Lies and misdemeanors

It is a sin to tell a lie, either venial or mortal depending on the circumstance. I learned that lesson from the nuns who used to be assigned to travel to the far outreaches of the land to teach the heathen children wrong from right. The nuns were either very old, at the end of their service years, or very young, just learning their missionary skills. One lesson addressed the topic of gossiping about others, thus harming their reputations. If the person being maligned were just an ordinary person, we were told, it would not be as serious a sin as if the person being maligned were of a more important status, like a doctor or a priest. As quiet and shy, and as fearful of religion as I was, I found this very unsettling, though I never uttered a single syllable of disagreement. There was a girl in my class whose father was a doctor, and I didn't think it fair that her father should have been judged more important than mine. He was a grouchy doctor, and I thought my father was a better man. Years later, many, many years later, it came to me why this message was being taught, though I don't suppose, if my suspicions were true, that the nuns would have been a party to it anyway. I hope there is no such place as Hell, and if there is, I hope I don't have to go there-------Jeffrey Dahmer, Adolph Hitler, the Kardashians.