life is at stake. Given such a grave situation, we need now more than ever to have the courage to look the truth in the eye and to call things by their proper name, without yielding to convenient compromises or to the temptation of self-deception.”⁽³⁾Evangelium Vitae, 58.

             There is an obvious similarity between Jeremiah and the pro-life activist of today: Both are moved by the Spirit of God to go to the sight where children are being killed: Jeremiah to the “valley of the sons of Hinnon”, the pro-life activist to the abortion mills. Both go and proclaim the word of God, stating that this is a place of violence and destruction. Both find themselves unwelcome, and even beaten and arrested. Both find that they are mocked by society for their conviction that killing children is gravely immoral. They discover that calling people to account for abandoning God and practicing child sacrifice is a superhuman task and is bound to bring moments of great sorrow.  

            While there is “a grave and clear obligation to oppose [abortion] by conscientious objection”,⁽⁴⁾Ibid., 73. and the need for both judges and legislators who will defend innocent human life, Pope St. John Paul II says there is something even more fundamental that is needed today: the need to build a “culture of life”: People must be educated about the true meaning of human sexuality, the beauty of motherhood, and the essential role of the family. Within ourselves, John Paul II calls us to cultivate a “contemplative outlook”. He writes: “This outlook does not give in to discouragement when confronted by those who are sick, suffering, outcast or at death’s door. Instead, in all these situations it feels challenged to find meaning, and precisely in these circumstances it is open to perceiving in the face of every person a call to encounter, dialogue and solidarity.”⁽⁵⁾Ibid., 83.

            There are many heroes who have been preaching and living this message today; and at the same time, there are many who obstinately persist in promoting the culture of death. Should the story of Jeremiah be a warning for the United States of America since we continue down this path of death? History reveals that child sacrifice was a major factor in the annihilation of Israel and Judah. I possess no prophetic word on this question, but Scripture has many other examples where the Lord punishes entire cities and regions for their collective sins. For example, Jesus rebukes numerous cities in St. Matthew’s Gospel, telling them of imminent destruction because they refused to repent: “You shall be brought down to Hades” (Cf. Matthew 11:20-24).⁽⁶⁾Cf. Psalm 105:40-42; Revelation 2-3. Certainly we cannot expect God’s favor as long as we allow the legal killing of our precious offspring.  

            We do have one major advantage that Jeremiah did not possess: The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. This daily re-presentation of Jesus Christ Crucified to God the Father does infinitely more to please God than all that sinners can do to displease Him with their murderous crimes. Let us continue to give witness to human life, uniting our prayers and works with the Holy Mass, trusting in God’s abundant mercy.