I like the feast of the Holy Innocents very much. It’s a feast for children. It’s also a bit of a beautiful mystery. How does the Church know that the Holy Innocents are in heaven? It is one of the most believable and beautiful feasts of the liturgical year, yet the least easily explained. What doctrine shows that the Holy Innocents are in Heaven? Is it simply the true tradition that they are? Is it something deeper?

The Holy Innocents didn’t die as martyrs who made a decisive, personal choice to cling to faith, nor did they receive Baptism. For that matter, could we be morally confident that their parents had initiated them all into the rites of the Judaism of the day, substituting for Baptism, if that is the criterion we choose to evaluate their entrance into Heaven?

Perhaps there is a simpler answer.

Here is what Marcel Văn says, in a letter dated 21 March 1950, regarding any children who die without Baptism:

During prayer this evening, while meditating once again on the goodness of Jesus towards children, I remembered the words that Jesus spoke to me concerning children not yet baptized… But I was very worried, asking myself if that was really the case of quite simply a figment of my imagination. So, Jesus came to me immediately to free me from this concern, saying clearly to me:

“That’s not a figment of your imagination but a true doctrine… If, because of circumstances, they were not able to receive baptism like the others, they have, however, the right to receive it.

“It is original sin that prevents them from enjoying sanctifying grace. Now, by virtue of my merits, original sin has been largely atoned for. Indeed, I have given the Church the power to retain and to remit sin. So why would the Church not have sufficient power to remit the original sin of these children, even if, because of circumstances they cannot receive baptism like other children?

“If the Church wishes it, these children are purified immediately, since the Church alone on earth possesses this power. Consequently, in this domain, no spiritual power can oppose her authority, even if non-religious parents did not wish their children to enjoy the grace of Redemption, since in this case, the will of the parents would be unjust in regard to an innocent child who does not yet have the use of reason. That is why the Church can freely exercise her authority and nothing can oppose it.”

It is true that Marcel gives these words to Jesus and they are certainly filtered through his own human nature, presumably from the highest and deepest and simplest parts of him, down to something more complicated which is able to articulate the words. There is margin for error. No doubt.

But the substance of what he says: Is it actually controversial? It is original sin that prevents unbaptized children from entering the Church of Heaven immediately. It is a power of the Church on earth to remit sin (Jn 20:23). If the Church militant, here on earth, decides that the merits of her members will be used to act as a way of removing sin for a group of children, such as the Holy Innocents, who have died without Baptism: then the will of the right person, the Church, is in it. What more can be said for or against?

This leaves but one question… If the will of the Church can apply to the Holy Innocents, what about all of children who have ever existed or ever will? Can the Church militant muster the strength to love them enough and actively, deliberately will the remission of their sins also, for all the time before the use of their own reason?