Keep quiet.

I very much liked Cathleen Kaveny's column on the destructive power of the tongue ("Watch Your Mouth," August 13). I have seldom if ever heard anyone confess destructive gossip as a sin. Yet if I remember my moral theology correctly, broadcasting someone's faults is justifiable only if they constitute a danger to the community. Trying to retract something you wish you hadn't said is like trying to catch feathers in the wind.

(REV.) MICHAEL BECKER

Philadelphia, Pa.