Some years ago a parishioner rebuked me for not preaching against abortion. I replied that, in the first place, those who came to church were in no doubt about Roman Catholic teaching on the subject and, in the second, in any congregation there would almost certainly be someone who had had an abortion or who knew well someone who had, a daughter or sister or mother or dear friend. Whatever the circumstances, it would not be something that they would look back upon complacently. They would not have come to church to have old wounds opened and salt rubbed in them.

This care for those who have had to take painful decisions, should not, however, lead us to forget those who have been lost. Today we celebrate the feast of the Holy Innocents, those young children who, according to the Gospel of Matthew, were put to death by Herod the Great to ensure, as he hoped, the death of the Messiah whose birth had been announced to him by the Wise Men. It is impossible for us now to know the factual accuracy of that gospel account but it can, nevertheless, prompt us to pray for holy innocents and to examine ourselves.

Imagine a scene set in the future. Two friends are talking and one observes how fortunate they both are. They live at last at a time when there are no more unwanted pregnancies; every child is a wanted child; it is as it ought to be. But then the other retorts and disagrees. Everything is not as it ought to be "because there are no more abortions". We would greet the remark with disbelief. Abortions are not an integral part of a perfect society but a desperate response in desperate circumstances.

When our present legislation was introduced 35 years ago, the policy was argued on the basis of extreme and moving cases - hard cases which proverbially make bad laws. It was presented as a way to close the door on back-street abortions. We can only be glad if that has happened. The tragedy was in the method. The door in the back street was closed by opening the floodgates on the high. And these terminations continue and we scarcely seem to notice.

Of course, one way to cope is to pretend that this is just a narrow Catholic preoccupation. But I would say, forget about Catholic moral teaching. Leave that to one side. Then we should ask ourselves, as ordinary human beings, what are we being told about the health of our society when year after year thousands upon thousands of abortions are taking place? Some will say we are being told nothing at all. They will argue that the matter is entirely private and personal. But nothing ever is entirely private and personal. There are always social implications. There has to be a better way.

We seem to have become indifferent to life and yet there is evidence we have not. Every year we pay tribute to those who have fallen in war. In Britain in a particular way we recall with horror the waste of life in the First World War. There were 740,000 British casualties alone. We reflect on the lives and giftedness that were lost. But those numbers are dwarfed by the millions we have refused to let live since 1967. At present they are out of sight and out of mind. We will never know what we have discarded. There is a sickness among us and we need healing.

One indispensable mark of healthy behaviour is a readiness to take responsibility for our actions. But our society has become accustomed to a sexual freedom which does not bother about the consequences. The Holy Innocents - those from long ago and those of our own days - invite us to change. For their sake and our own, we have to reforge an alliance between the joy of sex and responsibility.

Monsignor Roderick Strange is the Rector of the Pontifical Beda College, Rome.

This article first appeared in Credo in The Times on Saturday December 28 2002