Catholics and adultery and lying

[Spyridon]

Is it lying because you don’t share your sexual habits with your grandparents?

Is it lying because you don’t tell your kids your having financial issues and they may end up homeless?

Is it lying if you have a problem with somebody at work and don’t tell your wife?

Is it lying if you kill somebody in war and don’t tell your family when you get home?

Not telling somebody something which would put a needless burden on them or ruin a relationship with them is not lying. It’s being prudent and knowing when to keep certain things in your heart between you and God.

 

[phil19034]

I am a non practicing Catholic so bear me while I try to form an understanding.

I have looked at a few topic thread on CAF recently and an finding a couple of things concerning about the Catholic religion.

Primarily,on a thread by a Muslim guy it was being discussed that Muslims are “permitted” to lie under some circumstances such as lying about their faith/religion under duress but Catholics are never allowed to lie and that’s it’s always a sin (if “only” venial).
One poster responded to me that it would even be a sin to lie to ISIS or other similar barbaric organisation if they were to ask you where a family member/friend was for example so they could kill them.
He said the only Catholic acceptable response would be silence.

Then,I see a different thread about infidelity in marriage and I am amazed to see many Catholics advising the poster that she should not tell her husband that she has cheated on him.

Isn’t being deceptive in this way lying by omission?

I don’t understand the reasoning that it would be ok to deceive a persons husband or wife but to lie to someone like Isis would be a sin (even if venial)??

Is an Isis member really more deserving of trust and honesty than a persons husband/wife

Do all Catholics on here agree with this reasoning?

What everyone is saying in both of those situations is not to lie, but remain silent. On the adultery thread, no one told the woman to lie if if the spouse asks. In fact, one person specifically mentioned that the downside of remaining silent is that if the husband ever asked one day if she ever cheated on him, it she would be lying if she said no.

A lie of omission is not the same as remaining silent. A lie of omission is when you leave out important details when asked something to mislead.

Remaining silent is not a lie because you are not required to offer information. But when you do offer information, it must be true.

That’s the difference.

I pray I’m making sense.

God bless.

 

[boldlygo]

…

My husband likes some ghastly TV shows. On one they make knives and axes in some sort of competition,

That’s ‘Forged in Fire’, the best show on television…my wife and I watch it at every available opportunity.

My marriage is not built on lies, it is built on mutual respect and part of that respect is if I can avoid hurting him, I will. Inflicting needless pain on your spouse is the opposite of charity.

Agreed. Adultery would hurt a spouse. Deception about said adultery would compound the hurt.

 

[Edward_H]

Was St Thomas More just playing a role?

In life, you’re living for God. You have one life to give to God, and the example of a thousand martyrs should fuel us on to be happy to die for God.

The last words of St Polycarp, smiling apparently has he waved his hand across a group of people about to kill him for his faith? “Lord, away with the atheists”. And moments later, they were indeed gone from his presence, as he fell into the arms of his Father God.

What I remember from SERE school was to “live in the little”. Every little decision can help you keep sound. Make a million decisions a day if you can.

And further the example of our faithfulness to God is an apostolic act, fortifying others.

 

[jfz178]

I respect your opinion and everyone in that situation has to decide for themselves. We will have to disagree on this.

 

[Edward_H]

Certainly…and it’s every Catholic person’s (grave) responsibility to help other Catholics recall, acquire the correct criteria for their conscience; it is a life long process to keep the criteria sharp and true to the Church’s teaching.

Too many focus on the “red martyrdom” and not the daily white martyrdom.

From the CCC:

II. TO BEAR WITNESS TO THE TRUTH

2471 Before Pilate, Christ proclaims that he "has come into the world, to bear witness to the truth."266 The Christian is not to "be ashamed then of testifying to our Lord."267 In situations that require witness to the faith, the Christian must profess it without equivocation, after the example of St. Paul before his judges. We must keep "a clear conscience toward God and toward men."268

2472 The duty of Christians to take part in the life of the Church impels them to act as witnesses of the Gospel and of the obligations that flow from it. This witness is a transmission of the faith in words and deeds. Witness is an act of justice that establishes the truth or makes it known.269

All Christians by the example of their lives and the witness of their word, wherever they live, have an obligation to manifest the new man which they have put on in Baptism and to reveal the power of the Holy Spirit by whom they were strengthened at Confirmation. 270

2473 Martyrdom is the supreme witness given to the truth of the faith: it means bearing witness even unto death. The martyr bears witness to Christ who died and rose, to whom he is united by charity. He bears witness to the truth of the faith and of Christian doctrine. He endures death through an act of fortitude. "Let me become the food of the beasts, through whom it will be given me to reach God."271

2474 The Church has painstakingly collected the records of those who persevered to the end in witnessing to their faith. These are the acts of the Martyrs. They form the archives of truth written in letters of blood:

Neither the pleasures of the world nor the kingdoms of this age will be of any use to me. It is better for me to die [in order to unite myself] to Christ Jesus than to reign over the ends of the earth. I seek him who died for us; I desire him who rose for us. My birth is approaching. . .272
I bless you for having judged me worthy from this day and this hour to be counted among your martyrs. . . . You have kept your promise, God of faithfulness and truth. For this reason and for everything, I praise you, I bless you, I glorify you through the eternal and heavenly High Priest, Jesus Christ, your beloved Son. Through him, who is with you and the Holy Spirit, may glory be given to you, now and in the ages to come. Amen.273

 

[jfz178]

What’s wrong with a show about knives? Don’t you use knives in the kitchen? Making them well is an art, like making anything well. And it is an art that is dying out. You don’t have to like the show, but calling it “insipid” and criticizing his watching of it seems over the top.

And what’s wrong with blue recliners? My wife just bought me a blue leather recliner for Christmas. She insisted on the color. I wasn’t wild about it. Shouldn’t the chair he sits in be his “decor style” or at least your shared “decor style?”

I’m not just taking a potshot here. I have a serious reason for saying this. My wife of 39 years and I nearly got a divorce this year. Thankfully we are now back together and doing very well. But we discovered a lot about our relationship and how we communicate through the separation. It was very, very hard, but actually healthy for us.

One of the things we learned is the big things can be OK in a marriage: no adultery, no abuse, no financial issues, no substance abuse, no gambling, no straying from The Church, etc., but still a marriage can fall apart over little things and poor communication. Married people in crisis don’t think those little things are the reason they are separating. They think it is because of bigger things, even though they can’t really describe what it is very well, or they attribute it to something else. They just don’t want to be married anymore.

Where you really learn about the little things is when you are picking up the pieces and trying to put the relationship back together again. I would strongly encourage you not to keep silent about those things you describe, because communication is all important. But I would also encourage you, and I mean this constructively, with all due respect, not to be so self-centered about things that are not important. It can’t be a one-way conversation, but a two-way conversation is essential. Maybe you can buy him a new recliner both of you like better. Maybe you can get two TVs and you can watch your shows while he watches his.

But don’t hold on to even small resentments and keep silent about them. As some wise person once said, “Holding onto resentment is like taking poison and then waiting for your enemy to die.” I assure you, this is hurting you more than anyone. That is NOT charity! That is avoidance. That is non-communication. I won’t go as far as to say it is lying, but I learned that it can have the same effect as lying.

Learning to communicate about and resolve issues on minor things helps you communicate about big things and even helps you to not have big issues.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

You don’t have to like the show, but calling it “insipid” and criticizing his watching of it seems over the top.

Oh c’mon man. My husband watches about 50 TV shows I find annoying and think are a giant waste of my time. So, I let him watch them and I go do something else. That doesn’t mean I have to never say I think Big Bang Theory is a dopey show. He likewise has ways of letting me know he is not fond of some of the stuff I enjoy for entertainment. When two people love each other and have been together for decades, this is small potatoes.

 

[jfz178]

Well I am not much for just selectively quoting the Catechism. As I have said on other threads, that is a document created by men and not expressly commissioned by the words of Christ. It deserves my serious notice, since it comes from learned theologians, but not my blind obedience. It is a “paint by numbers” simplistic approach to being a Catholic, which is fine if that works for you. Christ predicted that Peter would deny Him three times, and he did, but He did not condemn Peter for it, like he did Judas. But we each need to follow our conscience. Even the Catechism talks about “primacy of conscience.”

Let’s hope neither of us get “put to the test.”

 

[jfz178]

Hey, I had a worse problem than Big Bang. My wife is addicted to “Real Housewives” which I think makes Big Bang seem like a quality show! I used to riff on it and point out how much BS it is. I still believe that, but what I realized through my breakup and reconciliation is that it wasn’t the show itself. it was what my criticism was implying about her as a person. Now she watches it less, but when she does, I just leave the room without comment. So it’s not the stupid shows, it’s needless criticism, criticism that serves no purpose but as an oblique put-down.

Do you not have some minor guilty pleasures you don’t care to be jabbed about?

 

[Tis_Bearself]

Yeah, I told the husband years ago that as a Protestant, he wasn’t allowed to make Catholic jokes around me. I also got annoyed once when he made a mild crack about my craft projects. He stopped both things immediately.
He let me know once he did not like me abbreviating or slightly mispronouncing his name. I stopped.

There are tons of other things we criticize or joke about without a problem. It’s because we know we respect each other and don’t feel put down by the remarks, or by some of the old time man-woman stereotype jokes we sometimes make to each other because we are old and not sensitive.

There are probably couples out there where the same type remarks could be perceived by one or the other party as hurtful because there is something else going on in the marriage. I agree that openly communicating all the time is the way to avoid this type of misunderstanding, because 99 percent of the time the other person doesn’t mean anything hurtful and just genuinely doesn’t realize they are upsetting the spouse unless and until spouse says something.

Since I am advocating open communication, as we were also taught in our pre-Cana, big stuff would be part of that too.

 

[TheLittleLady]

My three decades of marriage, ups and downs and separation and reconciliation and near death experiences have taught me to let my husband watch and sit in what he likes. When your spouse is actually dead medically and then comes back to you, you don’t pick on them about their TV shows or ugly chairs.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

I know my marriage improved a lot when I simply accepted the fact that my husband needs sleep and doesn’t like to stay up late like I do. It wasn’t him ignoring me or tuning me out, he just needs his sleep. Of course now I am getting old and catching up to him that way

 

[jfz178]

That’s great as long as you aren’t holding onto resentment about it. Your earlier post made it seem like you were.

 

[Augustine3]

Rozellelily:

The difference is because you know that Isis is very likely going to harm (kill,decapitate) that person but in the second case “you” yourself have done the hurtful act (infidelity) and are then doing a second wrong by not being honest.

1759 “An evil action cannot be justified by reference to a good intention” (cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, Dec. praec. 6). The end does not justify the means.

The person might have a good intention (not to cause their husband/wife hurt) but they are doing a “bad action” (deceit) to bring this about.

Adultery is an evil action but silence is not intrinsically evil per se.

In your mind where do you draw the line? Are

But is silence and deception the same?
Ie:Isis/similar asks where someone is and you remain silent vocally whereas with the spouse you know you have done something very serious that would affect them,yet choose to be deceptive about it.

Even if deception itself wasn’t intrinsically evil or even sin,doesn’t it strike you as shady for a person to think or say to their husband/wife “well if you had of asked me straight up I would have told you the truth that I had cheated but because you didn’t I chose to keep it a secret and not to honour you with honesty”?

Jesus had deceived in the passage below:

Therefore Jesus told them, “My time is not yet here; for you any time will do. 7 The world cannot hate you, but it hates me because I testify that its works are evil. 8 You go to the festival. I am not going up to this festival, because my time has not yet fully come.” 9 After he had said this, he stayed in Galilee.

10 However, after his brothers had left for the festival, he went also, not publicly, but in secret - John 7:6-10

 

[Augustine3]

Where do you draw the line in being “honest” with your spouse? Do you also confess every time you’ve entertained an impure thought with someone else?

In the eyes of the Church, indulgence in impure thoughts is a grave sin and dishonor against your spouse.

 

[Elf01]

Inflicting needless pain on your spouse is the opposite of charity.

Committing adultery has already done that.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

Do you also confess every time you’ve entertained an impure thought with someone else?

You’re being a bit of a nosy parker, but my husband and I have had conversations about this, especially when we were much younger.

We have had conversations about everything during the course of the 30 years we have known each other.

That is a main reason I married him. Because he is a guy who can talk to me about things without turning white or blowing a gasket or walking out the door.

 

[adgloriam]

Because he is a guy who can talk to me about things without turning white or blowing a gasket or walking out the door.

Meekness!

[I’m left wondering, that meekness is called for in the most irrational situations, even absurd situations. As an act of faith, an act of blind faith, when you are taken beyond all your abilities - when all your conceptions and certainties have already been challenged and even violated and, when all is left is desolation in what should be a source of joy.]

 

[adgloriam]

He let me know once he did not like me abbreviating or slightly mispronouncing his name. I stopped.

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