Liar, liar, pants on fire

The topic is the morality of Live Action's undercover operations exposing Planned Parenthood by posing as pimps & prostitutes.  From The American Catholic.  First, the housekeeping:

First I want to make clear that I am 100% pro-life; I make no exceptions for rape, incest, or “to save the life of the mother”, for it is never permissible to kill an innocent human being to save another human being. At the legislative level I would like to see Roe v. Wade overturned, in which case many pre-Roe abortion bans would immediately regain their full force in many states.

Then the jist of it.

But in my estimation, premeditated, pre-orchestrated campaigns of deception are the weapons of Satan. My conscience has never been “right” with the methods of Live Action. I do not believe that the ends justify the means, even though I am in frequent conflict with people over the moral status of certain “means” (some will disagree with my acceptance of property destruction and showing violent images on these grounds). I could quote Catechisms, saints, theologians and the like, but I don’t find it necessary. When we sin against the truth, we sin against God in a most egregious way.

Several others out there are expressing similar opinions. Since I rarely have time to actually write a post but I'm like totally awesome at copying and pasting, I highly recommend to you from This Rock(2008): Is Lying Ever Right? You would be interested to know that lying is not as simple as Pinocchio's nose.

St. Augustine wrote the first extensive treatise on lying (De Mendacio). In it he cites the case of a holy bishop, Firmus of Thagasta, who wished to protect a man who had sought refuge with him. The bishop was so careful of the truth that, rather than lying to the imperial officers who pursued the fugitive, he told them frankly that he would not reveal the man’s location. Firmus maintained this resolve even under torture, with the result that he was eventually brought before the emperor himself. But the emperor was so impressed with the bishop’s virtue that he both praised the bishop and pardoned the fugitive.

Aquinas agreed with Augustine.  But the issue has been hotly debated for 1500 years.  Remember the 8th Commandment was specifically about perjury under oath. Read the whole article to get the details.  I'd love to give you a nice summary but I've got a day job...

Here's my point:

I referred earlier to the difficulty of conceptualizing a perfect definition of lying that might reveal a solution to our dilemma. The magisterium of the Church has not endorsed any such definition, but it recently came very close to taking a small step in that direction. Over the past hundred years there has been a growing movement among moral theologians to tweak the definition of lying as follows: "To lie is to speak or act against the truth in order to lead into error someone who has the right to know the truth." This very sentence, in fact, is taken from the initial edition of the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC 2483, 1994 edition).

When the Catechism was first published in French in 1994, and translated into other languages from the French, it contained the sentence quoted above, and so there was some speculation that the Holy See had finally decided to throw at least a modicum of magisterial weight behind this solution to our dilemma. This very precise definition, with its inclusion of the right to know, enables us to handle lying and falsehood in a manner very similar to the way we handle murder and killing. Through a person’s intention to use particular knowledge for an evil end, that person would presumably forfeit his right to know. Thus it would be morally acceptable to speak a falsehood to the murderous thugs. But we would no more call this "lying" than we would call an act of self-defense "murder."

Alas, the matter is not so easily resolved. For, as it turns out, when the official Latin text of the Catechism was released in 1997 after a process of revision, the right to know was dropped. The operative sentence now reads simply: "To lie is to speak or act against the truth in order to lead someone into error." Of course, the Catechism is intended as a basic compendium of Catholic doctrine, assembled with due ecclesiastical care, and not as a collection of definitive infallible pronouncements permanently settling every question on every topic it covers. In other words, the change in definition does not mean the original formulation was wrong. But it does mean that the editors of the Catechism were not prepared to endorse it in an official Catholic reference work.

Some might say well if they took it out of the Catechism, then this definition is wrong.  I think that's short sighted.  All this says is that it appears there can be well meaning people on both sides of the fence.  

If we accept this definition(which I do), the argument here really comes down to did the employee have a right to know the truth.  Since the employee was engaging in sin(participating in abortion, contraception, sterilization, and not to mention deception to women themselves), and intended to cooperate in the sins of others, I can't say that the employee has a right to the truth in that situation.

Father John Hardon taught something similar to the above definition for truth.  ... What I'm looking for is not online(I'll look for the book when I have a chance) but Father talks about how it is moral to keep secrets that not everyone has the right to know.

If you are smarter than me(which you all probably are), set me straight!

Of course, all of the above might just be one big fat lie, in which case you can pull my nose as long as a telephone wire.

HT Steve Karlen