Dissimulation and Hypocrisy

What a lie is in words, dissimulation is in outwardaction. Hence, dissimulation has the character and evil of lying. Yet not every pretense is dissimulation; there is figurative action as well as figurative speech.

Hypocrisy is a kind of dissimulation. A man is a simulator when his actions express any falsity. He is a hypocrite only when the falsity which his actions express is that he is a better, or wiser, or holier person than he actually is.

All dissimulation is a lie in action. Hypocrisy is a type of dissimulation. Therefore hypocrisy is a he in action, and consequently it is a sin.

Hypocrisy (and, indeed, all dissimulation) is a mortal or a venial sin, according to the end intended by the simulator or hypocrite. If this end be directly opposed to charity, and isa matter of importance, the sin is mortal.