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What’s Truth Got to Do With It?

How many of us can remember the classic Tina Turner hit with the word ‘love’ in the title?

Depending on when you were born, you’re either singing it right now or ‘googling’ it. Love makes its way into our hearts through music, conversation, social media and movies. In our schools, we have staff, programs and KPIs built around loving our students - inclusion, wellbeing, pastoral care, etc. and rightfully so. Love is very much on-brand for Catholics. Jesus spoke about the Kingdom of God, which belongs to the poor, the lowly,1 the widowed, the orphaned, the powerless, the marginalised - we understand this mandate well and do our best to apply it in our schools.

But how many songs can you remember that focus on absolute truth? When was the last time you took a date to watch a historical or scientific documentary? In our moral relativistic society, absolute truth may at times appear like love’s inconvenient little cousin who we begrudgingly bring to the birthday party hoping they don’t offend the other partygoers. However, love and truth are irrevocably tied together. Love can only be directed towards what is real and true. Or stated negatively, love cannot exist in lies. We cannot ‘will the good of the other’2 if the other does not exist.

St. Thomas Aquinas refers to unity, truth and goodness as the intrinsic universal attributes that belong to God. That is to say, God is Truth, God is Goodness, God is Love - literally and wholly. We might not be surprised, then, to hear Jesus say in John 14:6, “I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”3 This is good news, this is the Gospel.

Deep down, each of us yearns for truth, beauty, and love because we are made in the image and likeness of God, who is the complete fulfilment of those desires. Our restless hearts long for what only God can fully provide - St Augustine had that right!4 Love and truth are eternally tied together because God can only love what is real, that is to say, our true selves - who we really are beneath our masks, disfunctions, and ego. As Thomas Merton writes, “Every one of us is shadowed by an illusory person: a false self. This is the man that I want myself to be but who cannot exist, because God does not know anything about him… for most of the people in the world, there is no greater subjective reality than this false self of theirs, which cannot exist.”5

Therefore, the truth is non-negotiable, and truth-telling, particularly the Good News, is very much on-brand for Catholics, regardless of the possibility that the truth might offend. We simply need to follow the example of how Jesus spoke truth as a means of healing. To the woman at the well, Jesus tells her the precise truth of who she really is and where she might find unending life.6 To the rich young man, Jesus very gently exposes his dysfunction and what he needs to give up to be made perfect.7 To the woman caught in adultery, Jesus elevates her back to her rightful dignity and (wait for it)… tells her not to sin again!8 Jesus holds up the truth while restoring relationships. What Jesus does not do is pretend, minimise, placate or pull any punches. The truth, with love, is the right medicine, and Jesus is the physician par excellence.

Our young people are desperately searching for truth with every social media scroll, in every echo chamber filled with misinformation and in each video an algorithm sends them. Like us, our young people yearn for the truth, for the Good News, for the right medicine, for Jesus. May they find the truth, held up with love, in every one of our classrooms, hallways, sporting events and lunch areas.

What’s truth got to do with it? Everything.

544 Catechism of the Catholic Church
1766 Catechism of the Catholic Church
NRSV, Catholic Edition Bible, Catholic Bible Press
The Confessions - Book 1, Augustine of Hippo 397-400 AD
John 4:1-42
Matt 19:16-22
John 8:1-11