Pope Francis said gossip is worse than COVID. He said the devil is the "biggest gossiper" who lies a lot. He said gossip is dangerous. He called it, "a plague worse than COVID. He asked people to "make a big effort" to not gossip. He said: "If something goes wrong, pray, but never gossip."

In 2016, the Pope told people not to "fuel the terrorism of gossip". He said if people wanted to "drop a gossip bomb, bite your tongue". Two years later he talked about gossip again. He said gossip is deadly "because the tongue kills, like a knife". A woman agreed. She said gossips were just "busybodies".