“Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor” (Ex. 20:16).
The Eighth Commandment is ordered toward the good of truth and, far from being minor offenses against God, our misuse of speech can lead to a host of evils which Canon Francis Ripley, in This is the Faith, notes when he laments: “The right use of the power of speech is necessary for the welfare of society. Untold evils are caused by its abuse in lying, propaganda, defamations of character, libel, calumnies and so forth.”
Both false testimony against our neighbor and false testimony in his favor are to be condemned. The Eighth Commandment forbids all attacks on truth, including false testimony (i.e., perjury), rash judgment, lies, calumny, slander, detraction, libel, talebearing, backbiting, and betraying secrets. On this universal prohibition against falsehood, the clarity of The Catechism of the Council of Trent shines:
“God prohibits all testimony which may inflict injury or injustice, whether it be a matter of legal evidence or not. In the passage of Leviticus where the Commandments are repeated, we read: Thou shalt not steal; thou shalt not lie; neither shall any man deceive his neighbor. To none, therefore, can it be a matter of doubt, that this Commandment condemns lies of every sort, as these words of David explicitly declare: Thou wilt destroy all that speak a lie.”
Perjury
Perjury is willfully telling an untruth while under oath, for example, in a court of law.
Through the Sacred Scriptures and in the story of Susanna (cf., Daniel 13), perjury is condemned as mortal sin. Perjury is never permissible and must always be condemned.
Rash Judgment
Rash judgment consists in supposing evil, or denying good, in one’s neighbor, without reasonable and sufficient grounds. God calls man to presume good intent in his neighbor, yet our fallen nature often induces us to think evil on the basis of insufficient evidence.
The Law of Charity forbids rash judgment against others, which – like all offenses against our fellow man – calls to mind the requirement to “love thy enemies,” which Our Lord called the second greatest of the Commandments (cf., Matthew 22). Instead of focusing on the apparent faults of others, we must remember to improve our own lives through the practice of virtue and the avoidance of vice. To such people Our Lord pronounced the condemnation, “Thou hypocrite, cast out first the beam in thy own eye, and then shalt thou see to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye” (Matthew 5:7).
Lies
Most moral handbooks explain that he is guilty of lying who says what is not true with the intention of deceiving others. The liar resembles the devil, for he is a liar from the beginning and the father of lies (cf., John 8:44). Intentional lying is forbidden even if it may be the means of bringing about much good.
As explained by Canon Francis Ripley, lies are sinful because of the use of the natural faculty of speech in a manner directly opposed to its purpose. Thus, it is wrong to use speech to misrepresent what one thinks or believes. He adds: “In itself, a lie is never more than a venial sin, but the act of telling a lie may be gravely sinful because of some other factor, for example, injury to a person’s character.”
Regardless of a lie’s character as venial or mortally sinful, the Roman Catechism strongly denounces lies of all kinds without exception: “In a word, lies of every sort are prohibited, especially those that cause grave injury to anyone, while most impious of all is a lie uttered against or regarding religion.”
However, an important distinction exists between lies and mental reservations. Canon Ripley explains:
“Here we must distinguish between strict and broad mental reservations. Strict mental reservations are always a lie and therefore sinful. The reason is that there is no clue given in the person’s answer as to the true meaning the speaker is intending, because the mental reservation is kept strictly in the speaker’s mind, and there is no outward indication as to the limited meaning. For example: You ask a person ‘Did you leave town yesterday,’ and he answers ‘No’ meaning, ‘I did not leave town yesterday in a car.’”
Canon Ripley then distinguishes these strict mental reservations – which are always lies – from broad mental reservations:
“Broad mental reservations are not sinful so long as the broad mental reservation is used only as a refuge to guard a secret from prying questioners who have no right to the information they seek. In a broad mental reservation there is a clue to the correct meaning of the answer, e.g., when a child under instruction from his mother tells a salesman, “My mother is not at home.” The meaning is, “not at home to you.’ The salesman did not have a right to know. Our Lord Himself used the broad mental reservation for a serious reason (cf. John 7:8-10).”
We are not obligated to disclose all known facts to everyone we encounter. As such, a broad mental reservation used to guard information from someone who has no right to it is not sinful, and such a reservation is not a lie.
Calumny and Libel
Calumny (i.e., slander) is a serious offense against truth and against charity toward our neighbor. Through this sin, we impute crimes to others and exaggerate their malice while downplaying any goodness done by the person. Whereas slander refers to defamation in speech, libel refers to similar defamation done through written means. These sins are to be condemned without exception. Calumny and libel are forms of detraction, and the Roman Catechism admonishes the faithful on the grievous sin of detraction:
“This Commandment forbids not only false testimony, but also the detestable vice and practice of detraction – a pestilence, which is the source of innumerable and calamitous evils. This vicious habit of secretly reviling and calumniating character is frequently reprobated in the Sacred Scriptures. With him, says David, I would not eat; and St. James: Detract not one another, my brethren.”
Talebearing and Backbiting
Talebearing consists in repeating to anyone what others have said about him. Talebearing is a source of fighting and arguments; therefore, it is against the Law of Charity, even if we do not lie.
Backbiting occurs when one speaks of a person’s faults, thereby exhibiting a lack of charity. Honest criticism is not condemned because it seeks to improve a person and build him into a better person, but backbiting does not have this goal as its focus.
Opening the Letters of Others
Our right to the truth does not generally extend so far as to open the private correspondence of others, as Father Dominic Prümmer O.P., in his Handbook of Moral Theology from the 1950s, clarifies:
“It is grievously sinful to read the secret letters or writings of another without the consent of either the sender or recipient or without legitimate authority or without just cause, because in so doing a person is deprived of secrets which he has a perfect right to preserve. Just as theft is committed by secretly removing the goods of another, so it is theft to pry into secrets contained in letters. In practice, however, grievous sin is often not committed either because such letters contain nothing that is secret, or because their readers are acting with an erroneous conscience, since many people think that no grave sin is involved in reading another’s letters.”
Flattery and Hypocrisy
The final general category of prohibited speech is flattery and hypocrisy. On these sins, the Roman Catechism counsels:
“Among the transgressors of this Commandment are to be numbered those fawners and sycophants who, by flattery and insincere praise, gain the hearing and good will of those whose favor, money, and honors they seek, calling good evil, and evil good, as the Prophet says. Such characters David admonishes us to repel and banish from our society. The just man, he says, shall correct me in mercy, and shall reprove me; but let not the oil of the sinner fatten my head. This class of persons do not, it is true, speak ill of their neighbor; but they greatly injure him, since by praising his sins they cause him to continue in vice to the end of his life…
“Finally, the first part of this Commandment prohibits dissimulation. It is sinful not only to speak, but to act deceitfully. Actions, as well as words, are signs of what is in our mind; and hence our Lord, rebuking the Pharisees, frequently calls them hypocrites.”
Conclusion
While committing any of these acts is sinful, even willfully listening to talk described by any of the above-mentioned verbal prohibitions is also sinful, unless one is doing so for a just cause. May Our Lord save us from all sins, and may we make worthy reparation for these and all of our sins.