A saint for freedom of expression

On May 15, the Dutch Blessed Titus Brandsma will be canonized in Rome. Here in the Philippines, he is the patron of the Carmelite Order. Blessed Titus Brandsma died in the Dachau concentration camp because he stood up for press freedom. Titus Brandsma is to me a leading defender of human rights who to this day continues to inspire people worldwide in our fight against the poison of disinformation, lies and fake news.

He 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. From a very young age, Titus Brandsma felt a calling to the religious life. He joined the Carmelite Order, one of the Roman Catholic Church’s most ancient religious communities. The Order’s founders wished to devote their lives to reflective prayer, spirituality and philosophy. Yet Father Brandsma also had a strong calling to serve humanity in other ways.

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.”

His remarkable bravery brought him to the attention of the Nazi occupiers, especially when they found out that he was traveling from city to city to deliver letters to the editors of Dutch Catholic newspapers, warning those editors not to abide by Nazi orders and to not print lies and disinformation that the Nazis were spreading about the Jewish people.

Father Brandsma managed to visit 14 Catholic newspaper editors before being arrested.

He was condemned by the Nazi occupiers as an “enemy of the state” and was held in several prisons in the Netherlands. They beat him viciously, with their fists and with clubs and boards. They kicked and punched him, drawing blood. Often leaving him in the mud, barely conscious. And yet Father Brandsma advised his fellow prisoners to be patient. And not to yield to hatred.

“We are here in a dark tunnel,” he told them, “but we have to go on. At the end, the eternal light is shining for us.”

Blessed 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. The Nazis may have tried to make him renounce his convictions and to dehumanize him, but he kept on defending the truth, freedom of expression and, above all, “humanity.”

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

But we cannot honor 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. 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.

We hear about journalists who are censored; receive death threats and are physically attacked or murdered because of their work. Last year, the number of journalists behind bars reached a global high. Attacks on journalists are designed to have a chilling and deterring effect on others.

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.

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Bahia Tahzib-Lie is Human Rights Ambassador of the Netherlands.