Cebu Auxiliary Bishop Dennis Villarojo celebrates the Mass opening the 26th Press Freedom Week at the Capitol Social Hall.
FULL TRANSCRIPT of the mass celebrated by Cebu Auxiliary Bishop Dennis Villarojo during the opening of the 26th Cebu Press Freedom Week
Dear Sisters and Brothers in the Media: “Who do people say that I am?” The Lord asks the disciples in the Gospel today. “Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, still others one of the prophets,” the disciples replied. Then the Lord directed the question to the Disciples themselves: “Who do you say that I am?”
This line of questioning reminds me of another dialogue the Lord had with someone who was not his disciple, but was a figure of power in Judean politics.
In this dialogue, found in the Gospel of John 18:33-38, it was not Jesus asking the questions, but Pontius Pilate, the Roman Procurator of Judea. The line of questioning though was similar to the question of Jesus, only that this time, the question was directed at him: “Are you the king of the Jews?”
To this question, our Lord responded: “Mine is a kingdom not of this world … I was born for this, I came to the world for this, to bear witness to the truth.” To which Pilate made a riposte: “Truth? And what is truth?”
Truth, powerful, powerless
That was a question that rang through the ages: “And what is truth?”
To the powerful, like Pilate, truth is what one says. That is why it wasn’t of much value to him.
The question was actually rhetorical, serving to push aside an irrelevant idea. The powerless cannot speak the truth. Only the powerful can.
The powerful say what they like, and that is the truth. The powerless, they need only to listen, and to believe, whatever the powerful says. That was what Pilate thought, but he was wrong.
When he went out to the crowd to declare that Jesus had done nothing wrong, he thought people will be pacified, and let Jesus go.
But the crowd was not impressed with his Roman credentials. They believed the elders of the people, the Sanhedrin, more than they cared about what this usurper says.
Power and belief
Pilate had thought power automatically makes him worthy of belief. He tragically realized that power does not produce belief, it is the other way around. It is belief that produces power. Power resides in the one whom people believe in.
And what makes people believe in someone? You might think it is sincerity. Sincerity does make one worthy of trust and belief. But what if someone is sincere, yet sincerely believes in something that is wrong, or false?
Sincerity makes one trustworthy and credible for a time, but as the error or the falsity become known, trust and belief wither away, as Pilate realized, and the Sanhedrin too, no matter if they held, each in their own time, the belief of the people.
No, sincerity is not the source of trust and belief. It is truth. Truth alone can sustain trust and belief. Truth alone can transform belief into power.
Why media is powerful
That is the reason why, you, my dear friends in the media, are powerful. People believe in what you say. You have credibility. You are trustworthy. But do not let this power get into your head.
The truth, after all, the basis of your power, is not a possession held in the palm of your hand. You do not make the truth, you are only witnesses of the truth as it unfolds.
Truth mangled
There are times, however, when truth is mangled right before your eyes. By sleight of hand or by clever arguments, truth is made to appear false, and lies begin to sound convincing.
There are times when truth is mocked and made an object of contempt, turning every statement into a joke, so that no one may be held accountable for what is said.
Methods like this can be effective for a time, but even the most gullible among us can also learn to think, when reality hits them hard. And even if the gullible laugh at the same jokes repeated many times, laughter, even canned laughter, has a short shelf-life.
Profanity, fear
There is another way, however, one can hold power without the blessing of truth. By a barrage of profanity, one can bully somebody into submission and acquiescence.
One man calls this method “spiritual terror.”
He describes this method as “unleash(ing) a veritable barrage of lies and slander against whatever adversary seems most dangerous, until the nerves of the attacked person breaks down…” This is a quote from the Mein Kampf (p. 43) of Adolf Hitler, and if the line seems familiar, it is because we are most familiar with that other way to hold power: fear.
Fear is the way a battered wife is cowed into blind loyalty by an abusive husband. Fear is actually a form of belief, the belief that one is weak and the other is strong.
In order to sustain fear, the feared need not appear fearsome, it is enough that he presents something or someone that will inspire fear, like a bogeyman or a monster to keep little children in control.
Children and adults
Sometimes, however, little children are the most difficult to control. They have a way of uncovering the truth that we adults have lost together with our innocence. Little children are innocent enough to see the simplest of truth.
That is why the powerful dread what can come from the mouth of babes, as when one little boy watches a royal parade and says what everyone else dares not say: “But the emperor has no clothes!”
Adults, on the other hand, are more pragmatic. Confronted by uncertainty, they can jettison their conscience in exchange for security. Given a choice between good and evil, they can choose to do evil, in the hope that good may come out of it.
This is the most tragic thing that can happen to truth. Truth cannot perish, but conscience can die. And when conscience is dead, truth becomes a widow.
Witnesses to truth
You, my dear sisters and brothers in media, are witnesses to truth. When truth is mocked and made an object of ridicule, you may laugh along with the gullible or you can weep for the act of desecration.
When truth is mangled and distorted, you may play the simpleton, or you can assert your intelligence.
When fear strangles conscience, you may expose the truth to cast away the spell of fear, or you can sit by to condole with truth as she mourns in silence the passing away of her spouse.
But then, even when you cannot do anything but cower in fear or suffer in silence, you can still be witnesses to truth by keeping her in your memory. When conscience is dead and truth is widowed, keep her in your memory, for when the time of reckoning comes, and conscience rises from the dead, the memory you keep will bring all dead things back to life, to forever haunt the living.
This is the essence of press freedom. To do what is right, even when everybody thinks it’s wrong. To tell the truth, even if no one believes it. To say it properly and respectfully, even if it may sound banal and trite. To keep the truth in memory, even if every one has forgotten it. To hold all men and women accountable for their actions, and yes, even if they are men and women of the Catholic Church. No one, after all, is exempt from the glare of truth.
Like Pontius Pilate you must ask the question, “What is truth?” But unlike Pilate, you, men and women in media, cannot just wash it off your hands.