Is reactionary lying a mortal sin?

[angell1]

let’s say you get asked a difficult question you don’t really want answer

is it lying if you just blurt out something to avoid the discussion and are just not thinking straight due to fatigue. or if you realize what you said isn’t quite true after you said it?

if this is considered lying, would it be mortal sin?

 

[Fr.Charles_Grondin]

Catechism of the Catholic Church:

**2464 **The eighth commandment forbids misrepresenting the truth in our relations with others. This moral prescription flows from the vocation of the holy people to bear witness to their God who is the truth and wills the truth. Offenses against the truth express by word or deed a refusal to commit oneself to moral uprightness: they are fundamental infidelities to God and, in this sense, they undermine the foundations of the covenant.

Sin requires an act of the will. If we purposely lie than it most certainly is a sin and the gravity of the sin would depend upon the gravity of the situation. However, if we without full purpose “blurt out” a lie to a question we could certainly say that our culpability is lessened (and therefore not mortal) by the lack of forethought, malice, or intention.

For further reading: Catholic Answer’s Is Lying Ever Right?