Bearing False Witness -- Marilyn Wylde, OPL

PRESENTATION

EIGHTH COMMANDMENT:

“You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor”

Catechism of the Catholic Church Sections 2464-2513

Marilyn R. Wylde, OPL

January 21, 2007

I. Why Do We Need This Commandment

A. We need all the commandments. They are the Design Specifications of a Loving Father for the human person and for human society.

B. God is the source of all truth. If we are to be his children, we need to be truthful.

C. Jesus called himself the “Way the Truth and the Life”

D. The alternative to truth is a lie, and Jesus called Satan the Father of Lies.

E. Man naturally seeks truth and is bound to adhere to it once he has found it.

F. CCC defines truth as “uprightness in human action and speech. It is also called sincerity and candor.”

1. We must be like Nathaniel without guile

2. We cannot live with one another without mutual confidence that we are being truthful. We at least have to know whom we can trust and how much. (Dish salesman).

II. If we are to be true disciples of Christ we must live in truth.

A. Jesus told Pilate that he came to bear witness to the truth

B. We must do the same

C. The word martyr comes from the Greek word for witness.

III. Offenses against truth

A. False witness if given under oath it is called perjury.

1. These are serious sins against the charity and justice as well as against the 8^th commandment. (Duke La Cross players)

2. As sins against justice they require retribution even if the person has been forgiven.

B. Respect for reputation of others “forbids every attitude and word that would cause unjust injury.” These are also sins/faults against justice and charity.

1. Rash Judgement – assumes moral fault of another (Hyacinth meets Liz’s brother) We need to interpret the actions of others in the most favorable light always. (Fr. McNeill and people saying the rosary)

2. Detraction - disclose another’s faults without objectively valid reason (gossip)

3. Calumny - tell lies about another. (Sally’s boy friend)

C. The commandment also forbids any word, action, or attitude flattery, adulation, and complaisance which would cause another to sin or which would encourage someone in committing evil or perverse acts and to remain in sin. (Buck’s toady in the Christmas Story)

D. Other offenses against truth are boasting, bragging, or malicious irony – since they presuppose the false assumption that the speaker is better than another person(s).

E. Telling a lie. CCC defines this as speaking what one knows to be untrue with the intent of deceiving others.

2. It is usually a venial sin but it can be serious depending on the nature of truth it deforms, the circumstances, the intention, and the harm that it causes.

3. If a lie causes serious injury to justice and charity (such as fraud) it is a mortal sin.

5. Any time a lie offends against justice and truth, it requires reparation even if the author is forgiven. Both moral and material reparation are required.

A. We are not obliged under this commandment to tell all we know or to express every opinion we have. (Tom Ballard) When someone wants to know something we know, we must base giving the information or charity and respect for truth.

D. All of us need to balance a person’s need to know with a respect for the privacy of the person under discussion. CCC recommends the golden rule (do unto others as you would have them do unto you) as a measure for judging this.

3. CCC finds reprehensible the totalitarian states’ manipulation of the media to give half truths which keeps themselves in power.

Don’t be so literal that you cannot appreciate art. Art especially Christian art expresses basic truths about life and about God. Art can embellish truth (Bonnie’s addition of art to the presentations given at the Presentation of the Eucharist that the chapter gave.)