If you won’t lie to save babies

Then your next step should be to sell everything you have, give it to the poor, and follow Jesus in the manner of St. Francis.  Oh wait, you say.  The Church has made it clear that Jesus didn’t say we all have to do that (even though the early Church described in Acts appeared to take it literally).  I’m not saying he did.  I’m saying that as the ‘should we lie to save babies’ debate rages, somewhat inconsistently, across the Catholic Blogosphere, there are many who stand with pride on their willingness to say all lying is really the same, it’s all intrinsically evil (which has some basis to it based on current Church teaching), and it doesn’t matter why, I wouldn’t lie once even if it meant saving a baby from certain death.

OK.  Fair enough.  You’re probably a better man than I am.  But my colleagues and I used to have a little thing we did in my ministry days.  Sometimes, in casual conversation or counseling, a believer would wonder if they had what it took to be a martyr.  To really take a bullet for the faith.  We said if you have a hard time getting up and going to church on Sunday, or taking part in things, or even reading your Bible or praying regularly, probably not.  If you do all those things and still wonder, then sell all you have and live a life of poverty.  Because in the real world, it’s easier to sell everything than die for the faith.  Of course you don’t have to in order to die for it.  People have probably died for the faith, when push came to shove, in opulent mansions and luxury homes.  But it is a good test when things are slow.

Same here.  If you boast of your willingness to let the innocent die rather than tell even the whitest lie to save them, I suggest selling everything and living in poverty first.  And if you can’t do that, but are still willing to let the innocent die rather than tell even the whitest lie to save them, then it might be time to rethink your pilgrim walk.  I’m not saying lying is right, or we should lie to do good.  It looks complex, and it looks like that part of the Catholic faith that wants to embrace the inner Amish – you don’t do anything but prepare for the next life.

But it is tough, because it wants, on one hand, Catholics to be prepared for the ultimate sacrifice.  More so, it wants Catholics to be prepared to let others be sacrificed rather than do evil to save them.  And yet, unlike the Amish or other such stringent faith traditions, it stops short on depriving us of the luxuries and pleasures of a worldly life.  And therein lies the possibility that Catholics could begin to imagine that martyrdom is just how many innocent people I’m willing to let die for my righteousness, all the while laughing on my way to the bank.  A dangerous trend, and one that sets up a level of spiritualism that seems hell and gone from that traditionally understood or biblically expounded.