Pope Francis gave a Christmas Greeting to religious officials at the Vatican last year. I summarized it on my blog, “The 15 Ailments.” Imagine an esteemed individual coming to your home over the Holidays and proceeding to list all your problems.

This was ailment #9:

The sickness of “chatter, grumbling and gossip: this is a serious illness that begins simply, often just in the form of having a chat, and takes people over, turning them into sowers of discord, like Satan, and in many cases cold-blooded murderers of the reputations of their colleagues and brethren. It is the sickness of the cowardly who, not having the courage to speak directly to the people involved, instead speak behind their backs”.