Speaking ill of other people and spreading gossip is worse than Covid-19 and Satan is the worst offender of all, Pope Francis said Sunday.
When people see someone making a mistake, “the first thing we usually do is go and tell someone else about it. Gossip like this closes off the community,” the pope said in comments on a passage in the Bible where Jesus talks about what must be done to welcome back into the community those who have committed errors.
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“The great gossip is Satan who always says bad things about people,” Francis said.
Satan “is a liar who seeks to divide the Church, to drive our brothers apart, so that they are no longer a community,” he added.
“Let us make an effort not to be gossips. Speaking ill of people is a plague worse than COVID,” the pope said in an address at Saint Peter’s.