On the feast of Christ the King, a non-event in the secular calendar, Archbishop Charles Scicluna had some home truths to drive home, leading among them was the subject of truth itself.

He gave a Christian definition of truth, saying the kingdom of God embraces truth because Christ is the truth Himself. But then he immediately applied his theology to the realities of the world outside the church of Santa Venera where he was speaking: the threat of abortion.

“We, as Catholics,” he said, “cannot accept that there is a choice between one child and another. We do not accept that the fundamental rights include the ‘right’ to choose whether a baby inside a womb is to live or die.”

It was a crystal-clear position on an issue that keeps raising its head.

The Archbishop did not stop there. He spoke of a culture that disrespected truth, the truth of creation, where a woman is called a woman and man a man, that children are born of the unity of a man and a woman, and not bought through the purchase of seed or egg. Catholics cannot succumb to a culture where truth is no longer the basis for relationships between people and for governance. Life should respect the principle of accountability and transparency in governance.

The challenges facing society today, sold in the guise of neo-liberalism, breach the realm of this truth. Truth is often being reduced to relativity and opinion, shorn of any guiding principles, aside from individualism.

Hence, the Archbishop speaks of the kingdom of truth, aware of the dangers, saying that every word he utters draws judgement upon him and the Church he represents. He nevertheless offers no compromise, saying Catholics cannot accept there is a choice between which terminal patient is to live and who is to die. It was God who brings life through love between a man and a woman and it was God who took that life back.

The message on the feast of Christ the King was one that went down to basics. It does not endorse mixed marriages, the ‘right’ to have children, or the ‘right’ to die. He rose above all that, although the trends are pointing elsewhere. It was a lone voice of sanity in a barren world that has set God aside. The Archbishop has a hard job to do.

Yet, he is optimistic. He looks at the country, with its strategic location in the Mediterranean, as an oasis of peace, a place that welcomes people and gives them dignity. A place of refuge for people who are most in need and not a “heaven for criminals”.

What the Archbishop said was really nothing new. Society, through the ages has always had to grapple with challenges and facing truth is always a challenge.

As St Augustine wrote in his Confessions: “Sometimes the truths revealed are the most difficult to accept because they say something about our own lives and perhaps challenge us to change. We fight against the message. Rather than desiring to follow out what we hear, we try to hear what we desire to hear.”

He was writing 1,600 years ago but truth does not change, nor the Archbishop’s mission to communicate his message, that truth does not depend on whims, or fashion.

This is a Times of Malta print editorial

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