Does God Hate...? (Part II)

My original post of a couple of months ago on whether God hates the devil seems to be found by Google searches quite often, and I've wondered why. I concluded that God hates the devil with perfection, even though this conclusion initially seems contradictory for God to hate a being that he created. The reason God hates the devil is that the devil is a purely spiritual being gifted with free will and permanently chooses to reject God. Thus there is no reason for God's love which always seeks good things for, and union with, the beloved.

There is a continuing debate (or war of wirds!) taking place between The Wanderer Newspaper (George A. Kendall, guest editor) and the New Oxford Review (Dale Vree, editor) on whether God hates the souls condemned to hell-- a somewhat different question than "Does God hate the devil? Kendall argues in the 7 Dec 2006 issue of The Wanderer that he remembers

"the nuns teaching me that God loves the souls in hell....It was not just the nuns who taught that God loves the souls in Hell, but our priests as well. It was one of those taken-for-granted things."

Earlier Kendall stated that God's retraction of love would render a soul into non-existence. He also commented in The Wanderer editorial of 7 Dec 2006 that:

...if, as soon as he is in the state of mortal sin, God begins to hate him, then he will never be given the grace of repentence, because God is not going to give grace to someone He hates.

[Here it appears that Kendall switches subjects and is discussing a changeable man who is still living. Once that man dies, he cannot change his life and so the grace of repentence is not applicable. The teaching of the Church is Mercy in this world; Justice in the Next.]

In response, Dale Vree's arguments are summarized in a letter by Thomas Fayette:

"...if a soul ceased to exist in Hell, that would be the act of love, not eternal punishment....Mortal sin separates us from God, removes us from His Kingdom, and puts us under the godship of Satan. Then we must conclude that God loves Satan or he wouldn't exist either. 'Vengeance is mine..., says the Lord' (Rom. 12:19). Are we supposed to believe that this [vengeance] is an act of love? The opinion that God loves the souls in Hell is simply that, an opinion, and not Catholic teaching as I am aware....If someone chooses to provoke God's anger by choosing to be a member of Satan's kingdom, and is cast into Hell, to what avail is God's love to his soul?

I am most intrigued by George A. Kendall's appearance as a guest editor of The Wanderer, which the New Oxford Review points out has a long policy of not criticizing living Popes. Back in 2002, Kendall seemed to have a slightly different point of view in his The Saint & Dragon web periodical.

Let our bishops and our Holy Father repent their gross negligence and begin taking up arms seriously against the evils which afflict the body of Christ, and we will not hesitate to join them and submit ourselves to them....I would also add that criticizing the Hierarchy or even the Pope is not criticizing the Magisterium....

As to the notion that the Pope should somehow be held blameless in all this, that is obvious nonsense. If the Pope knows what has been going on in his Church during his reign, then he has been grossly negligent in his duties. Otherwise, why hasn’t he rescinded the Novus Ordo liturgy and restored the Old Mass throughout the Church? Why hasn’t he excommunicated grossly heretical and positively evil bishops like Kenneth Untener? Why hasn’t he ordered a cleansing of the seminaries? And so on.