So about whom is this statement most used? Who is most regularly labeled “sinful” in a world of immorality of all sorts-greed, cruelty, lying, selfishness, racism, warmongering, callousness to the poor, and so on? L.G.B.T.Q.
But if I told you I was leading a retreat for married couples, would you say, “Hate the sin, love the sinner?” Probably not, because, again, I have never heard anyone say this in the context of married couples in my 30 years as a Jesuit or 20 years as a priest. Many use birth control and are therefore, according to church teaching, sinning. Likewise, the majority of married Catholic couples these days (89 percent) believe that contraception is not a moral problem. Saying “Your love is a sin” strikes at each part of the human person. No one has ever used language remotely like that to describe college students to me. Upon hearing that I was going to speak on a college campus, would you say, “Well, hate the sin, love the sinner”? Would you castigate me for speaking to a group of “sinners”? Probably not, since no one has ever said that to me in the hundreds of times I have spoken on college campuses. The numbers are declining, but a recent study showed that 66 percent of college students had sex in the last year. As most people know, a great many college students are both unmarried and sexually active, and so are therefore not in conformity with church teaching, which prohibits any sex outside of marriage. Imagine if I told you I had been invited to give a lecture to college students-as I often am. Here is a thought experiment I often use to help people understand this. people can be particularly cruel, for there is no other group to which this term is applied so regularly, so reflexively, so relentlessly. Of course we are all, in one way or another, sinners but the use of the term in reference to L.G.B.T.Q. people, because it effectively reduces L.G.B.T.Q. With this selective application, the saying is used as a weapon against L.G.B.T.Q. Who is most regularly labeled “sinful” in a world of immorality of all sorts-greed, cruelty, lying, selfishness, racism, warmongering, callousness to the poor, and so on? L.G.B.T.Q. people so long as we condemn their actions-including same-sex relations and same-sex marriage-and label them all as “sinners.” The thinking is that we can love L.G.B.T.Q. The problem with this seemingly compassionate dictum is that today it is applied almost exclusively to one group: L.G.B.T.Q. Helen Prejean, C.S.J., who ministers to inmates on death row, often says, “A person is more than the worst thing they’ve ever done.” An element of “hate the sin, love the sinner” is operative here.
We can love and reverence a person who may have committed heinous sins. The saying also promotes a healthy demarcation between the person and the act. “Go and sin no more,” he says to the woman caught in adultery (Jn 8:1-11). At the same time, avoiding sin was at the heart of Jesus’ ministry. Jesus demonstrated that love repeatedly: He was frequently criticized for eating with “sinners and tax collectors,” when “table fellowship” was a sign of acceptance. Thus, we should love everyone, and that includes sinners.
As Christians we are called to love everyone, even our enemies, said Jesus, who forgave his executioners from the cross. “Hate the sin, love the sinner” makes a good deal of sense. The phrase is not in the Bible, though Jesus asks us in the Gospels, in a variety of ways, to love one another and frequently admonishes us against sin. It is an almost canonical saying, alongside “God helps those who help themselves” as a verse that people think is-or should be-in the Bible. Perhaps the closest analogue to the contemporary saying is found in the Letter of Jude, which says, “Have mercy on some who are wavering save others by snatching them out of the fire” (1:22-23).īut it might as well be in the Bible, so often is it used. 424, in which he says, Cum dilectione hominum et odio vitiorum, or “With love for mankind and hatred for sins.” A more contemporary reference is Mahatma Gandhi, who wrote in his autobiography, “Hate the sin and not the sinner is a precept which, though easy enough to understand, is rarely practiced, and that is why the poison of hatred spreads in the world.” I am not sure where the popular expression “Hate the sin, love the sinner” comes from.
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This article is part of a series of essays tackling the questions many Catholics are asking about the church and the world. America recently launched a national marketing campaign called #OwnYourFaith.