To the Editor:
“The Passion According to St. John,” to be proclaimed on Good Friday, where Jesus says "I came into the world to testify to the truth" elicits Pilate's reply "What is truth?"
This response intersects with the dangerous disrespect for the truth seen in our time: a plethora of lies, fake news and half-truths repeated over and over. One of the tactical mantras of totalitarian and dystopian power structures is "Repeat a lie often enough and people will come to believe it."
What Jesus says to Pilate about the truth is a pivotal message for a time like ours when the truth is under extreme attack and yet so desperately needed.
I hope and pray that we and others may hear, know, embody and share the TRUTH to which Jesus testifies.
I have considered the matter so serious that I recently reread George Orwell's dystopian novel “1984.”
Father Thomas O'Neill, Senior Priest
