My dear parishioners,
Peace! In other bulletins (4 December, 2016-11 June, 2017) we have considered the teaching of the Catechism of the Catholic Church on “conscience.” We then turned to Saint John Paul II’s encyclical letter Veritatis splendor (6 August, 1993) which addresses fundamental moral issues, including “conscience” more than one hundred times. These reflections were begun earlier (6 April, 2018-30 May, 2018). Here we now consider a passage from Veritatis splendor, 64.2.
Saint John Paul II (+2005) when considering the “seeking what is true and good” reminds us that “freedom of conscience is never freedom ‘from’ the truth but always and only freedom ‘in’ the truth.”
In seeking freedom “from” something recall Franklin D. Roosevelt’s 1941 State of the Unionspeech where he called for “freedom from want” and “fear” together with freedom of “speech” and “worship.” Libertines, who would deny the truth about God and ourselves made in His image, claim liberation from those truths (cf. Genesis 1:26-27; Romans 1:25). But theirs is a false “freedom.” Freedom or liberty is not to be a cloak for malice, but rather freedom for excellence (cf. 1 Peter 2:16). Excellence is nothing less than virtue, the opposite of vice (cf. Ruth 3:11; Psalm 7:8; Philippians 4:8; Titus 1:7; 2 Peter 1:5; James 1:17).
The Council Fathers at Vatican II (1962-1965) highlighted various questions in the Pastoral Constitution of the Church in the Modern World, Gaudium et spes: What is the place and role of man in the universe; What is the meaning of the individual and collective strivings of man; What is the ultimate destiny of reality and of humanity; What follows this earthly life (cf. GS, 3, 10)? These are not merely rhetorical questions or questions without any answers. Christ Himself is the answer “the key, the focal point and the goal” of all humanity and “all human history” (cf. GS, 10.2).
Issues of the truth are paramount in Sacred Scripture. There are nearly three hundred verses which cite the “truth” (emeth in Hebrew, aletheia/alethos in Greek). In the Decalogue Almighty God commands us to “not bear false witness” (Exodus 20:16; Deuteronomy 5:20). The Lord Jesus teaches us that “the truth will set you free” (John 8:32). The Lord Jesus says of Himself: “I am the way and the truth and the life” (John 14:6). Pontius Pilate skeptically asked the Lord Jesus: “What is truth?” (John 18:38). There is something binary here. Either Jesus Christ is God or He is not. If He is (and He is), then we should listen to Him, not only about the mystery of the Trinity or divine revelation, but also about the good we should do and the evil we should avoid. It is the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ and His grace which set us free from sin, and fear, and the torment of the devil, making us one with God who has made us for Himself (cf. Romans 6:18; Augustine, Confessions Bk. 1, 1-2).
God bless you!
Father John Arthur Orr