Volume > Issue > 'Hate the Sin but Love the Sinner': Not Scriptural, Not Catholic Doctrine

‘Hate the Sin but Love the Sinner’: Not Scriptural, Not Catholic Doctrine

GUEST COLUMN

By Erven Park | June 2006
Erven Park, of Toledo, Washington, is a widowed father of eight children (one a monastic priest). He is the past publisher of the Catholic Truth and Catholic Intersect journals, and provided documentation to and testimony before the official Vatican Commission that investigated and ruled on the ministry of Archbishop Raymond Hunthausen of the Archdiocese of Seattle.

Contrary to much popular belief, the catchphrase “hate the sin but love the sinner” is not of biblical origin, and caution should be given to its connotations. The tendency it too often leads to today is to view the sinner as a victim of his sin, rather than the author of the sin he commits.

In truth, there are biblical teachings that contravene the above cliché, for example the following (from the Douay-Rheims Catholic Bible):

Enjoyed reading this?

READ MORE! REGISTER TODAY

SUBSCRIBE

Archives

1983 1984 1985 1986 2019 2018 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 2011 2010 2009 2008 2007 2006 2005 2004 2003 2002 2001 2000 1999 1998 1997 1996 1995 1994 1993 1992 1991 1990 1989 1988 1987 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 2025

Topics
"Catholicism's Intellectual Prizefighter!"

- Karl Keating

Strengthen the Catholic cause.

SUPPORT NOR TODAY

SUBSCRIBE

You May Also Enjoy

"Rebuke Them Sharply"

Calling them "fags" will only make homosexuals angry and defiant?

What Would Flannery O'Connor Say?

To accept our brokenness is not to resign ourselves to it or succumb to it. Our individual crosses must be carried along the path God has chosen for us, to Heaven.

Homosexuality, Contraception & the Defense of Marriage

Defenders of marriage who also defend contraception speak with an inauthentic voice that unavoidably lacks authority.