For everyone’s edification: “Hate the sin, not the sinner” is not a Christian quote – it is a Pagan one, from Mahatma Gandhi.
St. Thomas Aquinas- a CATHOLIC-, says that the sin and the Sinner are not separated; without the Sinner, there is no sin… God doesn’t send a “sin” to Hell – He sends the Sinner to Hell.
“In respect to their guilt whereby they are opposed to God, all sinners are to be hated, even one’s father, or mother, or kindred. For it is our duty to hate in the s…inner his being a sinner….
Nothing prevents one and the same thing being loved under one aspect, while it is hated under another. God loves sinners in so far as they are existing natures; for they have existence and have it from Him. In so far as they are sinners, they have not existence at all, but fall short of it; and this in them is not from God. Hence under this aspect, they are hated by Him…” (St. Aquinas, Summa.)
We are to love the sinner only for the fact that he can change – and we are called to help him change. “The weak should avoid associating with sinners, on account of the danger in which they stand of being perverted by them. But it is commendable for the perfect, of whose perversion there is no fear, to associate with sinners that they may convert them.”
If you love your neighbor for the human reason of respect, you are in error. You love him by converting him to God. This is why you will be hated by sinners.
(Alice Herrick-Davis)
SOURCE: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=507813399697727&set=a.116876068791464&type=3&theater