HT to Tea at Trianon for finding this:
Detraction (unnecessarily making public the secret sins of others):
Is detraction a mortal sin?In Rom. i. 30 backbiters are placed among those who are worthy of spiritual death. And the taking away any person’s good name is gravest injury, because in this life there is nothing more precious, and the loss of it hinders a man from well doing his work in life. Therefore detraction is per se a mortal sin. But sometimes it happens that words are spoken which are injurious to some one’s character, when not this but something else is intended. This is not “formal” detraction (which consists in the evil intention), though it is outwardly (“materially”) such. And if the words spoken are uttered for some necessary good, the due conditions being observed, it is not detraction nor sin at all. These conditions are (1) No more is revealed nor to any more persons than is necessary for avoiding the evil or attaining the good; (2) the revelation will probably have a good result; (3) it is done with good intention; (4) the good sought for or the evil to be averted is of serious consequence.
Detraction is naturally the child of envy.
Is it grave sin to listen approvingly to detraction?
It is sin to consent to another’s sin (Rom. i. 32); and this is done either directly or indirectly; directly, when one leads another into sin, or takes pleasure in it; indirectly, when one does not oppose it, being able to do so not through taking pleasure in the sin, but through fear of man. So if any one listen to detraction without opposition, he seems to consent to the detractor, and becomes a participator in his sin. But if he induce any one to be guilty of detraction, or take pleasure in it because he hates the one injured by the detraction, he sins no less than the detractor, and sometimes more than he; more, when he sins against charity in the sin of scandal towards the detractor, as well as against justice towards the one defamed. But if the sin does not please him, and he is silent through fear or negligence or difference, he sins indeed, but much less than the detractor, and in general venially. But sometimes even this may be mortal sin, when official duty requires the correction of the detractor, or grave danger results from the keeping silence, or when the fear of man is itself a mortal sin.
The detractor may be saying what is true; he cannot be resisted by denial of the facts, but either he can be charged with his sin of detraction, or, at least, it can be shown to be offensive to the listener, by expressive silence, by leaving him, or by changing the subject of conversation.
