James O’Keefe Discovers a Basic Truth of the Catholic Tradition to the Tune of $100K

March 9, 2013 By 30 Comments

The technical term for “lying to bring down a greater lie” is “lying”. The Catechism does not say you may lie to bring down a greater lie. It says that “by its very nature” lying is to be condemned. It gets that from Jesus, who says that the lie is the native tongue of the devil. It gets it from Augustine, who specifically wrote an entire treatise against lying when some of his flock said it was necessary to lie in order to bring down a greater lie. It gets it from Aquinas who answers the question, “Is lying always sinful?” in the affirmative. And it gets it from the eighth commandment, which forbids the grave sin of bearing false witness against your neighbor since you might, as O’Keefe shamefully did, wind up ruining an innocent person with your lies and then get sued for $100,000 dollars and lose because you are a liar who ruined an innocent person.

Hopefully O’Keefe has learned from this bitter experience and will stop leading the faithful astray with this consequentialist mendacity. And hopefully foolish Christians will not persuade him he is a noble martyr who did nothing wrong and urge him to continue fighting sin with sin. Also, spare me any euphemisms or attempts to claim that he “wasn’t really lying”. When O’Keefe himself calls it lying, it’s lying. Lying is–always–sinful, though not always, or even usually, mortally sinful. Christians should stop defending sin and start opposing it, especially if they are going to brag about being “Faithful Conservative Catholics”. One of the most fundamental precepts of Catholic morality is “You shall not do evil that good may come of it.” Learn it. Love it. Live it. You fight lies with truth, not more lies. That was Augustine’s common sense insight. The weapons of our warfare are not worldly weapons, but the weapons of the Spirit.

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  • http://chicagoboyz.net TMLutas

    The settlement, according to the linked article, seems to not be about lying but about recording without permission which contravenes California law. Did I read that right? So if O’Keefe gets into a traffic accident with one of his video subjects and pays off, is that also proof about the sinfulness of lying? Or is this some sort of rant against the one party recording system that is the law in 38 states?

    O’Keefe is a ballsy operator who started out careless, but has been burned and improved because of it. His more recent work post his Landrieu close call seems to be much better. I don’t know if that’s just better legal advice process prior to actually funding and launching one of his shows or an actual conversion of the spirit.

    • Subsistent

      I don’t think Mr. Shea meant his presentation of the O’Keefe story to be “proof about the sinfulness of lying”; otherwise Shea himself would have fallen into a consequentialist thought-mode: “lying can have the consequence of financial trouble for the liar, therefore it’s sinful.”

      • http://chicagoboyz.net TMLutas

        I think Mr. Shea’s best qualified to say what he meant and I await his comment on it. You have, however, identified the difficulty well enough.

  • Bob

    O’Keefe didn’t just record the videotape illegally, he then edited the tape mendaciously so as to misrepresent what happened. Admirable. Ballsy. O’Keefe represents what American conservatism has become. Nothing more or less than a collection of drooling cranks who just make up their own facts because confronting actual reality is inconvenient. The remarkable thing about O’Keefe is that there’s actually nothing remarkable about him: he is a predictable and totally garden variety product of the the modern American right.
    Here’s another example of how this weird choose-your-own-reality process works: http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2013/03/fox-newsiest-segment-in-fox-news-history.html
    The left has its problems and bad actors, too, of course. But nothing compared to this.
    You want to know why conservatives keep losing elections? Because Americans have figured out something important about them: that conservatives are so willing to manipulate reality to serve their own ends that they simply can’t be trusted to deal in truth. They are, in short, presumed to be bad-faith actors. It’s tough to get people on your side when they know you’re not on theirs.

    • http://chicagoboyz.net TMLutas

      I do recall that this was the defense line in the early tapes. Then O’Keefe started putting up whole recording sessions, start to finish, and there wasn’t much difference as I recall it other than the longer sessions being much less interesting. Editing the boring parts out/editing for length is not mendacious.

      Had the editing actually been mendacious, ACORN would have weathered the scandal. They wouldn’t have lost all those lucrative government contracts. They wouldn’t have had to rebrand and rename themselves after shutting down operations in a number of cases. You see, if the videos had been of the character that that you claim, O’Keefe would have been staggering under a lot more lawsuits and the legal recriminations would have been flying in a lot more directions. But that didn’t actually happen.

      I’m not particularly interested in moving the goal posts to talk about Bill O’Reilly. The man’s annoyed me for years. I did click through and read the Obama document which ends up being a piece of garbage. Yes, there are cuts made. There are also a bunch of tax increases labeled cuts in there, in large part increases on energy taxes. And the bit about Medicare and Medicaid? I don’t know if O’Reilly is smart enough to explain it or even understand it (did I mention he annoys me?) but Medicare’s on schedule to go bust in 2024 (part A), and if they were to actually implement Medicare cuts, it would go bust at the end of the year. Every year there’s a Medicare supplemental to top off payments and stay a doctors revolt that’s threatened every year. In other words, these are phony cuts and anybody who knows what current law says and what would happen if we went through with it doesn’t believe for a minute that Obama is sincere. He’s just trying to look good and up the cost of the yearly supplemental.

      The bottom line problem is that we have trillion dollar deficits and excluding the tax increases OMB falsely labeled spending cuts, there are ballpark 25 billion in spending cuts there, or 2.5% of the problem and that’s assuming that the Medicare cuts actually get put through which is a dubious assumption.

      It really is funny. We have something like 68k governments and hold regular elections on all of them. The GOP has lost the presidency twice, took back the House in 2010 and held it, and is doing really well on governorships and control of state legislatures. That’s not the sign of a movement that just keeps losing elections. It is the sign of a movement that is winning some and losing some and when you look at the details, on balance, it has a better farm team than big league team. So which do you think is more conservative, the farm team in the states that are doing pretty well overall or the nationals who are not so hot?

      I find I can’t politely address your assertion of bad faith on the part of the 40%+ of americans who self-identify as conservatives so I’ll keep silent on it.

      • Bob

        They have lost the popular vote in five of the last six presidential elections, and kept the House in 2012 largely thanks to gerrymandered House districts precisely intended to protect Republicans from the will of voters. It’s true that they’ve done pretty well at the state level in rent years because, as it happens, most states are geographically large and rural. Republicans do well in places where few people live, and they do much better in mid-term elections because fewer people vote. So Republicans are in great shape in places where few people live and n elections where fewer people vote. Hence their recent obsession with voter-suppression efforts.

        Let’s see how their farm team does when it gets called up to the bigs.

    • Coast Ranger

      So in a blog that attacks O’Keefe on lying, “Bob” writes that conservatives today are “Nothing more or less than a collection of drooling cranks who just make up their own facts because confronting actual reality is inconvenient.” Greater mendacity can hardly be imagined.

      I’d write more but I have to wipe my chin and watch the unicorns leap by.

    • InsaneSanity

      “You want to know why conservatives keep losing elections? Because Americans have figured out something important about them: that conservatives are so willing to manipulate reality to serve their own ends that they simply can’t be trusted to deal in truth.”

      Really?? You don’t follow the main stream media much do you. They are masters at this for their leftist/progressive cause. Conservatives are pikers when it comes to this sort of stuff, yet you pretend it’s their forte. Don’t be so blind.

  • merkn

    I agree lying is always sinful. But I am not so sure every misstatement or omission is always a lie in the moral sense of the catechism. The catechism teaches ” To lie is to speak or act against the truth in order to lead someone into error.” If the misstatement or omission is intended to be for the good of the person misled it may not be a lie. For example, the teacher at Sandy Hook who “lied” to the shooter about the whereabouts of the children not only was acting to protect the children but was acting to protect the shooter from committing further evil. No part of her actions was in any way sinful. There was no immediate effect or final end that was bad and the means in and of itself was not evil because she was not leading someone into error in the moral sense of the term. So there is no consequentialism. Does this mean O’Keefe was right or could be right? I have no idea. I know nothing of the circumstances. If his purpose and actual effect was benefit of self and not protection of the innocent the answer is certainly no. Likewise if he lead the acorn peson into error, it would be a sin irrespective of his motive. Is there some circumstance when misleading an abortion provider could not be a sin? Possibly. I agree that the distinction I have drawn is exceedingly rare. I can think of no real world example other than the one I have given.

  • Wolfwood

    O’Keefe didn’t actually lose, per the article. It looks as though he settled out of court in an agreement that did not admit wrongdoing. Keep in mind that, had O’Keefe been who he’d claimed, Vera still would’ve given him information on how to traffic in prostitutes. It’s nice that Vera called the cops after that, but the correct things to have done were to either call the cops right then or to kick the person out. O’Keefe shouldn’t have lied, but Vera certainly deserved to get fired and doesn’t deserve the $100,000.

  • http://davidgriffey.blogspot.com/ Dave G.

    TMLutas appears to be correct. It looks like the penalty was not connected to the issue of lying one way or another. If it was a 100,000 fine only because he lied, then perhaps.

    • Mark Shea

      Had he not delberately chosen to bear false witness against his neighbor, he would not be out $100K. That the law nailed him on some other matter having to do with secretly (i.e., deceptively) recording his victim is true, but the point remains that had he not enshrine the consequentialist lie of “lying to defeat a greater lie” he would not be in this strait, because he would have been working to defeat lies with truth, not with more lies. The law is a blunt instrument and, as is often the case, punishes inexactly. But the core of the matter is a) he acknowledges he was lying and that he totally ignored the Church’s teaching; b) this is called “sinning” in Catholic moral terms; and c) his sin of embracing lies and deceit as his modus operandi has led to a loss of $100K. It is not always the case that such relationships between sin and unpleasant consequences are experienced in this life, but it’s not really hard to see cause and effect at work here. My hope is that he will learn from this and reject lies, deceit, dishonesty and similar worldly tools and embrace the weapons of the Spirit. He has, I am sure, a good heart and means well. But this was youthful folly. The really pernicious thing is that it has taught older Catholics, who really should know better, to defend rather than reject such tactics. That’s the main poison of the thing.

      • http://davidgriffey.blogspot.com/ Dave G.

        It looks like even had he been as honest as the day is long, and still not have gotten permission to video tape the establishment (for whatever reason), he would have been fined. The fine was not connected with the problem Catholics had with his tactics. That appears to be the point TMLutas was making, and which appears to be what’s happened.

        • Mark Shea

          You seem to be laboring to not get it. It was *because* he was dishonest (“lying” is, in fact, the word he himself uses to describe his actions) that he did not bother to seek permission. The fine is, in the long run, because he was using lying, mendacious, and dishonest tactics. He knew he would not get perrmission to tape the guy, but went ahead and did it deceitfully, and presented it deceitfully, and wound up being sued because he hurt the man with his deceits. And instead of simply acknowledging the simple fact that lies and deceit should not be the modus operandi of Christians, you are majoring in minors and straining to make excuses for all this. Why?

          • http://davidgriffey.blogspot.com/ Dave G.

            To be honest Mark, because I just watched Hugo Chavez get the benefit of a hundred doubts not too many days ago. Do you think Mr. O’Keefe might deserve just one? He’s a young, passionate kid trying to do the right thing in the name of life and the Church. I’m not saying he didn’t do anything wrong. I’m not saying that someone shouldn’t pull him aside and correct him. I’m saying that the fine was not because he lied. Had he lied and not broken the law, the law wouldn’t care. Our beef was not for anything other than the fact that he lied. Fair enough. But perhaps it’s time to focus on the better side of what O’Keefe is trying to do, rather than continuing to focus on his failings. Just like we were able to do for Mr. Chavez the other day.

            • Subsistent

              This latest post by “Dave G.” apparently fails to see that Shea HAS given O’Keefe “the benefit of the doubt” in his comment an hour earlier (at 7:25), where Shea wrote: “He [O'Keefe] has, I am sure, a good heart and means well.” So I myself “fail to see” a difference any more here between Shea and “Dave G.”. (-:

              • http://davidgriffey.blogspot.com/ Dave G.

                For my part, I thought Mark’s original post was fine. But the emphasis on O’Keefe’s lying. At this point, pick up the phone and call the boy. Stop using him as a whipping post. Just write a post about lying. That’s all. Again, Chavez received straightaway the emphasis on grace and forgiveness and prayers. Great. I’m glad that Mark said what he said O’Keefe, too. I thought his original post above was good. My point is, let’s let O’Keefe go, and not use the latest news story to drudge things up, especially fast on the heels of reminding everyone why our first reaction to Chavez should have been forgiveness and prayers. That’s all.

                • Mark Shea

                  The man himself, not I, describes his act as “lying”, declares that ends justifies the means and declares himself not bound by the catechism. Yet pointing this out is making him a “whipping boy”. Amazing.

                  I wrote what I wrote, not to beat him up (he doesn’t read my blog) but to point out to the Catholics who have gone to the mat to justify lying that they are wrong. It would be really good if you could stop making excuses for it.

            • Mark Shea

              What part of ““He [O'Keefe] has, I am sure, a good heart and means well” did you not understand? This is not about O’Keefe. It’s about Catholic making endless excuses for lying and consequentialism. If O’Keefe has made some public gesture of repentance for his sin of saying “the ends justify the means” and “I am not bound by the catechism” I am happy to acknowledge it, just as I was happy to acknowledge Chavez receiving the sacraments. But I am aware of no such repentance. Nor am I aware of those who made endless excuses for his defiance of elementary Catholic morality acknowledging their error. So I point out that their remains an error. You, for your part, continue to make excuses for the error. Why?

              • http://davidgriffey.blogspot.com/ Dave G.

                I guess long and short I think James was wrong for how he did what he did. But I’ve worked with people from S. America who have anything but an Oliver Stone appraisal of Chavez. By all accounts, he was a petty Mussolini, swaggering about promoting hatred and embracing evil in order to blind his country from his own oppressive tyranny. Was he popular? Sure. So was Mussolini (until the end of course). But by all accounts, Chavez was *not* a hero simply for railing against capitalism and stirring hatred against the US. But he was given the benefit of the doubt when he died, even before any news of a death bed conversion was leaked. Again, fair enough.

                But I don’t think the sins of O’Keefe, desiring to do the right thing but doing it in a wrong way, warrant the constant, and I mean constant, dragging him through the mud. He was slapped with a whopping fine, though not for the sinfulness of evil. He just as easily could have been hit by a cement truck while trying to go behind the scenes and we could have said the same thing: Ha! I guess O’Keefe will learn his lesson this time! Which is all Dawn, and then your post, were saying. He got his comeuppance, maybe now he’ll learn.

                Perhaps so did Chavez. You never know. The point is, we didn’t follow that line of reasoning with Chavez. And unlike some of the debates (we go after Paul Ryan rather than Ron Paul because Ryan’s a son of the Church), Chavez was a son of the Church. And while some progressives may have found it advantageous to sing his praises, at the end of the day, the Chavez Catholics of the world have gone a long way toward giving the Church a black eye every bit as much as the O’Keefe’s, or the Paul Ryans for that matter.

                So it’s a matter of proportion. Give Chavez the benefit, pray all we must, assume the absolute best, don’t focus on the worst or crow over his misfortune. OK. But how about we do the same for a young man who needs some pastoral guidance, rather than doing all the things for him we were so ready to condemn others for if they dared do them to Chavez.

                • ivan_the_mad

                  You display a singular ability to miss the point.

                  • http://davidgriffey.blogspot.com/ Dave G.

                    I could make the same argument back. I fear it’s a clash of points of view.

                • Mark Shea

                  One post is “constant”? O the humanity!

                  Saying “Chavez needed mercy” is not saying “Chavez was a great guy” but “Chavez was a sinner.” If O’Keefe has asked for mercy–indeed even if he hasn’t–I hope he finds it. But since the error he promotes is very popular and I see no sign that most of the people defending it have stopped doing so, I post the reminder that part of the whole forgiveness of sins thing is “repentance”. Chavez apparently demonstrated that and so I commend him for doing so. O’Keefe and many of his defenders offer no sign of repentance, so I continue ot point out that this is essential. And reliably, instead of just acknowledging this elementary fact, you make excuses for O’Keefe. Why?

                  • http://davidgriffey.blogspot.com/ Dave G.

                    No, it wasn’t saying Chavez was a great guy. It was saying that those who were going to jump all over him when he died weren’t great guys. And let’s not act as if this was the first time you’ve ever mentioned O’Keefe. Come on now. Whether Chavez repented or not is not for me to know. The posts about not going after the fellow came before that news.

                    I’ve explained my position time and again. I’m saying that, just like you point out, James appears to be a well meaning and passionate young man who needs guidance. He doesn’t need to be used to make a point. If someone writes to you and says “this guy proves lying is OK”, then by all means, take that issue to task. But I knew when the story broke that you would react as you did. What I was shocked by was the deference you were willing to give to Chavez almost immediately before by warning all would be Chavez critics, and again, before any news of any repentance. If we can give a man who caused much suffering and misery to such a swath of his nation a benefit of a doubt, we can also give the same deference to O’Keefe, in a sort of ‘O’Keefe just got nailed for his actions, let’s all take a breather and not use it to…’

                    As for how many think lying is A-OK, well judging from some of the comments, as well as quite a few public voices, it appears that oppressing people and crushing their rights by keeping the focus on hatred and contempt for America is not that bad after all, at least to some. So assuming that isn’t good, it appears some folks on the Chavez is great side of the aisle need to hear what those on the O’Keefe side of the aisle need to hear.

                    • Mark Shea

                      People have written me countless times to say, “This guy proves lying is OK”. That’s why I wrote.

                      And thanks for reminding me that government oppression of human beings is wrong. I’ve never ever noticed or mentioned that point on this blog.

                      Here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZ1m39K4Tgw

                  • http://davidgriffey.blogspot.com/ Dave G.

                    Sorry Mark, been busy. Missed your response. If it appeared I was reminding you that oppression was wrong, it’s because you handled it with a ‘nobody is saying the guy was good’ response. Really? He was hell and gone from good. Some might go so far as to say he was almost as bad a Dick Cheney. Certainly worse than young O’Keefe, whose name pulled up 11 posts on CAEI filled with rather stinging criticisms of him, not just his supporters.

                    Hugo? Not so much. There was one several years ago condemning Sean Penn for wanting journalists locked up if they criticized Chavez. There were a couple others, way back in the mists of time, when you rightly called him a brutal commie thug (almost a half dozen years ago). And then there were these, the first of which was a heartfelt RIP to the man, while immediately making it clear that those who would crow over his death were, in fact, the baddies. When pressed by people who pointed out that Chavez was actually rather naughty, you responded the same way: you weren’t saying he wasn’t bad, or you weren’t saying he was good. Given your penchant for harsh critiques, that’s some pretty soft assessments of the man. Perhaps coming out and saying he was bad would be better. Perhaps say yes, he was a brutal and oppressive commie tyrant, as you once said, and which never ceased being an appropriate appraisal, since he didn’t really change what he did during his reign in Venezuela.

                    Perhaps a post on how a person can be Catholic, and do horrible things outside of an American political context, or how Catholic leaders like Chavez give the Church a black eye, just like how Catholic Paul Ryan’s ideals are a black eye to the Church. Even if he repented at the end, it’s fair to critique his legacy.

                    As it is, Chavez got quite the treatment. Far better than O’Keefe. Especially in recent years. Yes, I appreciated your comments that James is a young, well meaning fellow. But the time has come, IMHO, to back off O’Keefe and Lila Rose and their friends. Help them, encourage them to find the better way. And perhaps do so along with a blog post reminding people that while Chavez may be basking in the glories of eternal paradise, on this earth he left a mixed legacy of oppression, tyranny and hatred, all while proudly proclaiming his Catholic faith in the same way Joe Biden or Paul Ryan or even James O’Keefe proclaim theirs (and get lambasted for hurting the witness). That’s my point.

                    • Mark Shea

                      Oh please. The only time I’ve ever mention Chavez on this blog was at his death. My only points in doing so were a) to say “Don’t wish him in hell” and b) he seem to have been reconciled with the Church so hooray for God’s mercy. It’s BS to claim that I am somehow apologizing for or minimizing the evils he’s done. The whole point of forgiveness of sins is that evils have been done.

                      Meanwhile, I covered the O’Keefe story because the matter of lying has been discussed at length here and plenty of readers still maintain that lying is right, good, and efficacious. My point in covering it was to point out that readers who believe this are not only wrong, but foolish–as O’Keefe’s consequences demonstrate.

                      If you want to discourse on the sins and crimes of Chavez feel free. He was, after all, forgiven of *something*. But what you are actually doing is still laboring to apologize for and excuse O’Keefe’s dangerous lies. Stop it.

  • “jerry”

    “Do you think Mr. O’Keefe might deserve just one?”
    just one? he’s never been busted for deceit before?
    next gambit: 70 times 7 times …

  • Half Heathen

    “Not as deceivin’ as a lowdown, dirty deceiver”

  • http://www.thewordinc.org Kevin O’Brien

    Mark, why do you hate children and puppies?