With Fr. Dom Helder Camara

Herod was  furious on realizing he had been fooled by the wise men, and in Bethlehem and its surrounding district he had all thee male children killed who were two years old and less, reckoning by the date he had been careful to asked the wise men (Mt.2:16)

The massacre of the Innocents, Dom Helder: Don’t you get the feeling that it is still going on?

Yes, I do. And this is the form, as I see it; the massacre of the Innocents takes today.

It’s not for me to judge. I don’t really know who are directly responsible. But my own feeling is that, rather have the guts to face up to the radical changes which the politics, for instance, of the international trade now require, some wealthy countries find it easier to hand out pills all over the world and in particular to the poor. At the same time they promote the idea that if there is no development in underdevelopment countries, this is because the poor don’t understand the need of the birth control.

Instead of radical rethinking of the relation between industrialized countries and poor countries that produce the raw materials, it is much more convenient to spread the idea that the poor should limit the children they have.

But that’s all wrong! The cause of under-development isn’t population explosion; it’s the explosion of self-centeredness. The day we manage to control self-centeredness, to revise in depth. The structure of injustices, we shall see that God was not mistaken in creation.

There’s enough land for everyone, there’s enough food for everyone. But as long as we put profit to humanity, we shall always end up with this same idiotic situation: over production here, under nourishment there. It’s incredible, in the age of computer and space travel: the human race, as far  as brain- power is concerned, shows that it truly shares in God’s creative power, yet it comes to will-power, we’re still no better than monkeys. We’re unable to overcome our own selfishness.

That’s why the Massacre of the Innocents still goes on.