Is lying always sinful?

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dean24us

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Is lying sinful when you are in a position which might necessitate it and/or for the ‘greater good’? Some real-world examples of situations I’m referring to are:
  • In security work, lying about an ongoing investigation to prevent compromise of the investigation.
  • For the government work, lying about knowledge of classified military information (i.e. national security).
  • As a parent, lying to your children about bad situations in your past to prevent the appearance of giving tacit approval for those actions (e.g., premarital sex, underage drinking, etc).
I have run in to the above situations throughout the course of my life, and (even in retrospect) I believe being truthful would have done much more harm than good (if not gotten me fired or sent to jail). With that said, I realize that “…bearing false witness…” is forbidden by the Ten Commandments, so I am curious: did I sin, was I doing the right thing, or both? 🤷
 
If someone does not have the right to know a particular bit of information, it is not a sin to withhold it or to give an answer that goes against that information. If the security of the general public would be compromised if someone answered truthfully to questions no one has a right to be asking. then it would not be a lie to either refuse to answer or say something counter to that information.

The third one is a sticky matter: kids have the right to know, at some point, that their parents aren’t perfect. But if the parent admits to making some serious moral lapses BUT stresses that they renounced their sins, I don’t see that it’s any more approving of moral lapses than, say, reading the life of Blessed Margret of Cortona (who cohabited with a man and had a child with him before her conversion) or St. Camillus de Lellis (who had a gambling addiction).
 
It is always wrong to deliberately lie. It is better to say nothing than to lie. In his book, “The Faith Explained”, Leo J. Trese, on the Chapter covering the Eight Commandment, writes, and I quote: “Whatever may be the reason for departing from the truth, a lie is always a sin.”
 
CCC 2482 begins the part on lying, you can then read the footnotes and supporting documents

A deliberate lie is always a sin. It might be mortal if the other conditions are met, but, it is in the least a venial sin and we are to avoid even venial sins.
 
It goes down to “right ot know” stuff. Does a Nazi have the right to know about Jews your hiding? Of course not. Do your kids have the right to know you made some “youthful discretions?” Nope.
 
[Sigh]. With all due respect to the OP, every few weeks a thread seems to appear like this one, i.e., “is lying always a sin?”

–And every few weeks someone insists that lying is always a sin.

–And it’s wrong to allege that “lying is always a sin!” then, and its equally wrong now.

The Catholic Church does not teach that lying is always a sin.

The Catholic Church certainly could say, “lying is always sinful.” It does not.

Quoting “The Faith Explained” is of no benefit, because – while useful – that work is merely a commentary, and one person’s opinion. There is no “Gospel of Leo Trese.”

Instead, we have the Catechism, which states at 2488:

“The right to the communication of the truth is not unconditional. Everyone must conform his life to the Gospel precept of fraternal love. This requires us in concrete situations to judge whether or not it is appropriate to reveal the truth to someone who asks for it.”

–There we have it.

My experience is that lots of people would like there to be 100% hard, fast moral rules for everything, in part since that would make life so easy! However, life is hard, and there are lots of gray areas where we’re left to our own consciences. Lying is one of them.

The Church is not some cult which tells its members what they must do across the board, and well it does not. Right to communication of truth is not unconditional, but love is. Fraternal love – i.e., love of humanity, respect for life, etc. – IS unconditional, and, as the CCC tells us, we are left to ourselves to judge when to reveal truth and when not to, being mindful of our obligation to “fraternally love” others.

–VdT
 
Again, the Catechism and all Catholic doctrine tells us that we can use descretion in language, but that lying is a grave offense. It really is clear and simple.

Do not lie.
 
dean24us said:
Is lying sinful when you are in a position which might necessitate it and/or for the ‘greater good’? Some real-world examples of situations I’m referring to are:
  • In security work, lying about an ongoing investigation to prevent compromise of the investigation.
  • For the government work, lying about knowledge of classified military information (i.e. national security).
  • As a parent, lying to your children about bad situations in your past to prevent the appearance of giving tacit approval for those actions (e.g., premarital sex, underage drinking, etc).
I have run in to the above situations throughout the course of my life, and (even in retrospect) I believe being truthful would have done much more harm than good (if not gotten me fired or sent to jail). With that said, I realize that “…bearing false witness…” is forbidden by the Ten Commandments, so I am curious: did I sin, was I doing the right thing, or both? 🤷
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Lying is always sinful but not always grave.

CCC 2488 does not say or imply that some lies are permitted. It means not everyone has the right to be told the truth, which is different.
 
Castello said:
Again, the Catechism and all Catholic doctrine tells us that we can use descretion in language, but that lying is a grave offense. It really is clear and simple.

Do not lie.
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It “can” be a grave sin (mortal sin…means the same)…but it need not be.

Lies are often venial matter.

(of course that does not mean one is to do them!)
 
2484 The gravity of a lie is measured against the nature of the truth it deforms, the circumstances, the intentions of the one who lies, and the harm suffered by its victims. If a lie in itself only constitutes a venial sin, it becomes mortal when it does grave injury to the virtues of justice and charity.

(see whole treatment in the CCC)
 
Always sinful, sometimes mortal (if all 3 conditions are met) and sometimes venial but NEVER okay!
 
I thoroughly support Janet Smith’s take that telling falsehoods is not always intrinsically evil. She is one of the best theologians of our time (most famous for her tape Contraception - Why Not?). She dares to go at odds with St. Thomas Aquinas while still giving him plenty of deference.

This link gives her thoughts on the subject and is a must-read, even if you disagree with her conclusions.

Fig Leaves and Falsehoods

God bless!
 
Rascalking said:
It goes down to “right ot know” stuff. Does a Nazi have the right to know about Jews your hiding? Of course not. Do your kids have the right to know you made some “youthful discretions?” Nope.
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Very true. To use your own example, a Nazi does not have to know about the Jews you are hiding; so, do not tell him. Remain mum. Chances are, you would be horribly tortured and then blurt it all out anyway; but you would have acted correctly both in the eyes of God and man. To lie about his whereabouts is wrong, but because your reason to lie is noble, it would most likely be a venial sin. That is the way I look at it.🙂
 
bbentrup said:
I thoroughly support Janet Smith’s take that telling falsehoods is not always intrinsically evil. She is one of the best theologians of our time (most famous for her tape Contraception - Why Not?). She dares to go at odds with St. Thomas Aquinas while still giving him plenty of deference.

This link gives her thoughts on the subject and is a must-read, even if you disagree with her conclusions.

Fig Leaves and Falsehoods

God bless!
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Thanks for the link bbentrup. I have read; still digesting it 🙂
 
Castello said:
Again, the Catechism and all Catholic doctrine tells us that we can use descretion in language, but that lying is a grave offense. It really is clear and simple.

Do not lie.
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Castello:

During Persecutions from the late 2nd to the early 4th Centuries, Bishops, Priests, Deacons & others in the Church were ordered by Imperial Authorities to hand over Books of the Gospel, Letters of St. Paul & other Canonical & Sacred Books for destruction by Imperial Authorities. When refusal to hand such books would result in their deaths, these Bishops, Priests, etc. handed over Books & other correspondence written in Greek which they and many of the members of their congregations understood, but the soldiers rarely, if ever, understood. According to you and many others here, those who preserved the Bible sinned in the process…

After Henry VIII broke off from the Catholic Church and declared himself the Head of the Church of England, Faithful Catholics took to hiding Priests, Chapels, Sacred Vessels, etc. so “Priest- Hunters” couldn’t find them. By the time of Elizabeth I, hiding Priests, sponsoring or attending a Catholic Mass or maintaining a Catholic Chapel were all offenses punishable by Death (Drawing and Quartering - Excruciating & took 12-24 hours to die). Priests who were caught were all tortured and then Drawn and Quartered. Needless to say, those who hid Priests went to great lengths to make sure Priests and all of theother “Preparations” went “undiscovered”. That included lying about whether they were hiding a Catholic Priest or had even seen someone alleged to be a Catholic Priest, as well as lying about whether they had a "Priest’s hole or Priest’s Tunnel. Literally hundreds of Priests owed their lives to that dissimulation.

And, We all have the case of the Holocaust - Those who hid Jews in their attics and basements relied on the “discretion” of their neighbors. They relied on their neighbors occasionally telling the Gestapo, “I haven’t seen any Jews around here”, or, “I haven’t heard of any Jews living or staying around here,” when, in fact, they knew where most of the Jewish families lived and were sharing their “Ration Cards” and vegetables from their garden with them. The Catholic Church went so far as to dress up Jewish boys as Acolytes, put Jewish Girls in the Schola Cantorum and Jewish men and women in habits. Almost every European Jew who survived the war relied on someone to lie for them at some point during the war.

Think about everyone involved in the plot to kill Hitler - They all had to lead “Double-lives”. They all had to hide the real reason they were doing what they were doing and why, even from their closest friends and families. Read the book Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy, by Eric Metaxis (Nelson, 2010), and you’ll see what I mean.

The Commandment doesn’t say, “You shall not Lie.” It says, “You shall not bear false witness against another.” That is - You shall not declare someone to be guilty when, in fact that person is innocent. The Rabbis even used to tell a story to illustrate this - The Talebearer’s Lesson
thefreelibrary.com/The+talebearer’s+lesson.-a0143718921
At the same time, the Rabbis used to talk of the dangers of the Lashon Hora (the Evil Tongue), which, at it’s worst, leads to the Chillul Hashem (the Desecration of God’s Name). Wikipedia - Lashon Hara
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lashon_hara

We need to emphasize "Talebearing, on saying things we know would harm our neighbors, not “Lying”. Think of a married couple - The wife says, “Does this dress make me look fat?” The truth just might be that it does, but no sensible husband who cares about the feelings of his wife is going to say that. In facr, almost anyone here who is or has been married can tell you just how angry the wife will be and where the husband will be sleeping if the husband were to even think of saying just how fact that dress makes her look (If it didn’t make her look fat, she wouldn’t ask the question). No, He’s going to say she would look absolutely fabulous in that lovely blue dress he just picked out (Because he saw her picking out that ugly *** dress and grabbed the best looking dress he could find). She’s going to put on the blue dress, look great, and forget her original question (because she knows he cares enough to watch her picking out her clothes).

I tend to agree with the comment that it may be time to kill this topic. The CCD didn’t “Eliminate” the phrase “Right to know” because it was bad doctrine. It was eliminated because Catholics weren’t properly catechized and weren’t doing the “heavy lifting” needed to know when someone would not have “The Right to Know”. Remember, the Catechism is a Teaching Tool that’s supposed to lead us into reading and study of the Sacred Scriptures, Councils & Doctors of the Church, and the Early Church Fathers…

Yours in Christ, Michael
 
Many thanks to everyone that has replied! I have only been Catholic for around a year, and I am still learning many of the moral nuances associated with Catholic living. I have found CAF to a great resource in my ongoing moral and spiritual formation, and I truly appreciate the time everyone took to respond to my question.

I read the sections of the CCC that were provided regarding lying and truth, specifically CCC 2475 through 2492. Regarding the first and second example provided in my OP (investigations and classified information), CCC 2491 seems to be the most relevant:
2491 Professional secrets - for example, those of political office holders, soldiers, physicians, and lawyers - or confidential information given under the seal of secrecy must be kept, save in exceptional cases where keeping the secret is bound to cause very grave harm to the one who confided it, to the one who received it or to a third party, and where the very grave harm can be avoided only by divulging the truth. Even if not confided under the seal of secrecy, private information prejudicial to another is not to be divulged without a grave and proportionate reason.
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Ideally, when faced with questions that border on the types of secrets discussed in CCC 2491, one would say something to the effect of “I can’t discuss that” or simply avoid answering the question. However, sometimes even giving a tacit admission of knowledge of a secret without giving the details could, in and of itself, compromise the secret, so it seems to me that one would be obligated to lie to protect the secret, even if it is something as simple as “I don’t know what you’re talking about”. As such, I totally understand how this is a moral “gray area” that some of you have referred to, despite the fact that it could be viewed as contradicting CCC 2475 through 2487 and the Eighth Commandment.

It does beg the question of how does one know if lying in a particular situation is sinful? I realize that one could go to confession and ask forgiveness “just in case”, but the point of the matter is trying to avoid sin from happening in the first place. And I have a difficult time believing that one can be required to sin (lying) to avoid being guilty of another sin (covered in CCC 2491 above). Generally speaking, is there some order of precedence I should use when trying to apply the Church’s teachings in this and other matters? Also, who determines if an act that falls in a “moral gray area” is sinful or not?

Thanks again,
Dean
 
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