Did I sin against a person by disclosing his gay lifestyle to his family?

[C_Alexandria]

I have a gay family member so I belong to a very helpful Catholic support group for Catholics who have family members who are gay. We pray for each other and our gay family members and we have even helped some members’ relatives turn away from their sinful lifestyles.

Recently, I found out that my gay relative’s partner comes from a Catholic family so I sent his family information about my support group. My action hurt the gay couple’s feelings and now I’m being told that I sinned against my relative’s partner by disclosing his homosexuality to his family. I didn’t even know his family wasn’t aware of it; he’s very openly gay around my family. Did I do something wrong?

 

[Jim_Blackburn]

It sounds as though you’re being accused of detraction:

Respect for the reputation of persons forbids every attitude and word likely to cause them unjust injury. He becomes guilty… of *detraction *who, without objectively valid reason, discloses another’s faults and failings to persons who did not know them (Catechism, 2477).

First, since you didn’t intend to disclose another’s faults - you didn’t even know that the person’s family was unaware of his gay lifestyle - it seems that you at least are not *culpable *of detraction.

But did you *objectively *commit detraction? Or did you have an obligation to ascertain that the person’s family was not unaware of his gay lifestyle before you sent them the information about your group? Let’s go one step further and say that you had certain knowledge of the family’s ignorance of the truth about their relative’s lifestyle. Would sending them the information about your support group, knowingly resulting in the exposure of their relative’s gay lifestyle, constitute the sin of detraction?

Notice that the definition of detraction stated above requires that one disclose the faults or failings of another “without objectively valid reason”. So we need to determine if you had objectively valid reason for your action.

The Catholic Encyclopedia provides some help here:

There are times, nevertheless, when one may lawfully make known the offense of another even though as a consequence the trust hitherto reposed in him be rudely shaken or shattered… [E]ven when the sin is in no sense public, it may still be divulged without contravening the virtues of justice or charity whenever such a course is for the common weal or is esteemed to make for the good of the narrator, of his listeners, or even of the culprit. The right which the latter has to an assumed good name is extinguished in the presence of the benefit which may be conferred in this way (Detraction).

Clearly sending the information about your support group was for the good of both the family and their relative. And it may have been for your own good as well as that of your support group since it could result in the family joining in your efforts. Therefore, you had objectively valid reason for sending the family the information about your support group and you could morally do so without committing detraction even if you realized that they were unaware of their relative’s gay lifestyle and that your action would expose it.

You have not sinned against anyone. In fact, your action was charitable.