Gossip

One

What do we mean by gossip?

One of the sins the Bible warns us against most often is the sin of gossip, probably because it’s one of the most damaging sins and one that we are all very prone to indulge in.

The book of Sirach is clear and strong in its condemnation of gossip. It says, (19:6ff) “by hating gossip, a man avoids evil. Never repeat what you are told and you will come to no harm. Whether to friend or foe, do not talk about it. Unless it would be sinful not to, do not reveal it. You would be heard out, then mistrusted, and in due course you would be hated. Have you heard something? Let it die with you. Do not worry, it will not burst you. A fool will suffer birth pains over something told him, like a woman laboring with child.”

So the word “Gossip” can cover a lot of stuff, and there are a lot of traditional names for different kinds of gossip: Backstabbing, backbiting, tale-bearing, calumny, slander. But we can summarize these sins as speaking ill of someone when you really don’t need to. And this sin isn’t just a sin against justice. The reason the Catechism puts gossip under the eighth commandment is because gossip is also a sin against truth.

Two

Gossip as a Sin against Truth

Gossip is always a sin against truth. 

That’s obviously the case when you’re saying bad things about people that aren’t actually true. This is the most obvious violation of the eighth commandment, Thou Shalt Not Bear False Witness Against Your Neighbor. But even if what you’re saying about somebody isn’t technically false, if it is a bad thing about their character that doesn’t need to be said, then you are contributing to a false presentation of the person you’re gossiping about.

Every person is an image of God, someone destined for divinization, sharing God’s divine life as his son or daughter forever! They are someone with infinite possibility and so valuable that God gave His life for him or for her. And when you delight in highlighting the defective parts of a person, you are working to obscure this truth of their infinite value. You are committing the sin of reductionism, which means treating someone as less than what they really are.

And gossip is, in some ways, the worst form of reductionism that there is because it means reducing someone to just their bad or ridiculous aspects. And to present someone primarily under their dishonorable qualities, that’s simply to attack the most fundamental truth about them.

Three

The Gravity of Gossip

Aquinas insists that gossip can be a mortal sin, after all, he says, theft could be a mortal sin because you’re robbing someone of their property. But people care more, says Aquinas, about their good name than about their property. So it’s basically about the worst kind of stealing you can commit against a person when you take away their good name.

The monks of the early Church would often say that it was better to just go ahead and eat meat on fast days than to eat the flesh of your brother through gossip.

Pope Francis repeatedly reminded us that the urge to gossip comes from Satan and that, ultimately, it’s a kind of terrorism. What makes terrorism so bad is that it’s also indiscriminate. You don’t know how the gossip will spread, how it will grow, and how it will end up hurting the innocent as well as the guilty.

The story goes that St. Philip Neri gave a strange penance to a woman who confessed gossip. He told her to go up to a church steeple, rip open a feather-pillow, and spread the feathers to the four winds. Then he told her to go collect the feathers if she could. Of course, she couldn’t. Once you gossip, you don’t know the damage it’ll do. That’s the indiscriminate terrorism of speaking ill of your brother or sister.

Four

It’s even worse when it’s against authority

Gossip is always bad, but it’s worst of all when it’s against authority.

St. Thomas Aquinas quotes the line from the book of Proverbs 30:17, “The person that mocks his father or mother, shall have his eyes pecked out by the ravens and eaten by the vultures.” Then he says, this verse applies to those who mock and gossip about those who are legitimate authorities over their lives.

Sometimes we have to be critical towards authority, or even about those in authority. But to gossip about them, to needlessly criticize, mock, or divulge scandalous information about them: that’s really bad. That undermines the structure of authority that every community needs in order to survive.

So if you gossip against authority in a family, it’s not just a sin against charity and truth, but against the good of the family. If you gossip about politics, it’s not just a sin against charity and truth, but a truth against your country. And if you gossip about priests and bishops and the pope, it’s not just a sin against charity and truth, but a sin against the Church.

Five

Fight gossip and you can be a saint

Gossip is really bad and almost everyone falls into it. But the good news is that Christ can conquer this sin. Then once we start to get a handle on it, we can really get closer to the perfection of holiness. Because if you allow Christ to conquer gossip in you, you can become a saint. 

St. James, in chapter 3 of his letter, is talking about how awful it is that Christians are speaking ill of their neighbors/ He says, “For every kind of beast and bird, or reptile and sea creature can be tamed and has been tamed by man, but no human being can tame the tongue – a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With it we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brethren, this ought not to be so.”

But then, more hopefully, a little bit earlier, St. James gives us this encouragement, “If anyone makes no mistakes in what he says he is a perfect man, able to bridle the whole body also. If we put bits into the mouths of horses that they may obey us, we guide their whole bodies. Look at the ships also; though they are so great and are driven by strong winds, they are guided by a very small rudder wherever the will of the pilot directs.”

So if you struggle with a lot of vices, maybe start by fighting gossip and you’ll make great advances towards your growth in virtue, even in other areas.