Should Herod’s Record Be Expunged?

It being Christmastime, naturally, thoughts turn to King Herod, one of the great villains of history. Without Herod ​— ​the erstwhile King of Judea ​— ​there would have been no mandated Census forcing Mary and Joseph’s journey to register in Bethlehem. And without that Census, the Baby Jesus would never have wound up in some manger surrounded by barnyard animals. And without that, the whole Nativity scene never happens and a crèche industry plummets.

Given our current president’s penchant for tough-guy, gangster dictators, I was half expecting to read he’d issued Herod a posthumous pardon. After all, there’s some scholarly evidence suggesting that maybe Herod got a bad rap. Maybe he, too, has been the subject of a vast witch hunt. Short of an outright pardon, I would have expected a shout-out ​— ​from one historical world leader who knows you can’t make an omelet without breaking a few legs to another. 

It’s worth noting that any such parallels did not escape the notice of Pope Francis, capo di tutti i capi of the world’s oldest and biggest religious bureaucracy. During a speech in Thailand earlier this month, the Pontiff decried the treatment of refugees throughout the world. Getting a little personal when it comes to Trump, Pope Francis noted, “In other parts, there are walls that even separate children from parents.” After a brief pause, the Pontiff added, “Herod comes to mind.”