An alleged quote attributed to Saint John Paul II and a brief reflection on it

The Internet has become an important source of knowledge transmission, but this knowledge is not always strictly true.

Try to convince or let yourself be carried away: are your principles as solid and firm as you think?
If you apply 'anything goes' on your rivals, how long will it take you to use it on your peers?

False number attributions are widespread today. This is largely made possible by memes, images that spread alleged statements made by someone, almost always without identifying the source, and which are often shared by many people through various channels. Some of these quotes have a wide reach.

There is a quote that I have been reading for a few years now. It is attributed to Pope Saint John Paul II and it goes like this: "We must defend the truth at all costs, even if we are only twelve again." It is a quote that has become very popular among Catholic users on the Internet, and has even appeared in some religious media, always without citing the source or indicating when the Polish Pope said it, if he said it at all.

I have been searching the web for that quote and have come to the conclusion that that phrase began to spread in 2020 or 2021 through social media. The Vatican City website contains numerous speeches by St. John Paul II and that quote does not appear in any of them. Nor has it appeared in any media that would allow us to specify when the Polish Pope is supposed to have uttered those words. It is very strange, since such a lapidary phrase would have become very famous at the time, and yet there is no trace of it until at least 15 years after the death of that Pope. In addition, the quote has been spread in Spanish, but has had almost no diffusion in English.

It is a paradox that a call to "defend the truth at all costs" is being made using a quote that is probably false, perhaps invented by someone who had no qualms about attributing these words to the Polish Pope, knowing that he had not said them. Although many people find it hard to accept, these things happen and are quite frequent.

Something similar happens with this quote as with the Edmund Burke quote I put on the front page of this blog: "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." This phrase has been attributed to this conservative politician for many years (so many that in this case it is very difficult to trace it), but there is no precise source that indicates when it was uttered or if those were the exact words spoken by him. However, just like the alleged quote from St. John Paul II, it does indicate something true.

Indeed, the truth must be defended at all costs and even if it costs us many sacrifices. Of course, this does not mean defending an idea uncritically and without verifying it. The truth, in addition to being defended, must also be substantiated and explained from the position of someone who understands that there may be many reasons why some people are reluctant to accept it (the most human and widespread is ignorance), and for this reason it is necessary to be patient. In addition, this transmission of the truth must begin with ourselves, ensuring that our actions are consistent with it. What would be the point of communicating the truth to others in words if our actions contradict it?

One of the greatest challenges to spreading the truth is, curiously enough, gregariousness. Man is a social being and tends to seek the company of his peers. This has had many advantages since the dawn of humanity: it prevents us from having to start from scratch in our search for solutions to all kinds of problems, but at the same time it creates some situations in which the truth can be a cause of conflict.

This has been seen and is still seen today in countries where a lie has become popular and has ended up having great social acceptance. It happened for a long time in countries where slavery was commonly accepted, until not so long ago (in the West this scourge was abolished in the 19th century, long after this part of the world received the Word of Christ). It happened in Nazi Germany with antisemitism, which was very popular not only in that country, as a method of attributing all kinds of problems to a scapegoat. Today it happens with abortion, which has become an easy and monstrous way for people to have sexual relations without taking responsibility for the consequences.

Furthermore, the defense of truth can also be very costly in our own environment, in the closest environment where we feel supported and safe. How many are willing to risk losing friends by contradicting them on a thorny issue? How many are willing to stand out in the open, contradicting a group of people where they feel safe and understood? "Even if we are only twelve again" sounds very good in a lapidary phrase, but what would happen if the result of defending the truth in your personal environment did not even find the support of eleven others? What would happen if the result was that you were left alone?

This is the great dilemma of defending the truth in human society. Having the courage to go against the majority in order to defend the truth can be something heroic, and it should also encourage us to be more understanding when we see other people defending positions that are absolutely debatable and legitimate, and which result in them being totally excluded. A phenomenon that is occurring today with this phenomenon that we call the "culture of cancellation" and not only between the approaches of two opposing ideological sides, but also within the same side.