Bill's Notes

Detraction
One of the biggest surprises I got when I thumbed through the "sins" section of the Catholic Catechism about two years ago was there's a sin called detraction. This means passing along something disreputable, but true, about another person.

I was like ... um, I was a reporter, detraction was my job! And as a blogger, well, that meant I was doing it, without even getting paid.

It was really a surprise, since I thought you could say anything true and be safe. But no, that's not true. God requires charity in all things.

I wonder if I need to go through the archives and eliminate all the detraction. What do you think?
Chris (mail) (www):
I suspect that whether detraction is a sin depends greatly on the reasons for it.
9.24.2007 11:52am
Bill (mail) (www):
I suppose.
9.24.2007 4:16pm
Chris (mail) (www):
For example, if a man has cheated on his wife and she divorced him, and now he's delaying with a new woman, telling her about his past would probably not be sinful because she has a right to know.
9.25.2007 8:28am
Bill (mail) (www):
Good point. There's detraction, and then there's "failure to warn." Yet in your example, the details would be important. If he lied to the new woman, for example, about the circumstances of his divorce, then I could see someone warning her ...
9.25.2007 9:25am
Chris (mail) (www):
There is also deception by omission.

And for the person who knows the original situation to find out if the new woman knows, one of them will have to say what happened. Neither can know what the other knows without someone saying the negative things that they know about the guy.

It's a bit like when a friend had to go through surgery, and her boyfriend asked me if she (the friend) told me everything that happened to necessitate the surgery. I pointed out that it's inherently impossible for me to know the answer to that question.
9.26.2007 9:43am
Eric Blair (mail):
No.
9.27.2007 6:46pm

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