By Judie Brown
Set aside the faith-shaming, the truth-fudging, and the fact-smearing and you are left with a simple, undeniable reality: There is splendor in truth.
Sometimes it can be difficult to pick out, but if we strive to identify it, even in the most callous of circumstances, which the world seems to serve up about half the time, we can find it.
Several recent events make the point much better than words alone.
If you follow Catholic Vote, you know that the website recently aired a television commercial starring Robert F. Kennedy Jr. delivering a message in support of presidential hopeful Donald Trump. While Kennedy talks about his growth in his Catholic faith, he also tells viewers that loving our children is much more important than hating others. He goes on to say that this is the reason why he hopes we (Catholics) will support Donald Trump.
It is political pitch, which is fine, but if we really think about his words, we wonder if Kennedy realizes that in Trump’s world, babies who are younger than 15 weeks gestational age are throwaways. This is not a pro-life position. Nor is it a pro-child position. But without truth his words can be a message to others that loving children is no different than favoring the killing of children.
Trump may be a lot of things, Mr. Kennedy, but one of them is not pro-child. If it were, he would honestly oppose killing them for any reason at any stage.
Another example of distorting truth is contained in the recent article claiming that birth control does not cause abortion. In what universe is this even worth discussing? The website tells the reader that the question of when life begins is a “philosophical” one. Hooey!
Anyone who has studied biology 101 can explain that life begins when the first cell is fertilized; that is conception. This is a scientific fact, not based on anyone’s opinion or philosophical bias. Science, including fetology, does not lie. People do.
Over the course of the last 50-plus years, truth in matters of human development and identity has taken a back seat to an agenda that is quite the opposite of truth. In fact, according to one of its most zealous proponents—Planned Parenthood—the Born-Alive Infant Protection Act is a lie. The organization says that “doctors already have an obligation to provide appropriate medical care.” Yet they fail to explain that at times this means no care, as the bodies of these babies are simply set aside, gasping for air, and eventually succumb to the abortion act.
These examples of man’s inhumanity to man are but one reason for pleading that individuals learn the beauty of truth rather than the macabre results of deception. On this topic, one writer tells us at “the convergence of divine law and human freedom” the lax individual never chooses properly.
Today, humankind’s fundamental problem is moral blindness. In an age of inhumanity and deceit, rejection of the splendor of truth is a way of life!
Saint John Paul II was inspired to write Veritatis Splendor (The Splendor of Truth) because he saw this great chasm boiling up in the cauldron of human egoism. He taught (#62):
In order to have a “good conscience” man must seek the truth and must make judgments in accordance with that same truth. As the Apostle Paul says, the conscience must be “confirmed by the Holy Spirit” it must be “clear” it must not “practise cunning and tamper with God’s word,” but “openly state the truth.” On the other hand, the Apostle also warns Christians: “Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may prove what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”
The Holy Father saw what happens when individuals embrace the world rather than the way of the Lord, a way where there is no rejection of truth but rather a celebration of it in every situation.
As we pray for Kennedy, Trump, the purveyors of false biology and death, we are inspired to recall these beautiful words of Saint Catherine of Siena: “Ponder the fact that God has made you a gardener, to root out vice and plant virtue.”
May we not only reflect on this but beckon others into the garden so they too can celebrate the splendor of truth!