Before Posting A Snarky Comment, Pause To Consider The Eighth Commandment
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(OPINION) Maybe you saw the viral clip from a broadcast of a San Francisco Giants baseball game. The camera catches a young mother with a baby strapped to her chest returning to her family’s seats, her arms laden with ballpark food. Her husband rises to let her in, then sits down again and starts eating as the woman continues to hold the baby and the remaining food.
A member of the TV announcing team comments, “That’s mom of the year right there.”
The Free Press, an online news site where I encountered the clip, recounts what happened afterward:
“The clip only lasted a minute, but when it appeared online, it soon racked up hundreds of thousands of views. Strangers decided that the husband was a deadbeat, and that the wife should leave him. Some commenters went so far as to say he should kill himself.”
The couple in the video, Erika Alvarez and her husband Ramses, became briefly famous. Wrongly famous. Infuriatingly famous.
Finally, Erika had enough of the ugly public narrative to which her family — especially her husband — had been subjected. In an essay for The Free Press, she dismantled the video, explaining why everything the public assumed it had just seen was wrong.
She told of the extraordinary sacrifices Ramses had made for her and their two small children, from taking up the family’s full financial support after she was unexpectedly downsized from her job to nursing her through post-birth physical complications that sent her spiraling into depression, stress, and anxiety.
At the game, even as the camera rolled, Ramses was offering to hold the baby and, when she declined, to hand-feed Erika his sandwich, although she’d already eaten and he hadn’t had a meal all day.
He’d recently suffered the death of one of his best friends, she said. Erika had planned the ballgame trip hoping it would be cathartic for him. Baseball was a passion he and his buddy had shared. She wanted to serve her husband as he’d served her.
“Going viral has shown me firsthand that we have become quick to vilify people from a brief clip, filling in everything we cannot see with assumptions,” she wrote. “You could see that my hands were full. You couldn’t hear my husband offer to help or hear me tell him to eat. You couldn’t know that he was grieving or that I wanted to take care of him that evening. If our viral moment contributes anything to the ongoing cultural conversation about how we judge what we see online, I hope it reminds us to be more comfortable saying, ‘I don’t know the whole story.’”
Below the essay, in the comments section, I got another insight. A reader with the user name “mark” suggested that the Catechism of the Catholic Church might help in navigating situations such as this, specifically its section on the eighth commandment: “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.” He cited excerpts.
Intrigued, I looked up the catechism’s section on that commandment — paragraphs 2464 to 2513 — and found “mark” was indeed onto something. Even non-Catholics such as I could take a cue from the catechism when we’re talking about anyone else, whether privately, in court — or on social media. It defines “bearing false witness” in ways I hadn’t anticipated.
Because God is the truth and wills the truth, the catechism declares, “offenses against the truth express by word or deed a refusal to commit oneself to moral uprightness: They are fundamental infidelities to God and, in this sense, they undermine the foundations of the covenant.”
The commandment requires us to demonstrate respect for the reputation of our neighbors. It “forbids every attitude and word likely to cause them unjust injury.”
The one who violates this principle risks becoming guilty of three serious errors, the catechism says:
— “Rash judgment”: This is assuming, without a sufficient foundation, that someone else possesses a moral fault.
— “Detraction”: Detraction is disclosing another person’s failings without a valid reason. We might, for instance, tell something embarrassing about a person that’s actually true, but which others have no legitimate right to know.
— “Calumny”: Saying untrue things that harm the reputation of another and cause false judgments about him.
Instead, Christians are to intentionally interpret a neighbor's thoughts, words, and deeds as favorably as possible. Instead of putting the worst spin on what people say or do, we should assume their intentions are honorable, even if we disagree with them.
“Detraction and calumny destroy the reputation and honor of one's neighbor,’ the catechism continues. “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.”
The Catholic document specifically addresses our behavior on social media. Paragraph 2512 says, “Society has a right to information based on truth, freedom, and justice. One should practice moderation and discipline in the use of the social communications media.”
There’s much more. The larger teaching could be summed up as: Tell the truth — and make double-sure you actually know what the truth of a matter is before you talk. Also, it’s not necessary to tell every truth you know. If telling something serves no other purpose than to embarrass or judge another, then keep your trap shut. Respect legitimate confidentiality.
Additionally, never damage another person’s reputation simply for sport or to build your own social currency. Don't assume the worst about people; instead, try to assume the best. If you say something harmful that turns out to be untrue, make every effort to set the record straight.
And finally, all these rules about truth-telling apply as surely to social media as to giving testimony in court. As Erika Alvarez reminded us, those on the receiving end of mocking memes and hate-filled comments are real, feeling, three-dimensional humans.
“I’ve cried reading the comments and the social media “explanations” of our marriage,” she wrote. “The man people have been attacking was the one who consoled me. While strangers described how little he must care about me, he was helping me through the hurt their words have caused.”
Paul Prather has been a rural Pentecostal pastor in Kentucky for more than 40 years. Also a journalist, he was The Lexington Herald-Leader’s staff religion writer in the 1990s, before leaving to devote his full time to the ministry. He now writes a monthly column about faith and religion for Religion Unplugged.