Order of Carmelites

Message: Seek, report, and reveal the truth

/ Carmel News / By

Message on the Canonization of St. Titus Brandsma

Thank you for inviting us to be here with you tonight and as his excellency Archbishop Charles Brown said during the Thanksgiving Mass, it is a very special occasion and I’m especially happy to be here together with my colleague Monique van Daalen, our temporary ambassador as representatives of the home country of Saint Titus Brandsma. It is a true sign of the special bond that the Philippines has with the Netherlands.

Saint Titus was born in Friesland, a province in the north of the Netherlands, in 1881, where his mother and father, who were devout Catholics, ran a small dairy farm. This is not far from where my family is from, namely from Janum. When I look at the photo of Saint Titus’ mother, she looks very much like my great-grand mother with the traditional Dutch dress and headscarf. Maybe they even met at some point, who knows. From a very young age, Titus Brandsma felt a calling to the religious life. Father Brandsma had a strong calling to serve humanity.

As a journalist and a teacher, he devoted his attention to the suffering and the troubles of those he encountered. He saw God in every living creature, and in everything that exists. This is why he also spoke out boldly, and at such an early stage, against the spread of Nazi ideology. And why he sharply criticized Nazi policies in his lectures and newspaper articles. He explained his actions by saying that ‘he who wants to win the world for Christ must have the courage to come in conflict with it.’

For his work, he was condemned by the Nazi occupiers as an ‘enemy of the state’, and was held in several prisons in the Netherlands. Although they treated him very badly, Father Brandsma advised his fellow prisoners to be patient. And not to yield to hatred. In the end he was killed in Dachau.

Saint Titus Brandsma’s life and spirit inspire me in so many ways. Even when he was deprived of his freedoms he never gave up hope. He always stood up for his beliefs, and kept his inner strength and faith.

This enabled him to serve righteously as a Dutch priest, and as a crusading journalist, strongly advocating press freedom.

He sacrificed his life for humanity and freedom of expression. To me, that makes him an exemplary human rights defender, defender of the truth and a martyr for press freedom who still inspires and influences people all over the world.

But we cannot honour Titus Brandsma’s legacy and person, without reminding ourselves, that with his life, views and actions he set an empowering example for dealing with the world’s current challenges.

So thank you for remembering the life of Saint Titus and continuing his work and keeping his spiritual contributions alive that he may remain an example for the Carmelite Order here in the Philippines and people around the world.

Like our struggle against the venom of disinformation, lies, and fake news. There are still people in the world – in my own country, too – who’d prefer wrongdoing to be covered up; stories to go unpublished and secrets to remain buried.

And yet many journalists continue to show strength and courage like Titus Brandsma. They carry on with their work, and they retain their faith in humanity. They show all of us that human freedom is something that can never be permanently repressed, controlled or restrained.

We understand that if violence against journalists triumphs, media cannot be free and democracy cannot function. So that – like Titus Brandsma – journalists can continue to seek the truth, to report the facts and to supply the fuel we so desperately need for free, well-functioning and informed societies.

I urge all journalists and reporters to keep on showing your remarkable resilience by doing your important work: seeking, reporting and revealing the truth. So that, like Blessed Titus Brandsma, you can continue to share reliable information with people and societies, stand up for human rights, and continue to be a source of hope and inspiration, to people all over the world.

Mr. Pieter Terpstra
Deputy Head of Mission
Netherlands Embassy in the Philippines

Titus Brandsma Center
28 May 2022