Short Catholic Homilies: Lying

But I say unto you, that every idle word that men shall speak, they shall render an account for it in the day of judgment. Matt 12:36

These traditional Catholic sermons from the 1800s are very hard hitting. Its nice to hear priests speak as fathers who value the souls of their children.

In this sermon, our homilist points out one of the basic tenets of our Faith : that you can never do evil that good might come of it. He says:

“He will not allow us to tell the most trivial falsehood, though by it we could save the whole world from destruction, or bring all the souls which have been damned out of hell and put them in heaven.” Transcript

This means even white lies should be abhorred by those who call themselves “Christian”..

The two types of white lies are:
Officious: told for some end in itself good, to get some advantage for one’s self or for another, or to get one’s self or some other person out of a scrape ; to conceal a fault, to avoid embarrassment, or to save somebody’s feelings.
Jocose: are told merely for fun; such as the little tricks on others which are often indulged in, or boasts made about things which one has never done. See Transcript for more