{"id":145421,"date":"2024-07-12T09:30:00","date_gmt":"2024-07-12T13:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.regnumchristi.com\/en\/ask-a-priest-is-it-a-sin-to-joke-at-others-expense\/"},"modified":"2024-09-17T11:29:38","modified_gmt":"2024-09-17T15:29:38","slug":"ask-a-priest-is-it-a-sin-to-joke-at-others-expense","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.regnumchristi.com\/en\/ask-a-priest-is-it-a-sin-to-joke-at-others-expense\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;Ask a Priest: Is It a Sin to Joke at Others\u2019 Expense?&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote>\n<address>Q: I like to make people laugh. Whether it be my family and friends or people I don\u2019t know, I\u2019ve always enjoyed making people smile. I\u2019ve been getting more into my faith and have begun to look at my attempts at humor in a different light. Sometimes when I crack jokes, it can be at the expense of others. While I don\u2019t intend to do any harm and it\u2019s often understood that I don\u2019t, I am now wondering if this is a sin. I don\u2019t think my jokes cause any harm to the person I\u2019m joking about, but I am wondering if I should go to confession as I didn\u2019t know this could be a mortal sin. I tend to be a little overly scrupulous so I might be overthinking this but any insight would be appreciated. \u2013 Ben<\/address>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><em>Answered by Fr. Edward McIlmail, LC<\/em><\/p>\n<p>A:\u00a0If you are asking these questions, your conscience might be nudging you to reconsider these jokes.<\/p>\n<p>You say you getting more into your faith. That&#8217;s good. And that might be precisely why you are viewing the jokes in a different light.<\/p>\n<p>It might be good to follow your conscience. You mention that you don&#8217;t think the jokes constitute a mortal sin and thus you don&#8217;t need to go to confession. Fair enough.<\/p>\n<p>But ask yourself another question: If these jokes were &#8220;only&#8221; a venial sin, would you keep cracking them?<\/p>\n<p>Remember, we aren&#8217;t here just to avoid mortal sin. We are here to become saints.<\/p>\n<p>So instead of asking, &#8220;Is this a mortal sin?&#8221;, it might be better to ask, &#8220;How can I use all my words for the glory of God?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>This isn\u2019t to imply that all joking is forbidden. In certain circles, telling jokes about others is actually a way of showing appreciation for them.<\/p>\n<p>But this would need to done with prudence, for an ill-timed or indiscreet joke can leave a deep wound.<\/p>\n<p>And let\u2019s not forget the words of Jesus in Matthew 12:26 &#8212; &#8220;On the day of judgment people will render an account for every careless word they speak.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Q: I like to make people laugh. Whether it be my family and friends or people I don\u2019t know, I\u2019ve always enjoyed making people smile. I\u2019ve been getting more into [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":362,"featured_media":145952,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[3718],"tags":[3849],"post_folder":[],"class_list":["post-145421","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ask-a-priest","tag-general"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"","pp_force_visibility":null,"pp_subpost_visibility":null,"pp_inherited_force_visibility":null,"pp_inherited_subpost_visibility":null,"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v28.8 (Yoast SEO v28.8) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>&quot;Ask a Priest: Is It a Sin to Joke at Others\u2019 Expense?&quot; - Regnum Christi<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.regnumchristi.com\/en\/ask-a-priest-is-it-a-sin-to-joke-at-others-expense\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"&quot;Ask a Priest: Is It a Sin to Joke at Others\u2019 Expense?&quot;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Q: I like to make people laugh. 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He was an assistant publisher of the National Catholic Register and Faith &amp; Family magazine and an editor of the Zenit news agency\u2019s English edition. He has written for\u00a0SpiritualDirection.com\u00a0and\u00a0ePriest. Fr. McIlmail also worked in spiritual retreats in the Northeast, New England, the Midwest, and the South\u00a0and assisted with mission work in Mexico. Born in Philadelphia, he worked in journalism and was active in the pro-life movement before entering the novitiate of the Legion of Christ in 1992. His contributions to RCSpirituality include responding to\u00a0Ask A Priest\u00a0questions and sharing his insights in our\u00a0Weekly Newsletter.","url":"https:\/\/www.regnumchristi.com\/en\/author\/emcilmail\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.regnumchristi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145421","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.regnumchristi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.regnumchristi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.regnumchristi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/362"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.regnumchristi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=145421"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.regnumchristi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145421\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.regnumchristi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/145952"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.regnumchristi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=145421"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.regnumchristi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=145421"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.regnumchristi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=145421"},{"taxonomy":"post_folder","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.regnumchristi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post_folder?post=145421"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}