Truth and the ‘right’ to offend

By Paul Schratz

The growing divide over the Muslim cartoon controversy is being described as a clash of civilizations, and it certainly has that going for it.

It’s also a fact that this chasm has been widening for much longer than the cartoon tempest has been around, and at its core it represents a rift deeper than any between East and West, or Islam and Christianity.

At the immediate level the chasm is well illustrated by the media storm over whether the cartoons should have been printed, but at a fundamental level the dispute has as much to do with how far the world has moved from a proper understanding of such concepts as freedom, truth, conscience, rights and responsibilities, once they become segregated from God.

The level of violence by some radicals in response to the images is appalling, and does no service to Islam. The manipulation that seems to have been involved in getting some of the more offensive images into circulation is beyond the pale. But there’s more than a little disingenuousness on the part of the media who are contorting themselves with rationalizations over the right and wrong of publishing the offensive cartoons.

A few are publishing the cartoons as a stand for free speech. Most are choosing not to “out of respect” for Islam. Keep in mind that on both sides, we’re talking about media who are often highly skilled at showing disrespect to faith on a regular basis.

From the news pages to the editorial cartoons to the advertisements, insulting depictions of Christians are standard fare. From investigative reports on Catholics in politics, to religious-bashing artwork, it’s truly breathtaking to see the circumspection the mainstream media are suddenly showing over material that few would deny is offensive.

Years ago, when New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani condemned an art exhibit featuring elephant dung in a depiction of the Blessed Virgin, he was condemned as a “fascist” and reviled by celebrities and private citizens alike.

When a controversial artist immersed crucifixes and images of the Pope in urine, it was called free expression, with the Vancouver Art Gallery defending the Pope works as “a considered and informed articulation of significant contemporary issues.”

Blasphemous plays and sacrilegious works of art draw routine praise from the mainstream media, while any opposition is called “censorship.” (For an idea of how offensive some of these works are, visit the Catholic League’s website at www.catholicleague.org/archives.html, where their annual reports track the litany of artistic irreverence that the media display.)

At its root, the controversy reveals just how much the world is becoming wedded to a misguided understanding of rights. Free speech is coming to mean unlimited licence. Conscience is regarded as the ability to do whatever you want. Truth is simply the ability to spread any information despite the harm it causes.

Our society could benefit from a primer on Catholic teaching on these issues, and there’s none better than Pope John Paul II’s Splendor of Truth. In it, he cuts to the heart of the issue when he writes, “Truth enlightens man’s intelligence and shapes his freedom, leading him to know and love the Lord.”

There is an “inseparable connection between the Lord’s grace and human freedom,” explains the Pope. “Freedom cannot be in opposition with God’s law.”

Contrast that with the alleged “freedom” to publish cartoons that the Vatican suggests were unacceptably provocative.

Likewise, individual conscience has suffered similar distortions, to the point where it is now accorded “the status of a supreme tribunal of moral judgment,” wrote John Paul.

Quoting Cardinal John Henry Newman, he wrote: “Conscience has rights because it has duties.” The role of conscience is to apply the universal knowledge of good in a specific situation and “thus to express a judgment about the right conduct to be chosen here and now.”

One makes responsible decisions not by separating conscience from objective truth, but by “an insistent search for truth and by allowing oneself to be guided by that truth in one’s actions.” What objective truth is served by publishing the cartoons at the heart of the controversy?

Tying all these concepts together, John Paul said the foundation of our rights is “the right to religious freedom and to respect for conscience on its journey towards the truth...”

The right to free speech is not without limits. It must take into account any injury and pain that might result. It’s a lesson that should be noted well by those outlets who have hypocritically pledged respect for religious faith in this instance, while their pages regularly make a practice of denigrating faith.