The Small Persistent Root: Catholic Living in the Shadow and Light of Hatred

There was a podcast episode I listened to—really one of those reels flashing across the endless scroll, but for the heart, it was a gospel, a hard-nosed little homily on hatred. The host’s words tumbled out, urgent and unadorned, about how hatred builds up like silt in the soul—its taproot hidden, its fruit bitter—and I felt that peculiar ache of being caught, seen, called out. Sometimes, what stings most is how hatred fashions itself as something logical, even useful: self-defense, the shield for bruised dignity, the sharp tongue that says I know better. And behind it—all the same childhood fears, the old suspicions, the stories we tell ourselves to justify the closing of the fist, the folding of the arms.

I found myself wincing at certain turns, the way one does when an examination of conscience lands too close. It’s easy, in the comfort of faith, to imagine hatred is something only those people—the villains, the shrill partisans, the remote stranger—harbor and water. But the reel’s plainspoken honesty, its both-feet-on-the-floor style, made what the Church insists unavoidably fresh: the command is not complicated, only costly. To love beyond reason, to move from the sullen beat of “us and them” toward the gospel “we,” is to follow Christ into the very places where hatred festers, including the small, hidden corners of my own wary heart.

Hatred is not always a violent word hurled or a fist clenched; sometimes it is slighter and slipperier—a sidelong glance, a muttering to oneself, the way a man can close the door of his heart, inch by careful inch, against another. It grows almost unnoticed, watered by old fears, disappointments, by the suspicion that one is under attack, that goodness is scarce, that wounds must be avenged. It takes root in the humus of ignorance and pride and—here is the hardest truth—in my own soul just as sure as anywhere else. The old temptations camouflage themselves as justice, as righteous anger, as clarity, but sometimes what feels like moral zeal ferments quietly into bitterness (Catholic Stand, 2018).

Catholic tradition pierces this fog: hatred, say the old fathers, is never the same as righteous anger. Righteous anger is a fire that longs for restoration, for justice—anger at abuse or cruelty can even be driven by love, when it is impatience for what ought to be. But hatred, true hatred, is a will bent toward another’s harm, a refusal of charity, and, as the Catechism and Christ Himself are so sharp to remind, this cannot coexist with Gospel love. “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you” (Luke 6:27); do not return violence with violence; choose what is good, even for those who do you wrong (St. Paul, Romans 12:9; Catholic Stand, 2018; Wisdom Library, 2025).

Catholic living is, then, a messy honesty. The Church does not say we must never feel negative things—Christ wept, turned tables, sorrowed in Gethsemane, and His saints have raged against injustice—but always, we must will the good (Today's Catholic, 2021). St. Augustine’s phrase, sharpened by centuries, is inescapable: love humanity, hate the sin. St. Paul, architect of a thousand paradoxes, says “let love be genuine, hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good” (Romans 12:9). The Church, battered and foolish as it can be, stands always for mercy as much as for truth.

The response to hatred is not indifference or bland tolerance—it is choosing the long road of conversion, repentance, reconciliation. Hatred isolates, mercies bind. This often looks small: the refusal to speak ill, the choice to see even a rival as beloved of God, the habit of catching oneself at the edge of contempt and stepping back. Confession is a machinery for this: I name the hatred, root it out, even as it clings. Prayer, acts of service, real listening—each is a chisel against the stone of a frozen heart (Catholic Stand, 2018).

But the Church is honest, too, about how hard this is. Living Catholic in public—on the internet, in fractious family dinners, in places rattled by violence or oppression—means holding the tension between standing for the dignity of the poor, the abused, the outcast, and not letting one’s soul twist into a mirror of the very hatred it opposes. There are times when sharp words are needed; when the wolf must be named; the fire must be kindled. Justice as a virtue is not soft. But even here the line is mercy: the person is to be loved, the evil to be opposed (Today's Catholic, 2021; Wisdom Library, 2025).

If Catholics lived this more—if love, not hatred, were the banner—the world would tremble. Parishes would be sanctuaries not just of like-minded folk but of the wounded and angry. Politics would become, even slightly, kinder. Families would repair—with effort and tears—old rifts. The world will still be wild with divisions, but the persistent work of love, scandalous and unyielding, would be a new seed (Today's Catholic, 2021; Catholic Stand, 2018).

Hatred may always stalk the edges, but Catholic living is the odd, ancient wager that love—willed, bruised, stubborn—can, with God’s help, outlast it.

References

Catholic Stand. (2018, April 27). Hate, love, and false love. 

Today's Catholic. (2021, May 11). Is love the cause of hatred? The answer may surprise you. 

Wisdom Library. (2025, March 4). Meaning of hatred and love in Christianity.