Time was when we would wake up in the morning and start the day listening to the radio newscast or reading the newspaper. We began each day with a fair knowledge of what was going on in the world and in our locality. We trusted the media knowing that its practitioners were persons of high professional and ethical integrity.
Unfortunately, that was a long time ago. Today, we feel the need to double check every news we get, especially from social media. Fake news has become an uncontrollable plague as people have no scruples spreading “their own truths.” Even leaders, both national and world, blatantly lie and deceive their own people. What is sad is that the public is equally gullible.
This is truly alarming because if left unchecked fake news will eventually kill all social and political life. As Maria Ressa rightly articulates, “Without facts, you can’t have truth. Without truth, you can’t have trust. Without all three, we have no shared reality, and democracy – and all meaningful human endeavors – are dead.”
In today’s gospel, Jesus tells the parable of the tree and its fruit. “A good tree does not bear rotten fruit, nor does a rotten tree bear good fruit. For every tree is known by its own fruit.” He ends by saying that “from the fullness of the heart the mouth speaks.”
What is this heart of which Jesus speaks? “Put simply, the heart in Scripture conveys the totality of our inner self. We are governed from this one point of unity… It is the control center—the source of every thought, the seat of every passion, and the arbiter of every decision.” (A. Craig Troxel)
The first indicator of the heart is the mouth. The words that come from the mouth reveal not only the content but also the condition of the heart. They tell whether the heart is healthy or sick. Our first reading affirms this, “When a sieve is shaken, the husks appear; so do one’s faults when one speaks… so too does one’s speech disclose the bent of one’s mind.”
What is truly disturbing is that fake news and the propensity to lie can kill not only our democracy or social interaction, but our very own humanity. Unwittingly, an incorrigible liar may well have surrendered himself to the Evil one. Many years ago, I read Scott Peck’s book, “People of the Lie,” but could not finish it. Midway, I stopped reading because I got scared. I felt that the book was beginning to describe the condition of people who lie systematically as nothing short of a demonic possession.
Jesus did not mince words in condemning the Pharisees’ obstinacy to truth, “You belong to your father the devil and you willingly carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in truth, because there is no truth in him. When he tells a lie, he speaks in character, because he is a liar and the father of lies.” (Jn 8:44)
Satan is “a liar and the father of lies.” When we engage in fake news, we do not only become accomplices of the Evil one; we become his children. The first recorded fake news was from the devil who lied to Adam and Eve that if they ate of the forbidden fruit, they would become gods. With such lie, suffering and death entered into the world.
The same consequence awaits us and our nation (we shall have our election soon), if we allow ourselves to be fooled and deceived by the spreaders of lies, fake news, historical revisionism and conspiracy theories. God help us!
Today’s culture of relativism and deception has become so endemic we cannot but feel utterly helpless. Two days ago, a self-appointed superpower “peace broker” proposed a simplistic formula to end the Ukraine war by making Ukraine admit that it started the war in the first place, and not Russia. What stupidity! True peace is built on truth.
Right in our backyard we are witnessing an impeachment process wherein a government official is made to account for the billions of pesos her office disbursed. Instead of complying with her obligation, she cries foul and presents herself as victim of political harassment. How pathetic!
With all this happening is there still hope? The Jubilee 2025 reminds us that we are pilgrims of hope. Our hope “does not disappoint” because our hope is not some positive aspiration for a bright future. Our hope is Jesus who lives with us and in us. He is Emmanuel. All he asks is that we be True and the Evil one cannot take possession of us. In the end, he who is the Truth will set us and the world free.