Feast date: Dec 28

The Holy Innocents are the children mentioned in the gospel of Matthew, chapter 2:16-18.

Herod, perceiving that he was deluded by the wise men, was exceeding angry, and sent his soldiers to kill all male children ages two and under that were in Bethlehem and on the boarders, according to the time which he had diligently inquired of the wise men. Then was fulfilled the prophesy of Jeremiah: A voice in Rama was heard, of lamentation and great mourning; Rachel bewailed her children, and would not be comforted, because they were not.

The Greek Liturgy asserts that Herod killed 14,000 boys, the Syrians speak of 64,000, and many medieval authors speak of 144,000, according to Rev. 14:3. Modern writers reduce the number considerably, since Bethlehem was a rather small town. Knabenbauer brings it down to fifteen or twenty (Evang. S. Matt., I, 104), Bisping to ten or twelve (Evang. S. Matt.), and Kellner to about six (Christus and seine Apostel, Freiburg, 1908).

This cruel deed of Herod is not mentioned by the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus, although he relates quite a number of atrocities committed by the king during the last years of his reign. The number of these children was so small that this crime appeared insignificant amongst the other misdeeds of Herod. Macrobius relates that when Augustus heard that amongst the boys of two years and under Herod's own son also had been massacred, he said: "It is better to be Herod's hog, than his son" alluding to the Jewish law of not eating, and consequently not killing, swine. The Middle Ages gave faith to this story, and Abelard inserted it in his hymn for the feast of Holy Innocents.

It is impossible to determine the day or the year of the death of the Holy Innocents, since the chronology of the birth of Christ and the subsequent Biblical events is most uncertain. All we know is that the infants were slaughtered within two years following the apparition of the star to the Wise Men (Belser, in the Tubingen "Quartalschrift," 1890, p. 361). The Church venerates these children as martyrs (flores martyrum); they are the first buds of the Church killed by the frost of persecution; they died not only for Christ, but in his stead (St. Aug., "Sermo 10us de sanctis").

The Latin Church instituted the feast of the Holy Innocents at a date now unknown, not before the end of the fourth, and not later than the end of the fifth century.

The Roman Station of December 28 is at St. Paul's Outside the Walls, because that church is believed to possess the bodies of several of the Holy Innocents. A portion of these relics was transferred by Sixtus V to Santa Maria Maggiore. The church of St. Justina at Padua, the cathedrals of Lisbon and Milan, and other churches also preserve bodies which they claim to be those of some of the Holy Innocents.

An 18th-century church in Edinburgh, Scotland, was desecrated on Christmas Eve, during the hours when the church was open for prayer between the Christmas Eve Vigil Mass and Midnight Mass.

“We ask prayers for reparation tonight on this Vigil of the Lord’s Nativity, for the attack upon the Child Jesus, taken from the throne above the altar; also for the desecration of relics in the Lady Chapel, violence at the crib in the side aisle, and blood spilled in the sanctuary, side chapel and nave,” St. Patrick’s Church said in a statement.

In a Christmas Day interview, Bishop Mark Seitz of El Paso, Texas, told NPR that the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement policies are “a great source of sadness for me, because I’ve had the opportunity to know so many [migrants] and know their stories, know their suffering.”

“I know that what they’re doing is exactly what any of us would’ve done to protect my family, to provide for their needs and protect them from danger,” he said, adding:

I think certainly my faith says that I need to welcome the stranger. I need to be concerned about the poor. And I don’t think that you can put a national designation on the person that Jesus would call us to care about and to serve. And I don’t think that we should look at that ability as being one that is limited by merely human limits, because we believe that it’s something that the Lord helps make possible when we work together in His name.

Father Raymond Njoku, an assistant priest at a parish in Ogbaku in Nigeria’s Imo State, was shot on Christmas Eve as he drove back to the parish rectory.

“His vehicle was riddled with bullets, but by God’s grace, none hit any vital organ,” an official of the Archdiocese of Owerri told the Lagos-based Vanguard. “His right hand was injured. He feigned death, and the gunmen fled.”

The head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church said in his Christmas message that “Christ comes to people in human flesh to transform them, to open up new perspectives for them, to bring joy where there is sadness, to warm where there is cold, to bring the heavenly light of hope where the enemy wants to plunge us into darkness.”

Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk offered Christmas greetings to “places that no human power can reach,” to “our brothers and sisters in the occupied territories and all those who remain in Russian torture chambers.”

Addressing children, the Major Archbishop said, “Do not be like those who are scared and shut themselves in their homes, but, like shepherds with joyous carols, go out to your neighbors, relatives, and friends and sing to them that ‘Heaven and earth are now rejoicing. Angels and people are celebrating joyfully!’”

Archbishop Adolfo Tito Yllana, apostolic nuncio to Israel and apostolic delegate to Jerusalem and Palestine, condemned an arson attack on the parish in the West Bank city of Jenin.

Vatican News reported that during the December 22 attack, “alleged radicalized young Muslims” vandalized a Christmas tree. Auxiliary Bishop William Shomali of Jerusalem traveled to Jenin to dedicate a new Christmas tree the next day.

The attack cast “a big, heavy shadow on the Christmas spirit’s joy that all our Christian communities, and even non-Christian, have begun to celebrate after two years of being limited to very simple manifestations,” said Archbishop Yllana. “We condemn this absolutely, because we are supposed to live as brothers here.”

In his Christmas homily, the vicar general of Trinidad and Tobago’s sole diocese spoke of fears that “Venezuela might bomb Trinidad, and so we have this specter. We have this darkness that is over us.”

“It is not a cause for despair, because Scripture tells us a light shines in the dark, and the darkness did not overcome,” said Father Martin Sirju, as he preached at the cathedral in Port of Spain, the nation’s capital.

Father Sirju also called on the wealthy not to hoard toilet paper and other supplies, but instead to remember the poor.

On Christmas Day, the head of the Syro-Malankara Catholic Church (CNEWA profile) spoke of a “contradiction” between the continued violence against Christians in India and Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s expressions of respect for Christians.

“On one side, the prime minister is taking part in Christmas celebrations,” said Cardinal Basilios Cleemis. “In another place, the opposite is happening.”

“Even after informing those in power and hearing assurances, when it comes to putting those statements into action, they have failed,” he added.

Cardinal Cleemis’s comments followed a statement from the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India condemning the “alarming rise in attacks on Christians in various states of our country.”

Cardinal Rolandas Makrickas, Archpriest of the Papal Basilica of Saint Mary Major, closed the basilica’s holy door on Christmas evening, as the 2025 jubilee year begins to come to a close.

“What is being closed is not divine grace, but a special time for the Church; while what remains open forever is the heart of merciful God,” said Cardinal Makrickas, who noted that 2025 was the first jubilee year since 1700 with two popes.

Under the altered schedule for the conclusion of the jubilee year, the archpriest of the Lateran Basilica will close the holy door there on December 27. The archpriest of the Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls will close the holy door there on December 28, and Pope Leo XIV will end the jubilee year with the closing of the holy door at St. Peter’s Basilica on January 6.

In his Christmas message, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem contrasted the “common refrain” of “violence, strength, and hatred” with the tenderness and love awakened by the birth of the Incarnation Son of God.

“God, through Jesus Christ, enters in our history, enters in our nights in the reality of the most fragile element we know, a newborn child, who is very fragile, in need of everything, dependent on everything, and very weak,” said Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, OFM.

“A newborn child awakes in everyone tenderness and love, and this is what we need especially in our time,” he added, “and we will continue to be as Christians a place of care, tenderness, and love, without limitations without borders; love without borders; this is what we need right now.”