Dorothy Day and Moloch

The last article in The New York Call with Dorothy Day’s by-line is headlined: “Europe’s Moloch Claims Old Man’s Son; He Comes To America and Starves.” 

Moloch was the Canaanite and Phoenician god who demanded parents sacrifice their children to him, “You shall not give any of your children by fire to Moloch, and so profane the name of your God: I am the Lord” (Lev 18:21).

Dorothy’s position as Special Features Writer did not offer her a wide berth to vent her opinions on the war. With her choice of Moloch as a metaphor for the European War, just recently joined by her own nation, she reaches the essence of her revulsion for war: an insane sacrifice of youth and a great blasphemy against the Creator and Jesus’ Gospel of Love.