Pilate said to him, "So you are a king?" Jesus answered, "You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I have come into the world, to bear witness to the truth. Every one who is of the truth hears my voice." Pilate said to him, "What is truth?" (John 18:37-38a, RSV)
This infamous question from Pontius Pilate has infected our country. It seems that some people no longer know what truth is, don't believe that it exists or, some may say that truth does exist, but that it is unknowable. I am not here speaking of the simple truth of 2+2=4. Most sane people would be able to agree with that. The truth, or rather the Truth, that I am speaking of in this blog is the Truth that Christ refers to in the above quote from the Gospel according to St. John. It is this Truth that many people are not willing to accept, especially in this country.
Now some may ask how I can say such a thing when a majority of people in this country are still Christian. Don't Christians, by very definition of that name, accept the Truth that Christ taught to the world? Well they should. But the fact is that they don't. While I think that most Americans still believe that there is an Ultimate Truth, a problem arises when each individual acts as if he is the determiner of that Truth. And that is exactly what we have in America and other countries around the world.
Before I continue I will try to explain the Catholic understanding of the Truth that Jesus taught. Jesus, the Son of God who became man in order to save mankind from sin and death, revealed to the world the Truth about who God is, who we are and how we are supposed to act in relation to God and our fellow man. Notice that I used the word 'revealed' because this teaching of Jesus is something not created by mankind but has been revealed to us. And Jesus entrusted this revelation to the Catholic Church to safeguard from error and promised that "the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it." (Matt 16:19, RSV) The Church's duty is therefore to protect this Truth and to hand it on to succeeding genereations without adding anything to it and without taking anything away from it.
This infamous question from Pontius Pilate has infected our country. It seems that some people no longer know what truth is, don't believe that it exists or, some may say that truth does exist, but that it is unknowable. I am not here speaking of the simple truth of 2+2=4. Most sane people would be able to agree with that. The truth, or rather the Truth, that I am speaking of in this blog is the Truth that Christ refers to in the above quote from the Gospel according to St. John. It is this Truth that many people are not willing to accept, especially in this country.
Now some may ask how I can say such a thing when a majority of people in this country are still Christian. Don't Christians, by very definition of that name, accept the Truth that Christ taught to the world? Well they should. But the fact is that they don't. While I think that most Americans still believe that there is an Ultimate Truth, a problem arises when each individual acts as if he is the determiner of that Truth. And that is exactly what we have in America and other countries around the world.
Before I continue I will try to explain the Catholic understanding of the Truth that Jesus taught. Jesus, the Son of God who became man in order to save mankind from sin and death, revealed to the world the Truth about who God is, who we are and how we are supposed to act in relation to God and our fellow man. Notice that I used the word 'revealed' because this teaching of Jesus is something not created by mankind but has been revealed to us. And Jesus entrusted this revelation to the Catholic Church to safeguard from error and promised that "the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it." (Matt 16:19, RSV) The Church's duty is therefore to protect this Truth and to hand it on to succeeding genereations without adding anything to it and without taking anything away from it.
But, from the beginning people have tried to reinterpret, take away from or add to the Truth as Christ gave it to the Church. And the Church has therefore always had times when it has had to correct these errors. But since the time of the Protestant Reformation (or rather Revolution) these errors have been rampant. Since the advent of Protestantism it has been seen as a virtue by many to question the teachings of the Church. But since the Church only teaches that which Christ revealed to us then what they are really questioning is the teachings of Christ. After a few centuries of Protestantism fast forward to the founding of America, with people who had many different beliefs about Christianity and about the teachings of Christ, and then a few more centuries added to it and we come to the present day. And what we are left with is a country of Christians who for the most part, whether they are devout, nominal or somewhere in between, think that they can determine what the Christian Faith is through their own interpretation. And this is also true of many Catholics, even within the clergy.
But to those people who think in such a way I would like to ask this question: who says that you are the one that can rightly interpret the Faith that Christ has given to us? What makes you think that you can pick and choose what you will and won't believe about the Truth of the Christian Faith? And, especially for Catholics, what makes you think that you can support abortion, homosexuality, euthanasia, etc., when the Church has stated consistently that it is a very serious sin to do so? In the end you must ask yourself: from where does the Truth come? If you say that you can find it out for yourself by your own interpretation of the Bible or your own private revealation then what you have is not the Truth but your own opinion. But if you say that the Truth comes from Christ Himself then how will you know you are following that Truth unless you are a full and dedicated member of the one and only Church that He established to protect that Truth? The fullness of the Truth that Christ taught exists in only one place - the Catholic Church. You can either accept it or reject it but you cannot determine what it is on your own. Once you do that it is ceases to be the Truth.
But to those people who think in such a way I would like to ask this question: who says that you are the one that can rightly interpret the Faith that Christ has given to us? What makes you think that you can pick and choose what you will and won't believe about the Truth of the Christian Faith? And, especially for Catholics, what makes you think that you can support abortion, homosexuality, euthanasia, etc., when the Church has stated consistently that it is a very serious sin to do so? In the end you must ask yourself: from where does the Truth come? If you say that you can find it out for yourself by your own interpretation of the Bible or your own private revealation then what you have is not the Truth but your own opinion. But if you say that the Truth comes from Christ Himself then how will you know you are following that Truth unless you are a full and dedicated member of the one and only Church that He established to protect that Truth? The fullness of the Truth that Christ taught exists in only one place - the Catholic Church. You can either accept it or reject it but you cannot determine what it is on your own. Once you do that it is ceases to be the Truth.
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