Watch your mouth
Kaveny, Cathleen
But James's ultimate concern seems to be the fragile unity of his community. Nothing short of bullets is more destructive of communal well-being and solidarity than destructive talk—even if it is...
...First, he thinks that people who spend too much time talking about faith, holiness, and good works won't put their money where their mouth is...
...Our drive to communicate is at least as powerful as our sex drive...
...What should we do now...
...I think most people would find it a piece of cake next to the vow of perpetual silence...
...More than a millennium later, Aquinas builds on James's insights...
...Blog imVALERRY ii...
...In fact, the topic that most agitates him is virtually invisible today: the power of the tongue...
...More broadly, though, his message is deeply disconcerting for all of us Americans who view cell phones and instant messaging as important new recreational devices...
...We know that silence can be used to conceal injustice, and that truth-telling can sometimes be a necessary liberation...
...There are delicate lines to be drawn—just as in matters of sexual morality...
...The tongue is also a fire...
...There's little overlap between James's playlist and ours...
...Was it really necessary to unseal court records of Jack Ryan's messy divorce to assess his fitness to represent Illinois in the U.S...
...According to James, it is just as dangerous...
...For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by the human species, but no human being can tame the tongue...
...in fact, Luther called it a "right strawy epistle" because he thought it emphasized good works at the expense of faith...
...Sides are formed...
...His focus is the concrete effect that certain types of speech have on the speaker and the community...
...Cathleen Kaveny teaches law and theology at the University of Notre Dame...
...With it we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse human beings who are made in the likeness of God...
...Wherever we stand on the issues, most of us are familiar with the playlist...
...It exists among our members as a world of malice, defiling the whole body and setting the entire of our lives on fire, itself set on fire by Gehenna...
...We see this ourselves, in families, in schools, in workplaces, in the country, and in the church...
...What's the difference between fraternal correction and sinful reviling of another...
...Not a comforting passage for members of the chattering classes...
...James's warning to teachers—those who make their living by talking—is explicit and dire...
...He devotes five separate questions of the Summa Theologiae to "injuries inflicted by words": reviling, backbiting, tale-bearing, derision, and cursing...
...James is not primarily concerned with abstract questions, like the tension between freedom of expression and community values...
...James observes, "Consider how small a fire can set a huge forest ablaze...
...He means the human capacity—and propensity—to talk...
...t wouldn't be hard to compile a "Greatest Hits" album of recent official Catholic teaching on moral questions...
...Sometimes lives are destroyed...
...Do we need every detail...
...Things aren't as straight-forward as in James's time...
...No one could accuse its author of being soft on morals...
...James writes, "There is one law-giver and judge who is able to save and destroy...
...Sometimes we are overwhelmed with information which is arguably more salacious than relevant...
...Everyone says that the monastic vow of perpetual chastity is the hardest for Americans to accept...
...James presarios and mavens of the print media can't escape on the technicality that their instrument is the keyboard, not the tongue—they bless and curse with the best of them...
...In the church, liberals and conservatives quickly blamed the root causes of the sexual-abuse crisis on each other, with no compunction against battering the already bruised body of Christ in service of their own political agendas...
...Third, James is well aware that loving one's neighbors is not compatible with running them down behind their backs...
...More energy is put into the conversation about the fractures in the community than into the healing of them...
...Nothing short of bullets is more destructive of communal well-being and solidarity than destructive talk—even if it is true...
...It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison...
...Do we need to know whether anorexia nervosa is Mary-Kate Olsen's sole "health problem," " or whether it also includes addiction to cocaine, as some tabloids claim...
...Perhaps we need a retrosound—a really retro sound...
...Not only does Aquinas emphasize that these practices are violations of justice, he explicitly warns that they can be mortal sins...
...Senate...
...Gossip travels, feelings get hurt, and loyalties get betrayed...
...Maybe the band should add a new number to its repertoire...
...And by that he doesn't mean the farewell tour of the Rolling Stones...
...But it is a hard sell in this culture...
...James's own strategy, "every-one should be quick to hear, slow to speak, and slow to wrath," is good ad-vice...
...Who then are you to judge your neighbor...
...Second, he worries that these talkers will judge them-selves by their words, and other people by their deeds, leading to self-righteousness...
...Commonweal 7 August 13, 2004 CATHLEEN KAVENY WATCH YOUR MOUTH Sage advice from St...
...That's a hard question, and it deserves more systematic attention...
...Sexual Ethics (Humanae vitae), human rights (Gaudium et spes), abortion and euthanasia (Evangelium vitae), just-war theory (The Challenge of Peace), economic justice (Economic Justice for All), and the role of women (Mulieris dignitatem...
...We live in a democratic republic requiring public deliberation about the common good...
...Take the Epistle of James...
Vol. 131 • August 2004 • No. 14
