Q. Pope Francis has talked a lot about the danger of gossip. Is the pope talking about just casual friends talking or something more?
A. I think Pope Francis is talking about offenses against the Eighth Commandment; “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.” Bearing false witness, as I understand it has always been lying. A lie is rather broadly defined in moral theology: saying something other than what one’s mind knows. Some are great lies and some are rather white lies, but they are all lies.

Gossip is relating to others things which others do not need repeated, which is detraction, or giving slander by talking about and passing untruths about others. If we pay attention to the commandments—all of them, then we don’t have to worry about the sin of gossip to which Pope Francis warns us.

According to Pope Francis “Good and honest behavior,” he said, does not come merely from “juridical norms” but rather requires “profound motivation, expressions of a hidden wisdom, the wisdom of God, which can be received by the grace of the Holy Spirit.”

It is Holy Spirit who the Pope says “renders us capable of living divine love” and following “the greatest commandment: love God with all your heart and love your neighbor as yourself.”

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