The Catholic Church teaches about several sins that fall under the Eighth Commandment – thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor. Those since include rash judgement, calumny, and slander. They were on full display with the Covington Catholic incident, in which boys from Covington Catholic High School were falsely accused in the traditional media and on social media of racial harassment against a native American, following the March for Life in Washington, D.C. The boys were pilloried in the media and criticized even by their own bishop, based on a short video clip that did not reflect the full story. That was the sin of rash judgement. Slander and calumny against the boys also ran rampant. Upon examination of more video footage, it turns out that the native American instigated the incident by wading into the crowd of boys, and that they boys were innocent of any racial harassment.

Subsequent to that, the family of the principal Catholic boy in the story, Nick Sandmann, brought a $250 million defamation lawsuit against one of the parties who practiced rash judgement, the Washington Post.

First of all, their chance of success in winning the lawsuit is very low. Rarely do defamation lawsuits against newspaper publishers ever succeed.

But separate from that, it is easy to fall victim to the sin of rash judgement, and one hopes that the following does not constitute rash judgement:

Does it not appear that the Sandmann family is succumbing to the sin of unforgiveness?

The Sandmanns should publicly and prominently forgive the Washington Post for their rash judgement.Perhaps some facts are missing that would make this lawsuit “legitimate” in the eyes of God. But from the information at hand, the Sandmanns don’t seem to be abiding by the teachings of the Catholic Faith, even though presumably they are Catholic. The lawsuit embodies vengeance; an eye-for-an-eye. Jesus explicitly rejected that, and instead urged us to turn the other cheek.

As indicated in the Parable of the Unforgiving Servant, God is merciful and forgiving – but only if we are merciful and forgiving towards others. That parable is immediately preceded by the famous dialogue in which Peter asks Jesus how many times we should forgive another person. “As many as seven times?,” Peter asks. “No, Jesus replied. “Seventy times seven times.”

So to be in accordance with the teachings of the Catholic Faith, it seems that rather than suing the Washington Post, the Sandmanns should publicly and prominently forgive the Washington Post for their rash judgement. That would convey to the world a powerful lesson about forgiveness.

Nick Sandmann in his interview with NBC said that his Catholic school does not tolerate racism. The school evidently teaches that racism is a grave sin, and rightly so. Does the school not teach that unforgiveness is a grave sin as well?

But again, in order to not fall victim to the sin of rash judgement, we’ll hold off on judging until all of the facts are in.