Tyrants Like Putin Can't Tolerate Truth

A friend once posed an intriguing hypothetical to Pope John Paul II. Suppose the entire Bible were destroyed. What one sentence or phrase would you want preserved for humanity's future? He didn't hesitate: "...the truth will make you free" (John 8:32). The same conviction about the liberating power of seeing things as they are -- and describing them honestly -- inspired Václav Havel and other human-rights activists to promote "living in the truth" as a powerful antidote to the communist culture of lies during the Cold War. It also animated the myriad samizdat publications produced at great risk in the old Soviet Union. One of the most extraordinary of those underground publishing efforts was the Chronicle of the Catholic Church in Lithuania, whose first issue was published 50 years ago, on March 19, 1972.