Mental reservation

Question: As a product of Jesuit education, I learned that if someone is not entitled to know the truth, then it is permissible to lie in order that the truth not be revealed to them, especially if they will use that information to harm others. Is this a valid view? — Ed Siering, Muscatine, Iowa

Answer: If someone is not entitled to know the truth or facts about a certain situation, the clear moral reply to them is: “This matter is none of your business, and I will not answer your questions about this.”

We are not permitted to lie simply because someone is nosy, or we consider them unqualified or unworthy to know the facts of certain situations. A forthright refusal is what is called for, even if this requires a bit of courage to remind others not to pry into matters that do not pertain to them.

The thought that it is “OK” to lie in certain difficult situations emerges from a period of the last 500 years and from a methodology known as casuistry. The matter that you cite is often termed in that tradition “mental reservation.”

Mental reservation is an act wherein the person uses an equivocal expression to mislead the questioner, but which may in some very qualified sense be true. Thus, if a band of murderers, intent on killing Jones demands to know if he is in the house, the homeowner who knows Jones is in the house might say, “He is not here.” But in his mind, he means “here” in a different sense than the questioners would fathom. “Here” means to the homeowner, “He is not right here standing next to me,” or, “He is not here on this floor.” Thus, he qualifies in his mind what he means by “here” but does not disclose that to others.

But his purpose is to mislead, to deceive. And hence, I would argue that what we have here is a lie. But the mental reservationists seek to hold it is really not a lie since it is true in some highly technical sense.

My own concern (and that of others) is that this toys with the truth so that we can feel better or justify intentionally misleading others. My own approach is just to call it what it is, a lie, and then seek mercy from God who will likely understand that telling the truth to people bent on murder was a kind of no-win situation. They don’t deserve the truth, but that doesn’t make it “OK” for me to lie.

I would rather trust God and seek his mercy for lying than twist moral teachings so that I feel better. Again, I realize that many object to my rejection of a widely held moral assessment. But I cannot say I find it compelling.

Early modern times[edit]
The casuistic method was popular among Catholic thinkers in the early modern period, and not only among the Jesuits, as it is commonly thought. Famous casuistic authors include Antonio Escobar y Mendoza, whose Summula casuum conscientiae (1627) enjoyed a great success, Thomas Sanchez, Vincenzo Filliucci (Jesuit and penitentiary at St Peter’s), Antonino Diana, Paul Laymann (Theologia Moralis, 1625), John Azor (Institutiones Morales, 1600), Etienne Bauny, Louis Cellot, Valerius Reginaldus, Hermann Busembaum (d. 1668), etc. One of the main theses of casuists was the necessity to adapt the rigorous morals of the Early Fathers of Christianity to modern morals, which led in some extreme cases to justify what Innocent XI later called “laxist moral” (i.e. justification of usury, homicide, regicide, lying through “mental reservation”, adultery and loss of virginity before marriage, etc.—all due cases registered by Pascal in the Provincial Letters).

The progress of casuistry was interrupted toward the middle of the 17th century by the controversy which arose concerning the doctrine of probabilism, which stipulated that one could choose to follow a “probable opinion”, that is, supported by a theologian or another, even if it contradicted a more probable opinion or a quotation from one of the Fathers of the Church.[10] The controversy divided Catholic theologians into two camps, Rigorists and Laxists.

Certain kinds of casuistry were criticized by early Protestant theologians, because it was used in order to justify many of the abuses that they sought to reform. It was famously attacked by the Catholic and Jansenist philosopher Pascal, during the formulary controversy against the Jesuits, in his Provincial Letters as the use of rhetorics to justify moral laxity, which became identified by the public with Jesuitism; hence the everyday use of the term to mean complex and sophistic reasoning to justify moral laxity.[11] By the mid-18th century, “casuistry” had become a synonym for specious moral reasoning.[12] However, Puritans were well known for their own development of casuistry.

In 1679 Pope Innocent XI publicly condemned sixty-five of the more radical propositions (stricti mentalis), taken chiefly from the writings of Escobar, Suarez and other casuists as propositiones laxorum moralistarum and forbade anyone to teach them under penalty of excommunication.[13] Despite this papal condemnation, both Catholicism and Protestantism permit the use of ambiguous and equivocal statements in specific circumstances.[14]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casuistry

Monsignor Pope gives a deep teaching about not telling lies. And he opens the teaching that the truth is not guaranteed to those that don’t deserve to know, who have no business knowing.

When the band of murderers shows up at the door demanding information on the whereabouts of someone they want to kill, Monsignor Pope teaches the appropriate answer is to tell the murderers it is none of their business.

This is Christlike but it is not realistic. People in general, are very weak, even those who are strongest in faith, even those who are leaders of those who follow Christ.

Saint Peter is arguably the strongest believer in Christ, who was blessed to see that Jesus was the Messiah before all others.

Yet when Jesus was arrested, Peter lied three times saying that he did not know Jesus. This from a man who was one of the first to walk with Jesus, who was there to see everything.

So we can appreciate Monsignor Pope’s teaching but we shouldn’t be condemning people who don’t follow it.

There are those among us who will sacrifice themselves before succumbing to the lie to save their own skin or those of their family and community. And indeed there have been people in history who refused to give information to an enemy, were tortured as a result, and were killed for refusing.

But in general, such cases of heroism are rare.

Nevertheless, telling lies can become habit-forming because it can avoid conflict, it can put off until tomorrow that which needs to be settled today. Children learn at a young age that telling their parents a broken object was the dog’s fault can buy a get-out-of-jail-free card. It’s a hard habit to break.

I would like to hear more from Monsignor Pope on this subject.

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Mental reservation Deception, even for very good reason, is always a sin, but we can still rely on God’s abundant mercy