One would be wise to avoid falling into detraction or calumny.
**2507 **Respect for the reputation and honor of persons forbids all detraction and calumny in word or attitude.
**2479 **Detraction and calumny destroy the
reputation and honor of one’s neighbor. Honor is the social witness given to human dignity, and everyone enjoys a natural right to the honor of his name and reputation and to respect. Thus, detraction and calumny offend against the virtues of justice and charity.
**2477 **
Respect for the reputation of persons forbids every attitude and word likely to cause them unjust injury. He becomes guilty:
- of rash judgment who, even tacitly, assumes as true, without sufficient foundation, the moral fault of a neighbor; - of *detraction *who, without objectively valid reason, discloses another’s faults and failings to persons who did not know them; - of *calumny *who, by remarks contrary to the truth, harms the reputation of others and gives occasion for false judgments concerning them.
**2539 **Envy is a capital sin. It refers to the sadness at the sight of another’s goods and the immoderate desire to acquire them for oneself, even unjustly. When it wishes grave harm to a neighbor it is a mortal sin:
St. Augustine saw envy as “*the *diabolical sin.” “From envy are born hatred, detraction, calumny, joy caused by the misfortune of a neighbor, and displeasure caused by his prosperity.”
