Is Evil on the rise? What is the Greatest Evil in the World Today?
By Charbel El-Chaar Canada – January 13, 2026 Arabic
Saint Mother Teresa of Calcutta, India, always used to say: The Greatest evil of our time is “Being unwanted, unloved, uncared for, forgotten by everybody, I think that is a much greater hunger, a much greater poverty than the person who has nothing to eat.”
Lord Jesus summarized all the commandments and teachings into a single commandment: Love. He said in the Gospel of Matthew (22:37-40): “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
While the famous phrase “God is love” is found in the First Epistle of Saint John the Apostle (Chapter 4, verses 8 and 16), where he says: “Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love,” many saints have written that the opposite of love is hatred.
Hatred is “Murder” by Intent
The saints believe that hatred is the first seed of the crime of murder. The Gospel says: “Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer” (1 John 3:15). Since the devil was “Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life remaining in him “ (John 8:44), hatred makes a human being resemble him.
Sayings of the Saints on Hatred and the Devil:
Saint Anthony the Great: He viewed anger and hatred as “poisons” that the devil flings into the human heart to separate it from prayer and union with God.
Saint John Chrysostom: He taught that the devil cannot enter the human heart unless he finds a “breach” of hatred or malice. Love is a wall that protects the soul, whereas hatred is an open door for evil.
Saint Augustine: He described hatred as a “worm that eats the heart,” invented by the devil to corrupt the beauty of the human soul.
The Foundation of Hatred in the Modern World
Today’s society and the world are saturated with hatred. For this reason, we witness the rejection of one human being by another. The primary rejection—and the foundation of all this hatred—is the hatred of parents and mothers for the child about to be born: the fetus in its mother’s womb, who is rejected and considered unwanted. The fruit of this hatred is murder through abortion.
According to Saint Teresa of Calcutta: “The greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion, because it is a direct war, a direct killing—murder by the mother herself… If a mother can kill her own child, what is left for me to kill you and for you to kill me? There is nothing left” (National Prayer Breakfast, Washington, 1994).
Thus, the foundation of hatred in the world today is the hatred of a mother for her child in the womb. This hatred grows day by day and year by year. According to global statistics for the year 2000, abortion claimed 60 million children annually; by 2025, this figure has risen to 73 million children killed by abortion every year.
This massive rise in the number of abortions is the foundation for the increase in crimes, killings, gang violence, organized crime, international crimes, and wars both small and large. Among these are the crimes in Gaza, which are war crimes, crimes against humanity, mass killings, starvation, and killing for organ harvesting—the evil we have witnessed and continue to witness every day across the globe.
As Jesus said in the Gospel of Matthew (Chapter 24:10-12): “And then many will be led into sin; they will betray and hate one another. 11 Many false prophets will arise and deceive many; 12 and because of the increase of evildoing, the love of many will grow cold.” “ When love grows cold, what remains is hatred. When the light of God and Truth vanishes, darkness remains, and evil, sin, lies, the life of darkness, the devil, crimes, murder, and wars enter.
Is There Hope? Is There Victory?
Must we wait longer? Should we hope for this victory someday and somewhere in the world? The answer is no. Because our hope is not in this life alone. As Saint Paul says in his First Epistle to the Corinthians (Chapter 15:19): “If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.”
This is confirmed by the words of Fr. Frank Pavone, National Director of Priests for Life in the USA, when speaking about the right to life for children killed by abortion: “We do not work to reach victory on a certain day or date, but we work from the victory of Jesus Christ and His resurrection from the dead.”
Our hope is great; it comes from Christ. As Saint Paul says in the Epistle to the Romans (Chapter 5:20): “ The law entered in* so that transgression might increase but, where sin increased, grace overflowed all the more,”
It is true that evil and sin bear the fruits of death and murder, but let us not forget that Christ has overcome death.
I conclude with Psalm 23:4:
“ Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff comfort me.”
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https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/abortion
