Dr. Christopher West gave a seminar for Word on Fire Institute Members in December 2025 in which he said something that reframed my thinking about abortion. The essence of a comment he made was that our ability to procreate is something that the demons are jealous of, and our capacity to engender new life in the image of God makes them furious.
I thought of his comments again a few weeks after the seminar on December 28 when we celebrated the Feast of the Holy Innocents. The Gospel reading that day set the stage: The wise men seek out Jesus to pay him homage and change their route home after being warned in a dream to avoid Herod. Then, an angel appears to tell St. Joseph to flee to Egypt because Herod is going to search for the child to destroy him. St. Matthew then tells us that “when Herod saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, he was infuriated, and he sent and killed all the children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old or under” (Matt 2:13–18).
Herod is infamous for his jealousy and ambition but also his murderous temperament. His insecurity-driven paranoia drove him to kill even those in his family nearest and dearest to him. In this case, his sages had told him that the star in the east that the wise men were following indicated the coming of “a ruler who is to shepherd Israel.” A hint of competition for the old tyrant threw him into a murderous rampage, and innocent little boys were ripped from their mothers’ arms and murdered at his command.
What is it about children that can incite such fear? In Herod’s case, we know it was the threat of competition—a new ruler of Israel. But what about the seventy-three million abortions that take place worldwide every year? Is there a similar motive—that is, a fear of competition? Maybe. Research has shown that there are overlapping reasons women choose abortion—like unintended pregnancy, economic circumstances, a child interfering with a mother’s life goals, and others. So, yes, I suppose competition is involved—an infant’s demand for attention and care shifts one’s focus from themselves to another.
But there must be something deeper. There is something so unnatural about a mother killing her child.
I would suggest that Christopher West has identified the real cause: The hellish agents of evil have contempt for human life. They are filled with envy and resentment toward the human capacity to reproduce the divine image, and they use whatever influence they can have on the hearts and minds of vulnerable persons to move them to destroy the life they carry within them. They can’t attack God, so they attack the image of God, the imago Dei.
All abortions are evil, but there is one category that is particularly abhorrent: selective abortion. That is, the targeted attack on the unborn who have shown characteristics we reject, like those prenatally diagnosed with Down syndrome or another prenatally identifiable condition—or even on account of the child’s sex! In the US, the number of abortions of babies prenatally diagnosed with Down syndrome, according to the latest available research, is about 4,100, or 74 percent. Doesn’t that make you think that the demons have a special fear or hatred of those who may remain pure in heart throughout their lives?
Psalm 8 is relevant here and may provide a deeper understanding of this diabolical mass slaughter of innocents. Toward the beginning of this great hymn of wonder at God’s creation, the Douay-Rheims translation renders the key phrase in verse 3 this way: “Out of the mouth of infants and of sucklings thou hast perfected praise, because of thy enemies, that thou mayst destroy the enemy and the avenger.”
So there we have it. In his murderous rage, we know that Herod had his goons kill every male child under two in the region around Bethlehem to silence the one who he feared would triumph over his evil rule. Maybe these modern-day variations of holy innocents whose praise can destroy the enemy are murdered to silence their voices? It isn’t only the babbling of babes that makes a joyous sound of praise but also the voices of praise that rise from pure hearts that may remain innocent.
St. James affirmed, “The prayer of the righteous is powerful and effective” (Jas 5:16). The psalmist assures us that the prayer of innocence can be a profound instrument in spiritual warfare.
So maybe we’re getting to the real cause of this culture of contempt for human life that results in the mass slaughter of innocents in the womb.
What else other than demonic influence and deceit can explain the assaults against human life that appear to be growing in strength in our culture?
St. Paul wrote to the Thessalonians and warned them that “the mystery of lawlessness is already at work”: “The coming of the lawless one is apparent in the working of Satan, who uses all power, signs, lying wonders, and every kind of wicked deception for those who are perishing, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved” (2 Thess 2:7–10)
Other translations render “mystery of lawlessness” as “mystery of iniquity,” but whatever the term, both point to the same reality. Some people aren’t comfortable with talk of demons influencing human behavior, but with the increase in requests for exorcisms and them being made more public in podcasts and movies, perhaps more people are now facing the reality that St. Paul told us of long ago. In these times of so many attacks against human life, we need a mature appreciation of the mystery of iniquity and how it manifests all around us in the culture of death.
St. Paul didn’t shy away from acknowledging the “working of Satan” when he warned the Thessalonians that the “mystery of lawlessness” was “already at work” with “power, signs, lying wonders, and every kind of wicked deception.” What could be a more wicked deception than the belief that killing an innocent child through abortion is a good to be celebrated and protected in law? The demons hide well and cause some to not believe they’re real. The enemy of life is principalities and powers, not flesh and blood (Eph 6:12).
Pope St. John Paul II taught that the Holy Spirit demonstrates every sin by its relationship to the cross of Christ and the “entire dimension of evil proper to it, through the ‘mysterium iniquitatis’ which is hidden within it” (Dominum et Vivificantem 32).
This mystery of lawlessness is at the root of every sin because every sin is a rebellion against the power of the cross of Christ. Christopher West’s assessment provides a logical reason mothers can violate nature to the point that they kill their babies. What else other than demonic influence and deceit can explain the assaults against human life that appear to be growing in strength in our culture?
Herod was an iconic representation of the mysterium iniquitatis, and the psalmist points to the reason for the demons’ fury—their utter contempt for innocence. But there is good news, an antidote to the mysterium iniquitatis, and it is a mystery that conquers sin: the mystery of the cross of Jesus. The counterforce to defeat the mystery of lawlessness is the mysterium pietatis, the deep hidden mystery of God’s love and his merciful action in salvation history that brought to us the great gift of the Incarnation.
Pope St. John Paul II wrote in Reconciliatio et Paenitentia that “this same mystery of God’s infinite loving kindness toward us is capable of penetrating to the hidden roots of our iniquity in order to evoke in the soul a movement of conversion, in order to redeem it and set it on course toward reconciliation.”
St. John closes his first letter with these beautiful and encouraging words:
We know that we are God’s children, and that the whole world lies under the power of the evil one. And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding so that we may know him who is true; and we are in him who is true, in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life. (1 John 5:19, 20)
The mysterium iniquitatis and the mysterium pietatis are written into the deepest reality of temporal existence. We live under the power of the evil one, but we must cling to Jesus for our safety and security. “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.”
Spiritual weapons are needed to fight spiritual battles: Prayer and fasting fortified by the prayer of the innocents. Spiritual tools protect our innocents from the murderous rage of the evil one.