WORDS OF WISDOM FROM THE APOSTLE PETER     

 "Above all let your love for one another be constant, for love covers a multitude of sins." (1 P 4:8) "All of you should be like-minded, sympathetic, loving toward one another, kindly disposed, and humble. Do not return evil for evil or insult for insult. Return a blessing instead. This you have been called to do, that you may receive a blessing as your inheritance. He who cares for life and wants to see prosperous days must keep his tongue from evil and his lips from uttering deceit. He must turn from evil and do good, seek peace and follow after it, because the Lord has eyes for the just and ears for their cry; but against evildoers the Lord sets his face." (1 P 3:8-12)

Christ's disciples have put on the new man, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. By putting away falsehood, they are to put away all malice and all guile and insincerity and envy and all slander. (CCC #2475)

Respect for the reputation of persons forbids every attitude and word likely to cause them unjust injury. (CCC #2477) He becomes guilty of rash judgment, detraction and calumny. They are against the virtues of justice and charity. (CCC #2479)

Never let evil talk pass your lips; say only the good things men need to hear, things that will really help them.  (Eph 4:29)

Do nothing to sadden the Holy Spirit with whom you were sealed against the day of redemption. Get rid of all bitterness, all passion and anger, harsh words, slander and malice of every kind.  (Eph 4:30-31)

In place of these, be kind to one another, compassionate, and mutually forgiving just as God has forgiven you in Christ!  (Eph 4:32)

REFLECTION ON WHAT THE SPIRITUAL MASTERS SAY:

An insult wounds and outrages one who is present; backbiting attacks those who are absent and seeks to weaken their reputation.

The passion of this evil has so infested the world that people who have totally renounced other vices still fall into this one. One might say it is the last trap the devil sets for them.  (St. Jerome)

The backbiter rips his brother's flesh with his teeth and tears his neighbor's body to shreds. "What is the use of sparing bird and fishes, if we eat our own brothers?" (St. John Chrysostom)

Do not tell me, I would be a slanderer only if I lied. I am committing no slander if I tell the truth. Error! Speaking evil of others, even if the evil be true, is always a crime. (St. John Chrysostom)

The backbiter creates deadly anxiety for himself; he is constantly besieged by suspicion. He repents, but too late; he bites his tongue, but in vain; he trembles, for as his words spread, they may cause him grave danger and expose those who repeat them to enmities which so easily could have been avoided.  (St. John Chrysostom, Homily 3, Antioch)

A person who backbites performs the devil's work. Backbiting is an unruly demon. Everyone flees a backbiter like unhealthy mud, like a leech that feeds on blood, a beetle that feeds in the mire that is, on other's defects. (St. John Chrysostom)

On the walls of his dining room, there is a warning to St. Augustine's guests "People who take pleasure in defaming the reputation of absentees are not welcome at this table."

Backbiting is a devil that never rests. (St. Antiochus, Homily, Detract)

It is destroying a person's reputation; it is a very serious wrong. And he who hears someone backbiting and does not oppose him appears to approve the author, thus participating in his sin. (St. Thomas Aquinas)

Beware that your restless ears and tongue do not listen to or engage in backbiting, for where there are no listeners, there are no backbiters. (St. Jerome)

Backbiting is a great vice, a great sin, a great crime; backbiters and listeners are guilty of the same sin. (St. Bernard)

Is this tongue not that of a viper?  It is surely very fierce, for it kills three victims with a single sting. Is it not a sharp spear, for it pierces three men in a single throw. (St. Bernard)

The backbiter proves, first, that he has no charity. And then, what is his purpose, if not to get others to detest and hate their neighbor? Therefore, the backbiting tongue wounds charity in everyone who listens to it. It kills and stifles charity as much as it can. (St. Bernard)

You shall not curse the deaf. (Lev 19:14) Backbiting someone who is deaf means backbiting one who is absent and cannot hear you. Just as a deaf man cannot hear or understand what is said, so it is with an absent person someone backbites. He cannot reply or rectify the errors of which he is the object. (St. Gregory the Great, in prolog Past Chap 1)

St. Francis of Assisi had an extreme aversion to backbiting and slanderous accusations. His biographer, St. Bonaventure, relates that one of his brothers said evil about another and leveled several accusations against him. St.Francis told his assistant, "Father, go and examine this affair. If the accused is innocent, punish the accuser so severely that it will give others an example, and he will remember it."

St. Francis even wanted to remove the religious habit from a brother who had not been afraid to remove the cloak of another's reputation, so that it would be done to him as he had done to others, and in this way he would be obliged to restore the reputation he had stolen.

We have an obligation to restore the neighbor's reputation. No restoration, no pardon (St. Augustine). When the devil cannot devour someone by leading him into evil, he attempts to defile his reputation in order to weigh him down beneath the outrages of men and the backbiting of evil tongues, and thus draw him into his clutches. (St. Augustine, Epistle 137)

It is a common principle that restoring their neighbor's reputation is obligatory, not only for those who have revealed an imaginary crime, but also those who have revealed a true but secret crime. (St. Thomas Aquinas)

The person who maliciously robs his neighbor's reputation is held to restoring it on the same level as someone who steals. If what you said is secret, even though it is true, you are obliged to restore his reputation. Otherwise, you will not go to heaven. (St. Vincent Ferrer)

Do not argue about a matter that does not concern you. (Sirach 11:9)

Except from the book, When You Pray Say..., by Rev. Michael B. Semana, (c) 2006, p 187ff