How can I honor the truth in a manner that is in harmony with love of God and love of neighbor? What words of truth would be truly good for another person and for the community as a whole?

Fr. Mark Nolette on the 8th commandment

Who is Fr. Mark Nolette?

Fr. Mark has been a priest at the Diocese of Portland (Maine) since 1987, and in 2014 he was diagnosed with autism. He has served in Parish Ministry, chancery and tribunal work. He is the spiritual director of the Mission of St. Thorlak, an apostolate dedicated to recognizing the gifts of all members of the Body of Christ, particularly those with autism. You can find out more about him at http://www.theanchorite.net/ or https://autismconsecrated.com/way-of-saint-thorlak/.

The 8th Commandment: You Shall Not Bear False Witness

In this episode, Fr. Mark Nolette talks about the 8th commandment, thou shall not bear false witness. He explains:

-What is the 8th Commandment?

-What does it entail?

-What steps can we take to encourage the virtue of honesty?

-How do we deal with people lying to us?

Transcript of the episode

Narrated by Melvin Epps.

Tell us about yourself and your ministry.

I am a priest of the Diocese of Portland, Maine. I retired from active ministry in 2020, partly because of my autism and partly because of my discernment of a calling to a contemplative hermit life. I now live near Rochester, NY and am the spiritual director of Autism Consecrated, a website that seeks to offer support in various ways to autistic people under the patronage of St. Thorlak. St. Thorlak was a twelfth-century Icelandic bishop who had a number of personality traits resembling autism. Many autistic people see him as their patron saint.

What is the 8th Commandment?

The 8th Commandment is this: “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.”

A word on the numbering of the Commandments. Some listeners may say that this isn’t the Eighth Commandment. Be aware that there are two listings of the Ten Commandments in Scripture – one in Exodus and one in Deuteronomy. Most Protestant denominations follow the Exodus listing. Catholics have traditionally used the Deuteronomy listing. The wording of both is nearly identical. The difference is over whether something counts as one or two Commandments. Is the line “I am the Lord your God; you shall have no other gods before me” one or two Commandments? Likewise, is the line “You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife… or anything belonging to him” one or two Commandments? In each case, the Exodus and the Deuteronomy listings make a different choice. 

Bearing false witness is more than just lying. What else does the 8th commandment entail?

The context of the Eighth Commandment is that it is among the Commandments that focus on love of neighbor.  We can summarize its meaning here by saying that we are not to harm our neighbor by any abuse of the truth. Or, put positively, we are to honor our neighbor by how we honor the truth.

This Commandment may have been intended originally for trials. People were not to bear false witness against someone else. We remember the examples of Jezebel arranging for false witnesses to condemn Naboth, or the false witnesses brought in to condemn Jesus. This Commandment had the poor and powerless in mind as they were most vulnerable to false witnesses or any abuse of truth or power in a trial. Wealthy people – then as well as now – were far less vulnerable to this.  It soon become clear to the ancient Israelites that this Commandment had a broader application than this. It had to do with showing love of neighbor through how one honors the truth.

Let me offer two examples of this from traditional Catholic moral teaching. This Commandment relates to two sins, calumny and detraction. Calumny is about trying to destroy someone’s good name or reputation by telling lies or spreading false gossip about that person. Detraction is about trying to destroy someone’s good name or reputation by bringing up true things about that person that others may not have the right to know. Calumny may be easy to see as a sin. Detraction may be harder to understand. Let me offer this.

From the perspective of this Commandment, truth serves love of neighbor. Take the example of someone who lived a sinful life but then had a genuine conversion. Someone else learns about this person’s past and then gossips about it out of jealousy, perhaps. The gossip may be true, but the intention is sinful. It violates love of neighbor.

Moreover, it is traditional Catholic teaching that people do not have the right to know every truth about someone. Some things should be private. Knowing them would not serve the common good. This may also be hard to understand in a digital age where true privacy is rare or nonexistent, but perhaps for that very reason, people may be more open today to receiving the wisdom of Catholic tradition about this.

On the other hand, love of God and love of neighbor may require us to warn the community about someone who is a danger in some way. In such a case, speaking the truth serves the common good. The sexual abuse crisis in the Catholic Church is, to a large extent, a tragic example of failure in this regard. 

What steps can we take to encourage the virtue of honesty?

Based on what we have said so far, we can say that the virtue of honesty must serve the love of God and the love of neighbor. Anything we do to encourage honesty needs to keep this in mind. How can I honor the truth in a manner that is in harmony with love of God and love of neighbor? What words of truth would be truly good for another person and for the community as a whole?

Moreover, we can ask ourselves how willing we are to hear or face the truth about ourselves. If we cannot accept truth about ourselves, it will be very difficult for us to be honest or truthful in ways that are consistent with this Commandment. 

How do we answer people who justify their lies with good intention and claim that Rahab lied when she hid the spies, that lies were involved in the hiding of the infant Moses, and other such arguments?

We have stressed that the Eighth Commandment places truth in the service of love of God and love of neighbor. Normally, truth and the love of neighbor are in harmony. Yet, as we have seen in the case of detraction, truth can be abused and turned into a weapon against one’s neighbor. Moreover, not everyone has the right to know every truth.

With these things in mind, a response to this question comes into focus. In the case of Rahab and the spies, Rahab knows that the spies have come from the Israelites. She believes that they are the Lord’s people, and that it is the Lord’s will that they enter this land. The spies, then, are acting in harmony with God’s will. For Rahab to inform the rulers of Jericho that the spies ate with her would be to speak a truth that ends up violating the love of God and neighbor. Truth must serve God’s purposes. We can say something similar about the birth and subsequent hiding of the baby Moses.

More importantly, we need to stress that the Scriptures portray such events as rare exceptions. We are expected to speak the truth in nearly all circumstances.  These examples are exceptions. The question about people using these examples to justify their lies makes us ask if they are trying to use these exceptions to justify something they want to do (lying) on a regular basis. It is like ‘pro-choice’ people who use the more difficult cases in an attempt to justify all abortions. 

How do we deal with people who lie to us?

We always want to honor the truth in the context of love of God and love of neighbor. How we do this in the case of someone whom we know is lying to us can depend on the specifics of the situation. Is the lie concerning something that is more or less common knowledge? Would it help the community as a whole – and the liar, if the liar is at all open to correction – to correct the liar?

Then, any correction should be aimed at the lie and not at the liar. In most cases, calling the person a liar might not get you very far. However, pointing out something you know to be true could invite the liar to have a second look and perhaps see the error in what he or she said.

Would speaking the truth to the liar help? If you know the liar to be a gossip, or if the lie is about a person the liar hates, then it might not be good for the liar to know the truth. In such a case, silence might be a good option. Or, you can bring up a good point about the person who is being lied about as a subtle way to counteract the lie.

Where can people find you?

If anyone would like to know a bit more about me and what I do, feel free to check out my blog at www.theanchorite.net and also www.autismconsecrated.com. 

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