I agree with this and continue to struggle all the time with having conversations about various people and saying things that are less than positive. The area where it's the most difficult is when said person may have some harmful tendency and you want to protect your family from them. But I guess rather than discussing the rumours or even the TRUTH of the matter, you would just decide to keep your family from spending time alone with this person and teach your children to be observant in general so that they don't end up victimized. There's fine line between charity and self-protection ... you can't be gullible.
You seem to be missing a major point.
When you're talking with fellow parishioners, or those who have a right to know something, because it could affect them, you can simply talk openly about what you know about a given person, priest, etc.
Detraction is speaking about the true faults of others without sufficient reason.
Warning fellow parishioners who might end up victims of a given person/priest? That's called a SUFFICIENT REASON.
Don't let scruples get you. Cleave to the truth -- that includes true Catholic morality.
Do you know that it's mortally sinful to withhold information that a priest is a pedophile, for example, from someone who's sending their son to that priest's house on a regular basis to be trained as an altar server? (To take a hypothetical example). Yes, a mortal sin. You're basically an accomplice to whatever happens to that boy.
Thank you for setting me straight. I wasn't paying close enough attention and wasn't thinking it through. Believe me, I am not the type who would just stay silent when someone had done something that needed to be known.
Topic: Keeping Detraction vague is still Detraction (Read 1504 times)