Argentine Cardinal: Talking bad about neighbor is cannibalism

“When we have naturalized cannibalism?” Asked Cardinal Ángel Rossi, Archbishop of Córdoba (Argentina), citing an article by the Spanish Jesuit Genaro Ávila, in which he refers to the use of language and the practice of speaking badly of the neighbor, comparing it to “eating human flesh.”

“Where two or three come together, there is diversity and there may be conflict,” said the purple in a column in the La Voz newspaperurging not to fear it, but rather be afraid of “not being able to look into the eyes of others and not recognize in them the dignity of the person.”

“Let’s not fall into the temptation of the Ice Law, or in the temptation to raise walls that isolate us from those who do not coincide with us. Let’s not fall into the temptation of cursing, murmuring and cannibalism,” he recommended.

“When we have naturalized cannibalism? Is the habit of speaking badly of others becoming stronger than the commandment of love that has its first manifestation in respect?”, Quened the purple.

In that sense, he said: “Talking badly about others, whoever is and even if what it says is true, is to eat human flesh.”

“Mursing is the sin of cowards; of those who do not have sufficient moral value, nor the charity necessary to make the brothers a fraternal and frontal correction, as the Gospel asks us for it,” he said. He added: “Mursing is the consolation of the mediocre. It is a sign of dissatisfaction, of self -disgust, projected on others.”

Finally, he urged not to use the words to “combat, crush, humiliate, offend”, but, on the contrary, use them “to cheer up, heal wounds, undo the ice that imprisons so many stocks, to look for a path of access to desperate solitude, disclaure closed doors, take a hand to someone who can no longer”.

“You have to use words of mind again, knowing that encouraging people to give life to people, return the breath and hope to whom it is discouraged,” he encouraged.

Henry Nouwen said that “a good word is good even to the bad, and a bad word makes even the good ones,” he concluded, yearning that “before speaking next time, we stop for a moment to examine us and, if we have eaten human flesh speaking badly of the brother, that we have the courage to repent and ask for forgiveness.”