ODILIA, Saint - The abbesses St. Eretriude and St. O. with her characteristic iconography: the two eyes. Panel painting (ca. 1475). Salzburg, Nonnberg Abbey Church.
Hatred (odium) is opposed to the love of concupiscence which seeks the good for itself, inasmuch as it wishes to keep evil away from itself. Hatred of enmity is opposed to the love of benevolence and friendship (cf. CHARITY), which leads one to desire good for others and implies the will and effort to procure evil in order to satisfy a desire for revenge. Hatred of aversion is licit (cf. Ps. 118:113), if it does not exceed in manner, but it can easily lead to hatred of enmity, which is always illicit and can reach the height of malice and may be called diabolical.
I. HATRED AGAINST GOD
Every hatred of God is in itself and by itself a mortal sin («ex toto genere suo»); indeed, if it is hatred of enmity, it constitutes the gravest and most inexplicable of all sins. Theoretically it is inconceivable and practically it is determined by a false conception of God Himself. In very many cases, behind hatred toward God there lurks instead an aversion toward opinions and persons who represent Him.II. HATRED AGAINST ONESELF
This is that behavior directed against one’s own self which induces gloomy despair, self-hatred, cursing oneself, self-abasement, and suicide. Such conduct can only be explained by considering it as an abnormal psychological state, as a consequence of a morbid situation rather than as an action consciously directed against the very instinct of self-preservation and self-affirmation. But one hates oneself also when one does not provide in a reasonable manner for the soul and the body.III. HATRED AGAINST ONE’S NEIGHBOR
This consists in a psychological attitude of positive enmity toward another person, enmity which generally arises from a more or less unjust behavior of the person hated and leads to denigrating him and, if possible, to inflicting harm; and it can occur both between individuals and between nations. A particular kind of hatred toward one’s neighbor is given by the so-called “class hatred,” which is determined mostly by circumstances of a personal and social nature. Thus, for example, it is that which arises in the poor against the rich, in the sick against the healthy, in apostates against the members of the community from which they have separated.Hatred against enemies is reprehensible even from the purely natural point of view, inasmuch as it is directed against creatures of God and as it causes social ills; hence the condemnation of every hatred or desire for revenge, as intrinsically evil and gravely sinful («ex genere suo»).
Finally, hatred, in all its directions and manifestations, is an impediment in direct opposition to that charity which Christ, confirming what had already been established in the natural order, preached and taught as the mark of His disciples, extending it even to the forgiveness and love of enemies (cf. CHARITY).