227. “Truth, in fact, is an inseparable companion of justice and mercy. All three together are essential to building peace; each, moreover, prevents the other from being altered…
I’ve never heard this expressed. It does make sense. Lies, after all, are attempts to avoid justice. They cloud a perception of reality and lead people to different paths other than the most optimal and beneficial.
Truth, as they say, can hurt. And human beings have a tendency to avoid hurt.
Truth should not lead to revenge, but rather to reconciliation and forgiveness. Truth means telling families torn apart by pain what happened to their missing relatives. Truth means confessing what happened to minors recruited by cruel and violent people. Truth means recognizing the pain of women who are victims of violence and abuse…
This only begins the litany of the world’s injustices. What do you make of Pope Francis’ suggestion that one person’s wound is a wound for us all?
Every act of violence committed against a human being is a wound in humanity’s flesh; every violent death diminishes us as people… Violence leads to more violence, hatred to more hatred, death to more death. We must break this cycle which seems inescapable”.[Address at the National Reconciliation Encunter, Villavicencio, Colombia(8 September 2017): AAS 109 (2017), 1063-1064, 1066]
All citations of Fratelli Tutti (which can be found on this link) are © Copyright – Libreria Editrice Vaticana
