Praise be Jesus and Mary, now and forever.
In today's first reading, taken from the Acts of the Apostles, we hear of Barnabas being sent to Antioch to encourage the faithful there and to help build up the body of Christ, and it was Paul and Barnabas who ministered to the Antiochians for a year, and St. Luke tells us that it was at Antioch that disciples were at first called Christians, Acts 11, verse 26. The name Barnabas means son of encouragement and Barnabas is described in Acts, as we heard, as a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and of faith, Acts 11:24. The Church then and the Church now needs good men and women filled with faith, filled with the Holy Spirit, who encourage and build up the members of the body of Christ, and this is what St. Barnabas did in his discourses and in his actions. He was doing what St. Paul himself teaches all of us to do, when the Apostle says in 1 Thessalonians 5:11, encourage one another and build each other up, and he adds to that in Ephesians 4:29, he says, let no evil talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for edifying, as fits the occasion, that it may impart grace to those who hear. 
The opposite of encouragement and edifying speech is discouragement and dis-edifying speech. The opposite of building up others is tearing them down, and we speak here in particular of the sin of detraction. Often tied together with detraction are the other sins of slander or calumny and rash judgment. Detraction is, I injure and harm other people's reputation and their character and reveal their faults unnecessarily. It can be done with the intent to smear their name, or one may not explicitly have that intent, I just do it without necessity. And then to harm other people's reputation and character and their good name unfairly and or falsely is slander. And again, it's not uncommon for those two to go together, detraction and slander, especially when rash and uncharitable judgments are thrown into the mix. Another term for detraction is backbiting, a term that colorfully illustrates the ugly nature of this sin, which is normally done behind people's backs. If someone bites you in the back, usually that's painful. Detraction is pretty painful as well.
Detraction can be a mortal sin, depending on the amount of damage done by the detractor and also depending on the dignity of the person who they're speaking ill of. 
When you detract, when you tear other people down with your words and discourses, instead of building up the body of Christ, you become an agent of its disintegration, of its unraveling. Detraction fosters an ungodly climate of criticism, which breeds self-righteousness and contempt for others. Is there an illustration of this in the scriptures?
Well, if we remember the parable of our Lord regarding the Pharisee and the tax collector, Luke chapter 18, we remember the prayer of the Pharisee, who prayed, God, I thank you that I'm not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week. I give tithes of all that I get, Luke 18, verses 11 and 12. So notice that prayer.
The Pharisee was a very religious person, points out the flaws of everyone else, including the person next to him, who's praying in the temple. And then he begins to build himself up, speaking of some of the wonderful things that he himself does, tearing other people's down with his words and building himself up. That's the heart of a detractor. 
Certainly the Pharisee's actions of fasting and giving tithes were laudable in themselves, but then you get a chance to see what he's really like when you hear of how he thinks of his neighbors.
Similarly, we can say to some of our brothers and sisters in the faith, it's good that you profess to love the Church. It's good that you're against the culture of death. It's good that you're pro-life, pro-family, that you're against the perversion of sexuality in all of its forms. Nowadays, it's good that you're faithful in attending Mass, faithful to daily prayer. But are you a detractor? Are you a slanderer? Do you rashly judge others? If so, you may be like the Pharisee in the parable, going home from church every day, not justified in God's eyes. 
Why do people detract and slander and defame others? Well, a couple of reasons are one, as we said, it may simply be to build themselves up, to make themselves look good. Sometimes we play the seesaw game. The seesaw game is I push others down so that I can rise up, right? Gives some people a sense of, or a feeling of superiority over others. If they can point out other people's faults or supposed faults. So they get a sense of significance out of that. It makes them feel smart, maybe feel important. 
People can also be detractors or slanderers, because it gives them a sense of security, meaning they don't want others to think on or focus on their faults or criticize them for what they're doing wrong or what they're not doing. And so they throw other people under the bus, kind of as a diversion tactic. So sometimes the detractor speaks negatively to get you to think about other people's shortcomings and not their own. 
Addicts are also very good at that too. They can be a form of blame shifting for some people. So I don't want you to criticize me. So I'll criticize you first and put you on the defensive to take the spotlight off of me. Other times people use detraction. They paint others in a bad light simply because they don't like them and because they want to discredit them. They want you to think badly about someone because they think badly about them. 
Two formative principles to keep in mind here are, one, you are the company that you keep, and two, you are what you eat, at least spiritually. Meaning that what you take into your mind and into your heart and into your soul is what forms you or deforms you. So if you hang around detractors and defamers and feed on their criticisms and the negative atmosphere that they create, they will poison your soul. And perhaps even worse, you may become just like them. It's like in those movies when the vampires would bite people. And what happens? The other person becomes a vampire too, right? That may very well happen if you hang around back biters. You'll start biting other people in the back just like they do. The proverb that says, when you throw mud around, you get your hands dirty and you lose a lot of ground, that proverb very well applies to the detractor. 
The Catechism briefly warns about detraction, Numbers 2477 and 2479. The Roman Catechism, which is the Catechism of Trent, actually speaks more extensively about it. Speaking of the Eighth Commandment, it says, quote, by this commandment is forbidden not only false testimony, but also the detestable propensity and habit of detraction from which pest it is incredible how many and what serious inconveniences and evils arrive. No mixing words there. That's the old-fashioned form of pastoral approach. Just let them have it, right? 
The vice of speaking ill and contumeliously, meaning insultingly of others in private, the sacred scriptures everywhere reprobate, meaning scripture everywhere condemns this, says the Roman Catechism. And it gives a couple of scripture quotes, one from Psalm 101, verse 5, where David says, he who slanders his neighbors secretly, I will destroy. And then a quote from James 4:11, where St. James says, do not speak ill against one another, brethren. He that speaks evil against a brother or judges the brother speaks evil against the law and judges the law. 
The Roman Catechism actually gives three paragraphs condemning this sin. And at one point it says, nor are those disassociated from their number or their guilt who, instead of reproving, lend a willing ear and a willing assent to detractors and slanderers. As we read in St. Jerome and St. Bernard, whether the detractor or the listener be the more criminal, it is not easy to decide. For if there were no listeners, there would be no detractors, says the Roman Catechism. Very good point, actually. What the detractor wants is an ear or two ears to listen to them. So one thing we need to do is simply not give ear to them.
And there may be detractors around us, but how many people actually want to be around detractors? If they're speaking badly of others, eventually you'll be on their list as well.
It's just a matter of time. The detractor damages other people's reputation and they damage their own reputation too. Good people don't want to be in their company.
In our speech, we need to think before we speak. And when we speak of others, we have to have a three-tiered filter on our thoughts and on our words. The three-tiered filter is what I'm about to say true, is it necessary, and is it charitable.  True, necessary, and charitable. If what I want to say about someone doesn't pass the three-tiered filter or the three-fold test, then I shouldn't say it.
And for those of us who are consecrated to Our Lady, it's even more incumbent upon us to avoid the sins of detraction and slander because we give Our Lady a bad name. If we say that we're consecrated to Her, and then we tear others down in our speech. Those who kiss their rosaries before praying them, or kiss the miraculous medal, or kiss their scapular, and then they turn around and run people into the ground. Someone who's close to them might want to say to them, I'm surprised that you kiss your mother with that mouth.
St. James, in his New Testament letter, talking about the evils of the tongue, says, with the tongue we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse men who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. Brethren, this ought not be so.
James 3 verses 9 and 10. So I profess one thing, I profess that I love the Lord.
So I profess one thing, I profess that I love the Lord. I profess that I belong totally to Our Lady. But then I'm a detractor and I defame others. Then when I profess and who I am are in conflict.
If this is how I am, then it's probably best that I just don't tell anyone that I'm consecrated to Our Lady. At least not until I give that consecration a good name, by stop tearing other people down in my discourses and by stopping to offend the one who I profess to be devoted to. Because Our Lady doesn't like that garbage any more than any other good person does. Actually, she likes it even less.
I'm gonna close today by going back to our first reading where St. Luke says it was at Antioch that the disciples were first called Christians. Acts 11 verse 26. Remember it was there that the Christian community received the encouraging words and example of St. Barnabas. It was there that the good name of being a Christian was first attributed to the followers of Christ.
We too need to give Christians and give Catholicism a good name and we'll do it in part by ceasing to give others a bad name. By ceasing to unnecessarily or unfairly or unjustly tear others down in our conversations. Whether the unfortunate subject of our nasty words be a pauper, be the Pope himself, or be anyone else in between.
Let's ask Our Lady for the grace to acknowledge our shortcomings in these areas and to truly repent of our sins. 
Praise be Jesus and Mary, now and forever.