Truths

St. Mary's Cathedral, Sydney
Opening Mass 2009 Academic Year Catholic Institute of Sydney
Is 43:18-19, 21-22, 24-25; 2 Cor 1:18-22;Mk 2:1-12

+ Cardinal George Pell, Archbishop of Sydney
22 Feb 2009

In today's gospel passage we have the intriguing miracle of the cure of the lame man, who had been let down through the roof into the house where Jesus was so that he could be cured. The crush of the crowd was so great that they could not enter through the door, so his enterprising friends pulled back the thatched straw roof and gained an unorthodox entry.

Our Lord's enemies were upset when Jesus said to the man on the stretcher "My child, your sins are forgiven". The scribes knew their theology, that only God could forgive sins, and thought that Jesus was blaspheming.  After a short to and fro verbally, Our Lord finished the discussion by saying to the paralytic: "To prove to you that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins. I order you: get up, pick up your stretcher and go off home". And the man got up and walked out the front door.

I want to use this incident and Jesus' claim to power over body and soul to say a few words about the importance of the truth of Christian doctrines.

Jesus' claim to forgive sins is central to the Catholic position and indeed to the entire traditional Christian position. It is true? If this claim of his to forgive sins is false, we are seriously mistaken. As St. Paul explained: If Christ did not rise from the dead we are the most miserable of people, deceived and mistaken.

I want to talk about religious truths because last week we held the two preparatory meetings of young people, leaders from schools and parishes, in preparation for my Pentecost statement, whose theme will be "the truth will set you free". (Jn 8:32)

Both gatherings went well, especially the first one for school leaders, who all heard an introductory talk on truth, broke into small groups for discussion and then reported back to the main group.

The level of participation was high, lively and friendly, with many prepared to speak up. It does not need to be said that these were excellent youngsters, among the best of the crop, whose moral values were generally sound. But many spoke as though they were relativists, often not supporting their particular good beliefs with claims to truth.

They often vigorously espoused the virtues of tolerance (which is good), claiming that truth depends on one's point of view, that truth should not be a dictatorship, that they don't want to be saying other people are wrong; don't want to impose their views on others. "Live and let live" was their motto, because (they claim) most religions are saying pretty much the same thing, expressing different shades of grey in a world where educated people do not see too much which is black and white.

It would be an interesting topic for another sermon to try to identify why so many of our young people talk like this; and a higher percentage of young Catholics are relativists than any other young Christian grouping.

We all know that no-one acts and lives like a complete relativist. We need truths like we need oxygen and society needs truths to work. The famous eighteenth century Scottish philosopher David Hume pointed out that the relativist contradicts himself when he goes home and locks his front door!

It seems to me therefore that as believing Catholics, who accept Jesus' teachings on faith and morals we might usefully try to persuade others, especially our young people of the truth of three propositions: a) There are truths; b) There are religious truths; c) There are moral truths. 

If I was talking only to teenagers I would ask them to leave any consideration of sex out of the discussion for the moment, because self interest, especially in sexual matters, can derail considerations of truth.

Our first claim is that there are truths, which need to be recognized or discovered but are not constructed, not put together by our decision, not our inventions.

Some truths are visible and material and usually non-controversial e.g. the existence of this cathedral, the Victorian bush fires, the financial crisis, but some truths cannot be seen; e.g. our pain, numbers, possibilities for the future.  Nevertheless, such truths describe reality.

We claim there are religious truths, which are totally independent of our acceptance or rejection, totally independent of our level of understanding. God does not cease to exist because someone, or many, do not believe in him. Father Christmas is a lovely belief for children and the only question is about the age when this belief is no longer useful. Our religious claims belong in another category. God either does or does not exist. Life after death exists or it does not. If I foolishly believe in the existence of a man in the moon my enthusiasm does not make him real.

We also claim that are moral truths, which we are called to recognize and which we do not create ourselves.  Let me give some examples.

Arson is wrong. Deliberately starting bush fires is wrong. It is difficult to understand why people do this, but it is wrong by universal agreement.

Lying is wrong. While lying is a controversial philosophic example, because of "white lies", small fibs for a good purpose, lying is wrong.

In Europe unfortunately a number of financiers have suicided in the financial crisis. One such was a French financial adviser described as an aristocrat, a gentleman and an honest man. He had advised his friends to invest tens of millions of dollars in what proved to be a gigantic scam. Which lost 50 billion Euros (or dollars; I am not sure which) organized by a man called Madoff.

Society cannot work if we are surrounded by lies. We all know that we do not trust acquaintances when we discover they have lied to us. Imagine the hellish isolation of not being able to trust anyone but yourself.

Following Christ requires more than truth, but not less, not lies. It is Satan who is the father of lies, but Jesus who is "the way, the truth and the life".

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.