Adulation

ADULATION. - Exaggerated and unreasonable praise directed at others for a self-interested motive. Adulation always arises from and is nourished by some secret passion, such as love of money, vanity, ambition, or fear; sometimes even by a wicked disposition, especially when it goes so far as to excuse vices in the person flattered or to commend his evil actions. Scripture openly condemns it: "It is better to be rebuked by the wise than to be deceived by the adulation of the wicked" (Eccles, 7:6). St. Augustine regards it as a kind of persecution and as a vice familiar among magnates and politicians (Expos. in Ps. 59). St. Gregory the Great compares the flatterer to the scorpion, which, apparently peaceful in the movements of its body, then stings with its tail (Expos. in Ez. 1, 2).

Adulation is in itself a venial sin; but it can become grave according to the importance of the action or of the thing praised, with regard to the end for which one acts, and with respect to the occasion it gives the person flattered to err or to sin.

Celestino Testore