Mental reservation (or mental equivocation) is an ethical theory and a doctrine in moral theology which recognizes the "lie of necessity", and holds that when there is a conflict between justice and telling the truth, it is justice that should prevail. The doctrine is a special branch of casuistry (case-based reasoning) developed in the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance. While associated with the Jesuits, it did not originate with them. It is a theory debated by moral theologians, but not part of Canon law.
Secular use
It was argued in moral theology, and now in ethics, that mental reservation was a way to fulfill obligations both to tell the truth and to keep secrets from those not entitled to know them (for example, because of the seal of the confessional or other clauses of confidentiality). Mental reservation, however, is regarded as unjustifiable without grave reason for withholding the truth. This condition was necessary to preserve a general idea of truth in social relations.
Social psychologists have advanced casesJanet Beavin Bavelas, Alex Black, Nicole Chovil, and Jennifer Mullet, Equivocal Communications, Newbury Park, CA, Sage Publications, 1990. where the actor is confronted with an avoidance-avoidance conflict, in which he both does not want to say the truth and does not want to make an outright lie; in such circumstances, equivocal statements are generally preferred. This type of equivocation has been defined as "nonstraightforward communication...ambiguous, contradictory, tangential, obscure or even evasive."Bavelas et al., p. 28. People typically equivocate when posed a question to which all of the possible replies have potentially negative consequences, yet a reply is still expected (the situational theory of communicative conflict).See also Peter Bull, Equivocation and Facework in the Discourse of Televised Political Interviews.
Equivocation The Bible contains a good example of equivocation. Abraham was married to Sarah/Sarai, his half-sister by a different mother. Fearing that as he traveled people would covet his beautiful wife and as a result kill him to take her, he counselled her to agree with him when he would say that "she is my sister". This happened on two occasions, first with the Pharaoh of Egypt, told in Genesis 12:11-13, and second, with a king called Abimelech in Genesis 20:12. Abraham later explained to Abimelech that Sarah was indeed his sister, as they shared the same father, although had different mothers. Writers Petrus Serrarius, Giovanni Stefano Menochio and George Leo Haydock also refer to mental reservation as justification for Judith's false explanation that she intended to betray her people to the Assyrians in the deuterocanonical book which bears her name.Haydock, G. L., Haydock Commentary Online - Judith 10, accessed 29 October 2022
A frequently cited example of equivocation is a well-known incident from the life of Athanasius of Alexandria. When Julian the Apostate was seeking Athanasius's death, Athanasius fled Alexandria and was pursued up the Nile. Seeing the imperial officers were gaining on him, Athanasius took advantage of a bend in the river that hid his boat from its pursuers and ordered his boat turned around. When the two boats crossed paths, the Roman officers shouted out, asking if anyone had seen Athanasius. As instructed by Athanasius, his followers shouted back, "Yes, he is not very far off." The pursuing boat hastily continued up the river, while Athanasius returned to Alexandria, where he remained in hiding until the end of the persecution.John Henry Newman, Apologia pro Vita Sua, Note G: Lying and Equivocation.
Another anecdote often used to illustrate equivocation concerns Francis of Assisi. He once saw a man fleeing from a murderer. When the murderer then came upon Francis, he demanded to know if his quarry had passed that way. Francis answered, "He did not pass this way", sliding his forefinger into the sleeve of his cassock, thus misleading the murderer and saving a life.Zagorin, p. 15. A variant of this anecdote is cited by the canonist Martin de Azpilcueta to illustrate his doctrine of a mixed speech (oratoria mixta) combining speech and gestural communication.Martin de Azpilcueta Azpilcueta, Martin, (Navarra), Commentarius in cap. Humanae Aures, XXII. qu. V. De veritate responsi; partim verbo expresso, partim mente concepti. & de arte bona & mala simulandi, Roma, 1584. Quoted by J.-P. Cavaillé, Ruser sans mentir, de la casuistique aux sciences sociales : le recours à l’équivocité, entre efficacité pragmatique et souci éthique, published in Serge Latouche, P.-J. Laurent, O. Servais & M. Singleton, Les Raisons de la ruse. Une perspective anthropologique et psychanalytique, Actes du colloque international « La raison rusée », Louvain la Neuve, mars 2001, Paris, La Découverte, 2004, p. 93–118
When there was good reason for using equivocation, its lawfulness was admitted by all moral theologians. Traditionally, the doctrine of mental reservation was intimately linked with the concept of equivocation, which allowed the speaker to employ double meanings of words to tell the literal truth while concealing a deeper meaning.
Mentalis restrictio in moral theology The traditional teaching of moral theologians is that a lie is intrinsically evil, and therefore, never allowed. However, there are instances where one is also under an obligation to keep secrets faithfully, and sometimes the easiest way of fulfilling that duty is to say what is false, or to tell a lie. Writers of all creeds and of no creed, both ancient and modern, have frankly accepted this position. They admit the doctrine of the "lie of necessity", and maintain that when there is a conflict between justice and veracity it is justice that should prevail. The common Catholic teaching has formulated the theory of mental reservation as a means by which the claims of both justice and veracity can be satisfied.
If there is no good reason to the contrary, truth requires all to speak frankly and openly in such a way as to be understood by those who are addressed. A sin is committed if mental reservations are used without just cause, or in cases when the questioner has a right to the naked truth.Slater, Thomas. "Mental Reservation." The Catholic Encyclopedia Vol. 10. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1911. 11 May 2019
Wide mental reservation In "wide mental reservation" the qualification comes from the ambiguity of the words themselves, or from the circumstances of time, place, or person in which they are uttered.
Spanish Dominican Raymond of Peñafort was a noted canon lawyer, and one of the first writers on casuistry, i.e., seeking to resolve moral problems by extracting or extending theoretical rules from a particular case and applying them to new instances. He noted that Augustine of Hippo said that a man must not slay his own soul by lying in order to preserve the life of another, and that it would be a most perilous doctrine to admit that we may do a lesser evil to prevent another doing a greater. He said that while most doctors teach this, he acknowledged that others allow that a lie should be told when a man's life is at stake.
Raymond gave as an example, if one is asked by murderers bent on taking the life of someone hiding in the house whether he is in: one could decline to answer, in which case if this betrays him, his death will be imputable to the murderers, not to the other's silence; he may use an equivocal expression such as, "He is not at home [to you]", or he may say simply that he is not there, and if his conscience tells him that he ought to say that, then he will not speak against his conscience, nor will he sin. Raymond did not believe that Augustine would have objection to any of these. Those who hear them may understand them in a sense which is not true, but their self-deception may be permitted by the speaker for a good reason.
Strict mental reservation According to Malloch and Huntley (1966), this doctrine of permissible "equivocation" did not originate with the Jesuits. They cite a short treatise, , that had been written by Martin Azpilcueta (also known as Doctor Navarrus), an Augustinian who was serving as a consultant to the Apostolic Penitentiary. It was published in Rome in 1584. The first Jesuit influence upon this doctrine was not until 1609, "when Suarez rejected Azpilcueta's basic proof and supplied another" (speaking of Francisco Suárez).
The 16th-century Spanish theologian Martin de Azpilcueta (often called "Navarrus" because he was born in the Kingdom of Navarre) wrote at length about the doctrine of mentalis restrictio or mental reservation. Navarrus held that mental reservation involved truths "expressed partly in speech and partly in the mind," relying upon the idea that God hears what is in one's mind while human beings hear only what one speaks. Therefore, the Christian's moral duty was to tell the truth to God. Reserving some of that truth from the ears of human hearers was moral if it served a greater good. This is the doctrine of "strict mental reservation", by which the speaker mentally adds some qualification to the words which they utter, and the words together with the mental qualification make a true assertion in accordance with fact.
Navarrus gave the doctrine of mental reservation a far broader and more liberal interpretation than had anyone up to that time. Although some other Catholic theological thinkers and writers took up the argument in favor of strict mental reservation, canonist Paul Laymann opposed it; the concept remained controversial within the Roman Catholic Church, which never officially endorsed or upheld the doctrine and eventually Pope Innocent XI condemned it as formulated by Sanchez in 1679. After this condemnation by the Holy See no Catholic theologian has defended the lawfulness of strict mental reservations.
England The linked theories of mental reservation and equivocation became notorious in England during the Elizabethan era and the Jacobean era, when Jesuits who had entered England to minister to the spiritual needs of Catholics were captured by the authorities. The Jesuits Robert Southwell (c. 1561–1595) (who was also a poet of note) and Henry Garnet (1555–1606) both wrote treatises on the topic, which was of far more than academic interest to them. Both risked their lives bringing the sacraments to recusant Catholics — and not only their lives, since sheltering a priest was a capital offence.Cathleen Kaveny. "Truth or Consequences: In Ireland, Straying Far from the Mental Reservation" . Commonweal, January 15, 2010. In 1586, Margaret Clitherow had been pressed to death for refusing to enter a plea on the charge of harbouring two priests at York.Margaret Clitherow Shrine, York. When caught, tortured and interrogated, Southwell and Garnet practiced mental reservation not to save themselves — their deaths were a foregone conclusion — but to protect their fellow believers.
Southwell, who was arrested in 1592, was accused at his trial of having told a witness that even if she was forced by the authorities to swear under oath, it was permissible to lie to conceal the whereabouts of a priest. Southwell replied that that was not what he had said. He had said that "to an oath were required justice, judgement and truth", but the rest of his answer goes unrecorded because one of the judges angrily shouted him down.Fiorella Sultana De Maria. Robert Southwell. London: CTS, 2003, p. 49. Convicted in 1595, Southwell was hanged, drawn and quartered. More famous in his own era was Henry Garnet, who wrote a defense of Southwell in 1598; Garnet was captured by the authorities in 1606 due to his alleged involvement in the Gunpowder Plot. Facing the same accusations as Southwell, his attempts to defend himself met with no better result: later that year, Garnet was executed in the same fashion.