October 26, 2025 Essay: The Nobility of Truth
In the early hours of 16 November 1989, Salvadoran government soldiers entered the compound of the Jesuit residence that was attached to the nearby Jesuit university. They forced four Jesuit priests into the garden, ordered them to lie face down, and shot them in the head at point-blank range. They then entered the Jesuit residence a second time and killed the remaining two Jesuit priests in the house, along with the caretaker’s wife and young daughter. As the soldiers exited the premises, they left a written message near the bodies in the garden that claimed that the FMLN, a paramilitary group that had been fighting government forces, took responsibility for the murders.
The Jesuits were murdered for their efforts to find a peaceful solution to end the civil war between government forces and FMLN, a war that over the course of 12 years resulted in the deaths of 1.4 percent of the country’s population. The conflict ended in 1992. Upon the signing of a peace agreement, a United Nations Truth Commission was formed to investigate the wrongdoings that occurred during the civil war. Its findings revealed that the murders on the night of 16 November 1989 were at the direct order of the highest level of El Salvador’s military and government, and that the American Embassy in El Salvador, more likely than not, had prior knowledge of what was being planned. The government of El Salvador used its military to silence the voices of those who spoke the truth of what was happening in El Salvador. The Jesuit priests were considered a threat to those who held the power and wealth of the country. (The government officials and military commanders who ordered their murders were never brought to trial.)
Difficult though it was to learn the truth of what happened that night, it was also a balm to Father José Maria Tojeira, the Jesuit Superior at the time of the murders, who for years led the effort to discover what happened so that those responsible would be brought to justice. In his homily last November on the 35th anniversary of the murders, Father Tojeira preached about the lessons to be learned from that tragic evening. He said, “We must be honest even if we are disliked, and seek truth amid corruption…and the denial of transparency. We must also defend human rights while the blaring horns of power claim that human rights are a mechanism to defend criminals.” The overarching message of Father Tojeira’s homily was that truth matters, and we must be fearless in demanding it.
Sadly, the blaring horns of power are all around us in their effort to pervert the very meaning of truth. Its misuse is an attempt to alter reality to suit the needs of a pernicious agenda that is as far from truth as I am from the moon. The crude sign left by the government solders was an attempt to mask what really happened on 16 November. Times have changed, and the methods of deception have become more sophisticated. However, no amount of garish gold trimming, marble portals of tarnished glory, craven images on coins, or incessant bombast and orchestrated distractions can camouflage the attempt to create a reality that is anything but truthful.
There is a nobility to truth. Truth frees us from the torment of deception and lies. Father Tojeira experienced that first-hand when he discovered what actually happened under the cover of darkness in the garden of a Jesuit residence in San Salvador. If we, in our day, fail to recognize or pursue the truth, we become like Pontius Pilate who asked Jesus, “What is truth?” (Jn. 18:38.) Tragically, Pilate failed to see that the embodiment of truth stood before him, Jesus, the Son of God. In avoiding the challenge to stand up for the truth in the midst of the deceptions that overwhelm us every day, are we too denying the one eternal truth upon which our faith is based? Our inaction to confront those who govern by lies and deception tarnishes the nobility of truth and gives license to an altered reality.
— Rev. Dennis J. Yesalonia, S.J., Pastor