Exodus 20.8 Thou Shalt Not Bear False Witness

The eighth commandment: Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor. We look to the Catechism as well as Fr. Heribert Jone's Moral Theology, to discuss what this means and what areas of our life it covers. Lying, while always immoral, has different levels of seriousness depending on the nature of the falsehood, who it is spoken to and for what reason. A distinction is rendered as to being a venial or mortal sin. The most serious types of bearing false witness is calumny and detraction. What is that and why are these types of speech so seriously disordered? Finally we look to St. Augustine to have a rule of speech to govern our tongue.