Ha!

A friend writes with tongue planted firmly in cheek:

Dear Mr Shea, I’ve not read any of your work, but thought someone ought to inform you that lying is probably permissible for the sake of a good cause. You should look into this! I think you will find that in such instances, lying is actually good, rather than evil. However, if you insist on referring to lying as ‘intrinsically evil’ (which is absurd, since even St Thomas Aquinas admits that the fallen angels themselves are good insofar as they are created and sustained by God; if demons are not intrinsically evil then a fortiori lying must not be, or, are you some kind of idiot?), as i was saying, if you persist in calling a lie ‘intrinsically evil’, then you must admit by force of logic that in some instances, lies are not lies, for otherwise we would have to assert that good is evil, which is nonsense and an insult to the truth. I for one think it is better to lie than be a demon, and it appears St Thomas agrees with me. And, with all due respect Mark, only an idiot would disagree with St Thomas on such matters.

Yours sincerely,

‘Concerned for your soul’

I see the light!