My dear brothers and sisters in Christ,
Today Holy Mother Church commemorates one of the most sobering feasts of the liturgical year: the beheading of St. John the Baptist. The Gospels tell us the harrowing account of a prophet silenced by a cowardly ruler, a corrupt court, and a vengeful woman. Yet though John’s head was severed from his body, his voice was not silenced. The Baptist still cries out across the centuries: “Do penance: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matthew 3:2).
The Church dares not forget this voice, for in every age the truth faces the fury of the powerful. In every age, cowardice conspires with sin to suppress the inconvenient demands of God’s law. And in every age, God raises up witnesses who refuse to bend.
Let us begin with the Gospel account, taken from St. Mark:
“For Herod himself had sent and apprehended John, and bound him in prison for the sake of Herodias, the wife of his brother Phillip, because he had married her. For John said to Herod: It is not lawful for thee to have thy brother’s wife. Now Herodias laid snares for him; and was desirous to put him to death and could not. For Herod feared John, knowing him to be a just and holy man; and kept him, and when he heard him, did many things: and he heard him willingly. And when a convenient day was come, Herod made a supper for his birthday, for the princes, and tribunes, and chief men of Galilee. And when the daughter of the same Herodias had come in, and had danced, and pleased Herod, and them that were at table with him, the king said to the damsel: Ask of me what thou wilt, and I will give it thee. And he swore to her: Whatsoever thou shalt ask, I will give thee, though it be the half of my kingdom. Who when she was gone out, said to her mother, What shall I ask? But her mother said: The head of John the Baptist. And when she was come in immediately with haste to the king, she asked, saying: I will that forthwith thou give me in a dish, the head of John the Baptist. And the king was struck sad: yet because of his oath, and because of them that were with him at table, he would not displease her. But sending an executioner, he commanded that his head should be brought in a dish. And he beheaded him in the prison, and brought his head in a dish; and gave it to the damsel, and the damsel gave it to her mother” (Mark 6:17-28).
St. John stood before a king and declared, “It is not lawful for thee to have thy brother’s wife.” He risked everything for the sanctity of marriage and the truth of God’s law.
The world today would tell us to keep quiet, to go along, to accept sin for the sake of peace. But John’s witness declares: silence in the face of sin is complicity.
Notice the Gospel’s chilling line: “And the king was struck sad: yet because of his oath, and because of them that were with him at table, he would not displease her.”
Herod knew John was righteous. He admired him. He even “heard him willingly.” Yet when the moment of truth came, he chose public opinion over fidelity. He chose the applause of men over obedience to God.
How many leaders today mirror Herod? How many bishops and priests hear the truth, admire the truth, yet when the cost comes – fear the crowd, fear the press, fear Rome, fear the elites – and betray their conscience?
Pope St. Pius X once warned: “The greatest obstacle in the apostolate of the Church is the timidity or rather the cowardice of the faithful.”
Herod was not alone in his sin. Herodias thirsted for vengeance. Herod’s courtiers enabled his oath. The dancers, the flatterers, the banquet guests – all were complicit.
So too in our time, sin spreads not only because of those who rage against the truth, but because of those who look away. St. Gregory the Great teaches: “For often the fault of the pastor is the ruin of those who follow him, since, if he wander from the way of truth, he carries away with him, through his bad example, the flock which he leads.”
When shepherds fail to speak, when the faithful choose comfort over courage, evil advances.
Though John’s head was severed, his voice is not silenced. Our Lord Himself said of John: “ … Amongst those that are born of women, there is not a greater prophet than John the Baptist…” (Luke 7:28).
The blood of John cries out as the blood of Abel once did. It is the cry of every martyr: truth cannot be slain.
We must look honestly, my brothers and sisters: Are we like John, fearless in proclaiming God’s law? Or are we like Herod, knowing the truth but bowing to pressure?
The Church today faces Herods in political halls and even in the hierarchy. There are Herodiases who rage against the truth of marriage, family, and the sanctity of life. There are courtiers – journalists, academics, even clerics – who applaud the lies of the age.
But there must also be John the Baptists: men and women unafraid to say, “It is not lawful.”
Pope Pius XII declared: “The sin of the century is the loss of a sense of sin.”
Today, the cry of John the Baptist still echoes, but too often it is smothered by fear and compromise. In our own time, voices that proclaim the unchanging truth and the need for repentance are sometimes pushed aside even within the household of faith. Some are told their witness is “too rigid” while others are silenced for calling sin by its name. We see bishops hesitant to defend the truth boldly, priests afraid to preach on moral clarity, and lay faithful who suffer ridicule simply for holding fast to Catholic teaching. The climate of the Church today, like Herod’s court, is tempted to prefer comfort and approval over the piercing truth of the Gospel. Yet John reminds us that truth is not measured by applause. Truth is Christ Himself – and His voice will never be silenced, though it may cost us position, favor, or even life.
My dear friends, the feast of John’s beheading is not a tale of ancient cruelty – it is a call to courage now.
The Baptist still speaks: “He must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:30). The Baptist still warns: “… Every tree therefore that doth not yield good fruit, shall be cut down, and cast into the fire” (Matthew 3:10).
We must decide: Will we be voices crying in the wilderness? Or will we join the cowardly silence of Herod’s court?
Let us remember the words of Pope St. Gregory VII, who suffered exile for his defense of truth: “I have loved justice and hated iniquity, therefore, I die in exile.”
May St. John the Baptist intercede for us, that we may have the courage to speak truth even when it costs us. May we never be among the cowards who betray truth for comfort. And may we one day, like John, wear the crown promised to those who remain faithful unto death.
“… Be thou faithful until death; and I will give thee the crown of life” (Apocalypse 2:10).
My friends, as we recall the martyrdom of John, let us not forget that his witness is not merely to be admired but to be imitated. The world does not need more courtiers at Herod’s banquet; it needs disciples who will stand with John, even in prison, even on the scaffold, even when mocked or silenced. The Church in our time is tempted to dance for the approval of kings and princes, to trade the truth for applause, to bow before the spirit of the age. But the Baptist teaches us that fidelity is greater than life itself, and that the silence of cowardice is more deadly than the sword. Let us resolve, then, never to betray Christ by our silence, but to live and to die, if need be, as voices crying in the wilderness: “Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight his paths” (Mark 1:3).
St. John the Baptist, fearless herald of truth,
Pray for us.
St. John the Baptist, martyr for the law of God,
Pray for us.
St. John the Baptist, voice that could not be silenced,
Pray for us.
And may Almighty God bless you, the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Amen.
Bishop Joseph E. Strickland
Bishop Emeritus
