Annoying Excuses of Scandal – Mongers!
I remember once seeing an amusing cartoon. It was called “A delightful bit of news,” and represented five or six feminine heads, all looking one way, and all with their mouths open. The first head was small, and the mouth proportioned to the rest of the features; the next was rather larger, with a much wider mouth; the third was larger still, and so on.
This picture portrayed in a capital way what often happens, especially in small towns or villages, when some trifling incident in passing from mouth to mouth is magnified by the gossips and tattlers till it attains the proportions of quite an important event; and thus, to quite a homely proverb, a mountain is made out of a molehill.
How greatly a man may be wronged, what incalculable injury may be done him, if some trifling fault he has committed is magnified by the tongue of scandalmongers, and spread abroad by evil speakers who wish him ill. And yet these people will not, for the most part allow that they are much to blame. They say with the pharisee in the Temple: “O God, I give thee thanks that I am not as the rest of men, like this or that person.” They allege all kinds of excuses for their conduct; and it may be well to hear what some of these excuses are.
Some persons say: “We had not the least intention of injuring our neighbour’s reputation by what we said.” But what good does that do him? It injures him all the same; it is detrimental to his good name.
Others seek to excuse themselves by asserting that they were not the first to discover these failings, but mentioned them only because they heard them from others. But do such persons not know what the Holy Ghost says in the scriptures: “Hast thou heard a word against thy neighbour? Let it die within thee.” And yet they imagine there is no great harm in repeating the evil they heard about anyone to those who up to this time were ignorant of it!
Another will say: “These faults of my neighbour are no secret, for the person to whom I refer is notorious for his vices, and has a very bad reputation.” But even if the faults which are talked about are widely known, what is the use repeating them? And if any one is fortunate enough to be in bad repute, and has already lost his character, why take pleasure in talking about it? Those who act thus remind one of barbarians, who, not content with killing their victim, take a diabolical delight in stabbing and mutilating his lifeless body.
( Fr. F. X. Lasance, “There Is No Great Harm In It”, Catholic Girls Guide)
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