Fake vow?

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BrooklynBoy200

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If any of you have read my other thread then you know that i am a mafia fan. Well, i was looking at a book where a cop is sent undercover into the mafia. Now, in order to join the mafia a person is required to take an oath never to “rat” anything out to the law. It requires taking a prayer card or other image of a saint, pricking the recruit’s hand, and smearing his blood on the card. Then, the card is set on fire and the recruit says something along the lines of “may my soul burn in hell like this card if i ever rat to the law” or something like that. It’s a true story too so this isn’t fake. I was wondering, would the cop really be held to that oath? Would he go to hell for working undercover and taking the vow? Another question, are lies told undercover considered a sin? Or is this covered under the it’s-ok-to-fight-in-wars law?
 
Personally I agree with Zatoichi (who’s a Japanese gangster): Undercover agents, spies, informants…all people like that make my skin crawl.

Morality aside, it’s just nasty to win people’s trust, make them treat you as a comrade and maybe even risk their lives for you, and then rat them out. If you’ve seen the ending of Reservoir Dogs, you know what I’m talking about.

It’s probably not that the breaking of the oath is wrong (since its use of saints’ images is sacrilegious and part of the reason that being in the Mafia is automatic excommunication), but the whole web of deception and betrayal you have to weave is pretty dirty business.
 
Hastrman said:
Personally I agree with Zatoichi (who’s a Japanese gangster): Undercover agents, spies, informants…all people like that make my skin crawl.

Morality aside, it’s just nasty to win people’s trust, make them treat you as a comrade and maybe even risk their lives for you, and then rat them out. If you’ve seen the ending of Reservoir Dogs, you know what I’m talking about.

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Normally i would agree, but some things do have to be done. It’s a good cause at least.
 
Would he go to hell for working undercover and taking the vow
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One doubts very much if your cop [or indeed anyone else] will go to hell. The Catholic Church in 2000-years has only once ever declared that a person would go to hell and then only the once!

Your cop would be working under a higher code whereby the Judiciary would be complicit in hiding his identity such as does happen.

But to take a vow with a wilful intent to lie or for the purpose to deceive, is to commit purjury.😉
 
One doubts very much if your cop would go to hell. Such a concept is outside the realms of the context of your text.

Your cop would be working under a higher code whereby the Judiciary would be complicit in hiding his identity such as does happen.

But to take a vow with a wilful intent to lie or for the purpose to deceive, is to commit purjury.
 
So, along the same line, suppose 3 or 4 young men were to get together and decide to rob convenience stores for fun and profit, and before embarking on this, take a joint vow never to rat each other out.

If one of them has qualms of conscience after a few robberies and decides to go to the police, is he guilty of somehow violating an oath? I think not.

He would need to confess the robberies in the sacrament of confession, not violating the oath.
 
JimG said:
So, along the same line, suppose 3 or 4 young men were to get together and decide to rob convenience stores for fun and profit, and before embarking on this, take a joint vow never to rat each other out.

If one of them has qualms of conscience after a few robberies and decides to go to the police, is he guilty of somehow violating an oath? I think not.

He would need to confess the robberies in the sacrament of confession, not violating the oath.
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Confessing to a priest isn’t ratting. The priest can’t expose your comrades to prosecution, now can he?

But men don’t rat. That’s the rule. You can turn yourself in, but your dignity requires that you not rat out your comrades. Especially not to get lighter sentencing: that’s just low.
 
Hastrman said:
Confessing to a priest isn’t ratting. The priest can’t expose your comrades to prosecution, now can he?

But men don’t rat. That’s the rule. You can turn yourself in, but your dignity requires that you not rat out your comrades. Especially not to get lighter sentencing: that’s just low.
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So if the robberies begin to get more violent, the other parties get hooked on drugs, acquire larger weapons, and their targets’ lives are in danger, what is the greatest evil here—to rat out the robbers, or to fail to protect the public? Is there no obligation to prevent harm?
 
You can kill a comrade to protect the respectable people–but you can’t rat him out. Men do not rat. It’s dirty to bring in the cops, to settle a private matter.
 
Hastrman said:
You can kill a comrade to protect the respectable people–but you can’t rat him out. Men do not rat. It’s dirty to bring in the cops, to settle a private matter.
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So murder is a private matter, whether done by the mafia or simple robbers?

Seems as though moral theology texts need to be re-written, so that “ratting out one’s accomplice” is rated as the first of the deadly sins, with the others occupying a lower rung.
 
JimG said:
So murder is a private matter, whether done by the mafia or simple robbers?

Seems as though moral theology texts need to be re-written, so that “ratting out one’s accomplice” is rated as the first of the deadly sins, with the others occupying a lower rung.
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You read the Divine Comedy? Rats get the lowest level of Hell–treachery is treachery.

And no, it’s not murder. Killing to protect the innocent isn’t murder. But since your oath to them means you can’t put the cops on them, you are obligated to take care of it if they become a threat to innocents.
 
So a Mafia member who knows of an impending murder of some innocent third party, has first, a duty to never go to the cops with this info, and second, a duty to prevent the crime himself. He must be a vigilante but never an informer.

And if subpoenaed as a witness in a criminal case, the Mafia member would be duty bound to commit perjury rather than tell what he knew of the crime.

Omerta then is the equivalent of the seal of confession; it’s just not mentioned in canon law.
 
What do I know from the Mafia? They’re weak, they get in the way of the katagi, and they make excuses. They violate the precepts of their own religion. That’s no kind of a gangster.

Now the yakuza, those are gangsters. They will actually let themselves be unjustly punished, even killed, rather than risk a gang war that might endanger their brothers or the katagi. They don’t make excuses, and if they have to apologize, they do it with the spilling of their own blood. Their lives are run on the basis of Jingi, Humane Honor, and what is good for their gang and their community.

(katagi=respectable people)

That’s how you run a gang. They’re the strongest organized crime group in the world precisely because their code’s so strict. They’re the reason Japan has strict gun control and yet (unlike England or Australia) a lower rate of non-homicide violent crime than the US.

And they don’t have to violate their religion to do it.
 
Hastrman said:
What do I know from the Mafia? They’re weak, they get in the way of the katagi, and they make excuses. They violate the precepts of their own religion. That’s no kind of a gangster.

Now the yakuza, those are gangsters. They will actually let themselves be unjustly punished, even killed, rather than risk a gang war that might endanger their brothers or the katagi. They don’t make excuses, and if they have to apologize, they do it with the spilling of their own blood. Their lives are run on the basis of Jingi, Humane Honor, and what is good for their gang and their community.

(katagi=respectable people)

That’s how you run a gang. They’re the strongest organized crime group in the world precisely because their code’s so strict. They’re the reason Japan has strict gun control and yet (unlike England or Australia) a lower rate of non-homicide violent crime than the US.

And they don’t have to violate their religion to do it.
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You wouldn’t happen to be japanese would you?
 
Plus, aren’t the yakuza known for their big pornography and prostitution business?

Plus, they go out and kill and rob random people. The mafia mostly keeps the killing within their own.

That’s not very respectable in my opinion.
Mafia is cooler.

Plus, they go out and kill and rob random people. The mafia mostly keeps the killing within their own.
 
I’m pretty sure the cop’s oath would count as done under duress.

Comparative morality of organized crime groups… You guys crack me up! I’m just glad you haven’t seen any of the flicks pointing out the Triads’ connection to Shaolin Buddhism and the anti-Manchu Chinese resistance!

That said, The Gokusen is a very sweet anime comedy about a Yakuza heiress whose dream is being a schoolteacher. Lots of fun stuff about the conflict of duty and honor, and a fairly gentle version of Yakuza slang. My parents are teachers, and they loved it. (Especially the parts where she got to use martial arts and intimidation, as there are many times when career teachers wish they could use 'em…)
 
Hastrman said:
It’s dirty to bring in the cops, to settle a private matter.
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Your reasoning is based on a logical fallacy: the criminals’ vow to keep a secret quit being a private matter once they started committing crimes against the public, and the cops/justice system represent the interests of the public against the criminals preying on them. The right of the victim to justice nullifies any moral weight that might be attributed to a vow criminals made between themselves to try to avoid being brought to justice…
 
BrooklynBoy200 said:
Plus, aren’t the yakuza known for their big pornography and prostitution business?

Plus, they go out and kill and rob random people. The mafia mostly keeps the killing within their own.

That’s not very respectable in my opinion.
Mafia is cooler.

Plus, they go out and kill and rob random people. The mafia mostly keeps the killing within their own.
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Who have you been talking to?

Stealing is not proper to the path of the yakuza–call them thieves and you’re liable to get killed. Harming the katagi (any non-yakuza who is not a cop or a client of the yakuza) is completely forbidden, and punished at least by loss of a finger if not life. There have been gang wars forced to an end by higher bosses simply because they would endanger outsiders.

As to pornography and prostitution, the American Mafia are just as bad (the Sicilians tradionally don’t touch it) if not worse.

The yakuza are an outgrowth of vigilante groups of the early Edo period. In order to protect their communities, they took over illegal businesses like prostitution, gambling, and smuggling, in order to reduce the corrosive influence of the underworld.

They were the single largest donor to the rebuilding effort after the great earthquake in Kobe (Kobe is headquarters to the largest gang, the Yamaguchi-gumi). They see themselves as feudal lords, with an obligation to protect those they live among.

Their lives are sordid, dark, and frequently short, but I wouldn’t be surprised if many of them saved their souls at the end.
 
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