Editorial: The truth is incontrovertible
If we want our country and the world to change for the better, there is no alternative but to be agents of truth
We read in the bible that Jesus Christ told Pontius Pilate he came into the world “to testify to the truth”. But the governor of Judaea would not wait for an answer when he retorted: “What is truth?”
Pilate probably knew what answer to expect and preferred not to hear it. It could have been scepticism, political cynicism or outright indifference. Still, it is a question that continues to reverberate even today.
What do we define as the truth in 2026? Archbishop Charles Scicluna wanted us to put that question again to ourselves and reflect on it.
In his homily on the feast of St Paul, the archbishop urged us to be agents of truth, not deceit.
He made a similar appeal a few days earlier when he referred to St John the Baptist, lauding him for having the courage to speak truth to power, even if he knew he was risking his life.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney spoke about power and truth when addressing the World Economic Forum in Davos a month ago.
The system’s power comes not from its truth but from everyone’s willingness to perform as if it were true, he said, invoking thoughts by former Czech president Václav Havel in his essay The power of the powerless.
Truth does not only mean correct information. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, then Nationalist and opposition leader Eddie Fenech Adami repeated the slogan “is-sewwa jirbaħ żgur”. It was translated in English as “truth will prevail” but what he meant was way beyond not lying.
Many have been the instances throughout history when calls for the truth were essentially appeals to defend the good of humanity.
“The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but, in the end, there it is,” Winston Churchill wrote in his War Memoirs.
In Veritatis Splendor, John Paul II insisted that moral truth does not depend on the opinion of the majority. To him, human dignity and objective moral truth were inseparable.
Pope Benedict had warned that power fills the vacuum left by the disappearance of truth. A society cut off from truth, the German intellectual pointed out, exposes itself to manipulation.
Francis spoke about fake news, disinformation and manipulation. He made a connection between disinformation and the story of the serpent mentioned in the bible to highlight the point he wanted to make about deception as a distortion of reality.
Leo XIV raises a point that has special significance in today’s world: nobody possesses the whole truth. We must all humbly seek the truth and seek it together, he says.
In a world – and that includes this tiny island – where the moral and ethical fibre/compass is constantly being eroded, even willingly by power-hungry politicians, it is up to the ‘powerless’ – the people – to use their significant power to stop the rot.
Cursing the dark is never an option. Still, the people, the voters, have the power to go beyond lighting a candle, demanding to know why the outage and ensuring that those who failed in their duties need not seek their trust.
And when Archbishop Scicluna urged us to be agents of truth, he was surely not speaking in abstractions.
He was also pointing to the poisonous fog of online misinformation, conspiracy theories and calculated hate that is now chiselling away at public and online discourse, corroding trust and fragmenting communities.
Lies today travel faster than facts. Pilate’s question still echoes, but, unlike him, we cannot afford to turn away. We have to call it out.