Evil-speaking and slandering

The Catechism also teaches us to keep our tongue from “evil-speaking…and slandering”. (2) Evil-speaking means saying nasty things about other people.  Slandering means telling lies about other people in order to injure them.  One of the worst things about such lies is that it is very difficult to prove that they are lies or to stop them from spreading.  A lie can be told in 30 seconds, but it takes more than 30 seconds to prove it is a lie.

Half-truths

One of the worst forms of lie, and the most difficult to deal with, is the half-truth which is also called a half-lie.  It may be big or it may be little.  Tom comes home with a black eye.  “John hit me”, he tells his mother.  Perfectly true – as far as it goes.  He does not mention that he blacked John’s eye first.  So people lie by telling only that part of the truth that suits them and leaving all the rest out.  As it is half true, you cannot just say, “That is completely untrue”, and yet for all that it is not the truth.