What is Truth?
In St. John’s account of the Passion, which we will hear on Good Friday, Pontius Pilate sarcastically asks Jesus, “What is truth?” As we enter Holy Week, I invite you to reflect on the meaning of truth.
Reality is that which exists actually and independently of our minds. Truth is a statement that corresponds to reality. This is the most basic definition of truth and presumes that there is an objective reality out there, independent of the knower, which is capable of being known by reason. This view presupposes that, at its most basic level, a thing either is or is not. An objective truth cannot be true for me but not for you. I cannot have “my” truth and you have “your” truth. If it is true, it is true for everyone.
The Catholic Church, established by Jesus Christ on the “rock” of Peter the Apostle, and enduring from that time until Jesus returns has been entrusted with proclaiming the truth. G.K. Chesteron, when asked why he was Catholic said, “The difficulty of explaining ‘why I am a Catholic’ is that there are ten thousand reasons all amounting to one reason: that Catholicism is true.” In the official teaching of the Catholic Church one can find the fullness of the truth necessary for salvation.
One of the biggest pastoral concerns that I see in our world today was articulated by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, before he became Pope Benedict XVI, when he said: “We are moving toward a dictatorship of relativism which does not recognize anything as for certain and which has as its highest goal one’s own ego and one’s own desires.” Relativism denies objective truth.
Do I believe what the Church officially teaches to be true? Do I strive to conform my opinions and ideas to the official teaching of the Church or do I see myself as my own “Pope,” expecting the Church to change in accord with my views? If I struggle with a teaching of the Church, do I ask God, by his grace, to help me come to embrace the Church’s teaching?
What is your answer to Pilate’s question, “What is Truth?”
Sincerely yours in Christ Jesus, the Way, the Truth and the Life,
