Why Does Truth Arouse Hatred? – Folha de S. Paulo, April 23, 1972
by Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira
A friendly reader asked me to explain why the Church has been so fiercely opposed throughout her history, even though she preaches the Truth. He also wants to know why true Catholics, who do not compromise with present-day errors and remain faithful to the immutable teaching of Our Lord Jesus Christ, are so relentlessly attacked.
It seems to me that the reader could have broadened the scope of his question even further. Persecutions of the Church and of today’s true Catholics are historic continuations of those directed against Our Lord Jesus Christ. How can it be explained that the Man-God, who is the Truth, the Way, and the Life, was persecuted to the point of being crucified between two vulgar thieves?
This question was given a luminous answer by one of the greatest Church Doctors of all time, Saint Augustine, Bishop of Hippo. To facilitate the readers’ understanding, I reproduce here, slightly adapted, the teaching of the great Doctor of the fourth and fifth centuries.
Commenting on the famous phrase of Terentius, “truth engenders hatred,” Saint Augustine [Confessions, Book 10, Chapter 23] asks himself how to explain such an illogical fact.
Indeed, he says, man naturally loves happiness. Now, happiness is the joy that arises from the truth.
Thus, it is an aberration for anyone to regard the man who preaches the truth in the name of God as an enemy.
Having thus enunciated the issue, the holy doctor goes on to explain it. Human nature has such a propensity for the truth that when a person loves something contrary to the truth, he still wants that thing to be true. In doing so, he falls into error by persuading himself that something false is true.
Therefore, someone must open his eyes. Now then, since man does not allow anyone to show him that he was mistaken, for the same reason, he tolerates no one showing him the error in which he finds himself.
The Doctor of Hippo notes: In so doing, some men hate the truth for the sake of what they have taken as true. They love the light of truth but not being reproved by it. They love it when it shows itself to them; they hate it when it makes them see who they are.
This is how such men are punished for their disloyalty: they do not want to be unveiled by the truth, yet it still blows their cover and remains hidden from their eyes. “This is precisely how the human heart is shaped. Blind and slothful, unworthy and dishonest, it hides while not allowing anything to be hidden from it. So it happens to be unable to flee from the eyes of the truth, but the truth flees from its eyes.” With these words, Saint Augustine concludes his masterly commentary.
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Would my kind reader like an illustration of what Saint Augustine taught? Let us turn to a contemporary example for this.
It is not uncommon in our country or abroad to find people who proclaim themselves supporters of the policy of breaking down ideological barriers. They claim that such barriers are nothing more than an anachronism. The assumption behind their attitude is that ideological struggle is disappearing from the contemporary scene. Unless this were the case, breaking down barriers would obviously imply a shameful surrender.
According to news published in the daily press last week, there is a growing impression that Chile’s Marxist government is turning Santiago into a Cuban branch to spread communism on the continent. That said, it is clear that breaking down barriers would favor the actions of Allende and Fidel Castro. It follows that such barriers are not anachronistic but absolutely necessary.
If my reader explains this to the opponents of these barriers, he will, more often than not, be in for a painful surprise. He will be greeted with a sour face and immediately offered the choice of keeping quiet or leaving. Why? Because those fanatically opposed to barriers are deeply attached to their point of view. On the other hand, by an imperative of nature itself, they have at least a Platonic love for the truth. Hence, unwilling to be with the truth, they want the truth to be with them, and so they cling to all evidence supporting the thesis that barriers must disappear.
If someone proves to him that these barriers should not be removed, he becomes furious and fights those who oppose their removal, labeling them intransigent, backward, uncharitable, and so on.
Behold, my naive reader, why those who speak the truth are persecuted.
This explains the Passion and Death of Our Lord Jesus Christ and the Church’s history over twenty centuries!
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Moving from these big themes to a very small subject of everyday life, I would like to offer an explanation to other readers.
On March 22, 1972, in reporting on an incident between the Rio Grande do Sul Section of the Brazilian Bar Association and two universities in the same state, the newspaper O Estado de São Paulo stated that I am a professor at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul and the Pontifical University of Porto Alegre, and that I took a position on the incident in that capacity.
To readers surprised to see me appointed to professorships at universities so far from where I live and to be involved in matters so far removed from my normal sphere of activity, I must explain that this news is unfounded.
I am not a professor at those universities, nor have I taken any action regarding the issue between them and the Rio Grande do Sul Bar Association.
