Catholic Church Quotes

“That is the idea -- that we should all be wicked if we did not hold to the Christian religion. It seems to me that the people who have held to it have been for the most part extremely wicked. You find this curious fact, that the more intense has been the religion of any period and the more profound has been the dogmatic belief, the greater has been the cruelty and the worse has been the state of affairs. In the so-called ages of faith, when men really did believe the Christian religion in all its completeness, there was the Inquisition, with all its tortures; there were millions of unfortunate women burned as witches; and there was every kind of cruelty practiced upon all sorts of people in the name of religion.

You find as you look around the world that every single bit of progress in humane feeling, every improvement in the criminal law, every step toward the diminution of war, every step toward better treatment of the colored races, or every mitigation of slavery, every moral progress that there has been in the world, has been consistently opposed by the organized churches of the world. I say quite deliberately that the Christian religion, as organized in its churches, has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world.

You may think that I am going too far when I say that that is still so. I do not think that I am. Take one fact. You will bear with me if I mention it. It is not a pleasant fact, but the churches compel one to mention facts that are not pleasant. Supposing that in this world that we live in today an inexperienced girl is married to a syphilitic man; in that case the Catholic Church says, 'This is an indissoluble sacrament. You must endure celibacy or stay together. And if you stay together, you must not use birth control to prevent the birth of syphilitic children.' Nobody whose natural sympathies have not been warped by dogma, or whose moral nature was not absolutely dead to all sense of suffering, could maintain that it is right and proper that that state of things should continue.

That is only an example. There are a great many ways in which, at the present moment, the church, by its insistence upon what it chooses to call morality, inflicts upon all sorts of people undeserved and unnecessary suffering. And of course, as we know, it is in its major part an opponent still of progress and improvement in all the ways that diminish suffering in the world, because it has chosen to label as morality a certain narrow set of rules of conduct which have nothing to do with human happiness; and when you say that this or that ought to be done because it would make for human happiness, they think that has nothing to do with the matter at all. 'What has human happiness to do with morals? The object of morals is not to make people happy.”
― Bertrand Russell, Why I Am Not a Christian and Other Essays on Religion and Related Subjects

“We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution. Each of us is the result of a thought of God.”
― Pope Benedict XVI

“The Church is a perpetually defeated thing that always outlives her conquerers.”
― Hilaire Belloc

“If I were not a Catholic, and were looking for the true Church in the world today, I would look for the one Church which did not get along well with the world; in other words, I would look for the Church which the world hates. My reason for doing this would be, that if Christ is in any one of the churches of the world today, He must still be hated as He was when He was on earth in the flesh. If you would find Christ today, then find the Church that does not get along with the world. Look for the Church that is hated by the world, as Christ was hated by the world. Look for the Church which is accused of being behind the times, as Our Lord was accused of being ignorant and never having learned. Look for the Church which men sneer at as socially inferior, as they sneered at Our Lord because He came from Nazareth. Look for the Church which is accused of having a devil, as Our Lord was accused of being possessed by Beelzebub, the Prince of Devils. Look for the Church which theworld rejects because it claims it is infallible, as Pilate rejected Christ because he called Himself the Truth. Look for the Church which amid the confusion of conflicting opinions, its members love as they love Christ, and respect its voice as the very voice of its Founder, and the suspicion will grow, that if the Church is unpopular with the spirit of the world, then it is unworldly, and if it is unworldly, it is other-worldly. Since it is other-worldly, it is infinitely loved and infinitely hated as was Christ Himself. ... the Catholic Church is the only Church existing today which goes back to the time of Christ. History is so very clear on this point, it is curious how many miss its obviousness...”
― Fulton J. Sheen

“After an injunction had been judicially intimated to me by this Holy Office, to the effect that I must altogether abandon the false opinion that the sun is the center of the world and immovable, and that the earth is not the center of the world, and moves, and that I must not hold, defend, or teach in any way whatsoever, verbally or in writing, the said false doctrine, and after it had been notified to me that the said doctrine was contrary to Holy Scripture — I wrote and printed a book in which I discuss this new doctrine already condemned, and adduce arguments of great cogency in its favor, without presenting any solution of these, and for this reason I have been pronounced by the Holy Office to be vehemently suspected of heresy, that is to say, of having held and believed that the Sun is the center of the world and immovable, and that the earth is not the center and moves:

Therefore, desiring to remove from the minds of your Eminences, and of all faithful Christians, this vehement suspicion, justly conceived against me, with sincere heart and unfeigned faith I abjure, curse, and detest the aforesaid errors and heresies, and generally every other error, heresy, and sect whatsoever contrary to the said Holy Church, and I swear that in the future I will never again say or assert, verbally or in writing, anything that might furnish occasion for a similar suspicion regarding me; but that should I know any heretic, or person suspected of heresy, I will denounce him to this Holy Office, or to the Inquisitor or Ordinary of the place where I may be. Further, I swear and promise to fulfill and observe in their integrity all penances that have been, or that shall be, imposed upon me by this Holy Office. And, in the event of my contravening, any of these my promises and oaths, I submit myself to all the pains and penalties imposed and promulgated in the sacred canons and other constitutions, general and particular, against such delinquents.”
― Galileo Galilei, Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems: Ptolemaic and Copernican

“In medieval times, contrary to popular belief, most knights were bandits, mercenaries, lawless brigands, skinners, highwaymen, and thieves. The supposed chivalry of Charlemagne and Roland had as much to do with the majority of medieval knights as the historical Jesus with the temporal riches and hypocrisy of the Catholic Church, or any church for that matter. Generally accompanied by their immoral entourage or servants, priests, and whores, they went from tourney to tourney like a touring rock and roll band, sports team, or gang of South Sea pirates. Court to court, skirmish to skirmish, rape to rape. Fighting as the noble's substitution for work.”
― Tod Wodicka, All Shall Be Well; And All Shall Be Well; And All Manner of Things Shall Be Well

“But we have no [Marian] apparitions cautioning the Church against, say, accepting the delusion of an Earth-centered Universe, or warning it of complicity with Nazi Germany — two matters of considerable moral as well as historical import....

Not a single saint criticized the practice of torturing and burning “witches” and heretics. Why not? Were they unaware of what was going on? Could they not grasp its evil? And why is [the Virgin] Mary always admonishing the poor peasant to inform the authorities? Why doesn’t she admonish the authorities herself? Or the King? Or the Pope?”
― Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

“As Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Prefect of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, has admitted regarding the suppression of the traditional Mass by Paul VI: “A community is calling its very being into question when it suddenly declares that what until now was its holiest and highest possession is strictly forbidden, and when it makes the longing for it seem downright indecent.”
― Christopher A. Ferrara, The Great Façade: The Regime of Novelty in the Catholic Church from Vatican II to the Francis Revolu

“I think both Protestants and Catholics have killed the woman for the sake of the mother. (Rubem Alves, p. 201)”
― Mev Puleo, The Struggle Is One: Voices and Visions of Liberation

“In early Judaism, the priesthood was maintained within various families and passed down from father to son, thus necessitating marriage. But this is the old covenant, and even within this model priests were required to abstain from having sex with their wives during the time they served in the Temple. Catholics believe that priests fulfill this Temple relationship ever day - the Mass and the Eucharist mean they are serving in the Temple every day of their ordained lives.”
― Michael Coren, Why Catholics are Right

“Humanae Vitae is important for yet another reason. Just as the National Socialists used nationalism and racism, among other levers, to overthrow Christian morality, in modern, liberal society the levers have been sexual liberation and consumerism. These two “freedoms to choose” have replaced objective morality with the dogma of whatever the customer, or the individual, wants is right. In opposing this attitude, the Church is often accused of being “opposed to sex.” Such an accusation reveals the incredible poverty of modern thought. Far from being opposed to sex, the Church affirms that sex is a definable thing: God made them man and woman. The Church affirms the twofold “unitive” and “procreative” purpose and virtue inherent in conjugal activity and cherishes the result: the bonding of man and wife and their commitment to raise their children. And as anyone remotely familiar with the paintings and sculptures in the Vatican can affirm, the Church celebrates the human body, celebrates the reality of sex and the erotic (in the same spirit as the Bible's Song of Solomon), and indeed celebrates marriage as a sacrament. It is modern, liberal secularists who are “opposed to sex” in that they attempt to blur the distinctions between male and female, ignore the objective meaning of sexual activity, and who think that its natural result should be freely and inconsequentially aborted if it cannot otherwise be prevented.”
― H.W. Crocker III, Triumph: The Power and the Glory of the Catholic Church

“It is most certainly not the function of the Holy See to introduce Church reforms. The first duty of the Pope is to act as primary bishop, to watch over the traditions of the Church—her dogmatic, moral and liturgical traditions.”17”
― Christopher A. Ferrara, The Great Façade: The Regime of Novelty in the Catholic Church from Vatican II to the Francis Revolu

“the root of the problem extends back to an agenda put in play more than one hundred years before Vatican II. It is an agenda to replace the supernatural religion of the crucified and resurrected Jesus Christ with the natural religion of humanism and globalism.”
― Dr. Taylor Reed Marshall, Infiltration: The Plot to Destroy the Church from Within

“Galileo was challenged because he declared a theory to be a fact and argued with the Church about the genuine meaning of the Bible.”
― Michael Coren, Why Catholics are Right

“As I have said before, the bishops talked about sharing with the poor, but they fail to set an example by their own actions. They meet in the best hotels in Washington and enjoy the best meals. They even hold one of their meetings in Chicago's luxurious Palmer House. How can they justify that? Why don't they meet at a seminary and dine on a seminary menu? Why don't' they give up the luxury of private baths, king-sized beds, expensive liquor, and suites with the best air conditioning? Their actions are so inconsistent with their words that they have lost a tremendous amount of prestige.”
― Paul A. Wickens, Christ Defended: Defending the Roman Catholic Church in America [A Catholic Priest Defends the Church Against Modernism]

“The Church thus wonderfully instituted could not cease to exist with the death of its Founder and of the Apostles, the pioneers of its propagation, for its mission was to lead all men to salvation without distinction of time or place. "Going therefore, teach ye all nations" (Matt. 28:19). Nor could the Church ever lack the effective strength necessary for the continued accomplishment of its task, since Christ Himself is perpetually present with it, according to His promise: "Behold, I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world" (Matt. 28:20). Hence not only must the Church still exist today and continue always to exist, but it must even be exactly the same as it was in the days of the Apostles. Otherwise we must say - which God forbid - that Christ has failed in His purpose, or that He erred when He asserted of His Church that the gates of hell should never prevail against it (Matt. 16:18)l;”
― Pope Pius XI, On Fostering True Religious Unity: Mortalium Animos

“3. Then again, to omit other motives, We were terrified beyond all else by the disastrous state of human society today. For who can fail to see that society is at the present time, more than in any past age, suffering from a terrible and deep-rooted malady which, developing every day and eating into its inmost being, is dragging it to destruction? You understand, Venerable Brethren, what this disease is - apostasy from God, then which in truth nothing is more allied with ruin, according to the word of the Prophet: "For behold they that go far from Thee shall perish" (Ps. 72:27). We say therefore that, in virtue of the ministry of the Pontificate, which was to be entrusted to Us, We must hasten to find a remedy for this great evil, considering as addressed to Us that Divine command: "Lo, I have se thee this day over the nations and over kingdoms, to root up, and to pull down, and to waste, and to destroy, and to build, and to plant" (Jer. 1:10).,”
― Pope Pius X, E Supremi Apostolatus: On the Restoration of All Things in Christ

“9. Now the ay to reach Christ is not hard to find: it is the Church. Rightly does Chrysostom inculcate: "The Church is thy hope, the Church is thy salvation, the Church is thy refuge" (Hom. de capto Eutropio, n. 6). It was for this that Christ founded it, gaining it at the price of His blood, and made it the depository of His doctrine and His laws, bestowing upon it at the same time an inexhaustible treasury of graces for the sanctification and salvation of men.

You see, then, Venerable Brethren, the duty that has been imposed alike upon Us and upon you of bringing back to the discipline of the Church human society, now estranged from the wisdom of Christ; the Church will then subject it to Christ, and Christ to God. If We, through the goodness of God Himself, bring this task to a happy issue, We shall be rejoiced to see evil giving place to good, and hear for our gladness, "a load voice from heaven saying: Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God and the power of his Christ" (Apoc. 12:10).”
― Pope Pius X, E Supremi Apostolatus: On the Restoration of All Things in Christ

“Certainly, I am taken as a reactionary, as an "ultra-traditionalist", as someone who impedes reform - and it is true! I am hindering reform. Yes, indeed, for I do not accept it! I consider this reform a reform to destroy the Church. I think that I have showed you this. It is, therefore, clear that it is for this that I am attacked by Rome, by this power of subversion that is found there. I have been asked to close my seminary; I have been asked to send away all my seminarians. In conscience, however, I think that I must say that I will not collaborate in the destruction of the Church; I cannot collaborate in the destruction of the Church!”
― Marcel Lefebvre, Liberalism

“We do not wish to offend non-Catholics of good will. Yet at the same time we do not wish to offend Christ; and, therefore, we must acknowledge that as Christ is the only Way, the only Truth, and the only Life, likewise His Church is one! There are not many Christs; and there are not many churches. There is but One True Christ and His only Church, the Catholic Church.”
― Confraternity of Traditional Catholicism, In Defense of the Faith

“One of the most horrifying practical applications of these liberal principles is the laying of the Church open to all errors, particularly the most monstrous error ever thought up by Satan - communism. Communism now has official access to the Vatican and its world revolution is made markedly easier by the official non-resistance of the Church, nay, by her regular support of the revolution, despite the despairing warnings of cardinals who have been through communist jails.

The refusal by this pastoral Council to issue any official condemnation of communism alone suffices to disgrace it for all time, when one remembers the tens of millions of martyrs, of people having their personalities scientifically destroyed in psychiatric hospitals, serving as guinea pigs for all sorts of experiments. And the pastoral Council which brought together 2,350 Bishops said not a word, in spite of the 450 signatures of Fathers demanding a condemnation, which I myself took to Mgr. Felici, secretary of the Council, together with Mgr. Sigaud, Archbishop of Diamantina.”
― Marcel Lefebvre, A bishop speaks

“For indeed, the Church is divinely constituted and lives by her own right, not by privilege. Who ever would have granted her such a privilege had it not belonged to her by nature? The State? So civil society is then superior to religious society and can legitimately take back what it generously bestowed? History - along with Christian common sense - condemns the false conception behind such a way of talking. The Church was not created by the State; on the contrary, it was she who created the State and society; and neither the State nor society bestowed any privileges on the Church; they recognized her mode of existence as prior to their own, as endowed with rights in no way deriving from them and which they can only modify by some abuse of power, against which the public interest is bound to protest.”
― Louis Veuillot, The Liberal Illusion

“We turn toward the Man Crucified of Jerusalem, toward the Man Crucified of Rome, toward His truth abandoned and betrayed; we say to Him: "I believe You, I adore You, and I accept to be trampled underfoot as You were, and mocked as You were; I wish to die with You! . . . " When we say such a thing, the world is conquered.

It will never be conquered any other way. In no other way will we ever wrest its weapons out of its hands, in order to transfigure and sanctify them by turning them over to the silencing of all blaspheming and the removing of every obstacle between the little ones of this world and eternal truth. For all men must know and pronounce these words, the "I believe" which alone can deliver the world; the "Thy kingdom come" which calls down eternal peace.”
― Louis Veuillot, The Liberal Illusion

“The Catholic Church never suits the particular mood of any age, because it was made for all ages. A Catholic knows that if the Church married the mood of any age in which it lived, it would be a widow in the next age. The marks of the true Church is that it will never get on well with the passing moods of the world: "I have chosen you out of the world therefore the world hateth you" (John 15:19).”
― Fulton J. Sheen

“But even though there be scandals from within and persecution from without, the members of His Kingdom need never fear that it will perish--for He has founded it upon a Rock against which the gates of hell cannot prevail, and He will be with it all days even to the consummation of the world.”
― Fulton J. Sheen, The Mystical Body of Christ

“Sonnet 1412

The Catholic Church is one of the
ghastliest invading forces in history,
alongside the British, French and Spaniards.
But don't confuse the Vatican with Jesus -
Jesus was rejuvenation, Vatican, disaster.

Jesus was a spirit of love and light,
the answer of his time to bigotry.
Yet he ended up as institutional excuse
in new exploits of counterfeit piety.

You say, Jesus died for your sins,
Yet you killed more people in his name.
Vatican is the epitome of unholiness,
Slaves to Vatican are clinically insane.

Not just Vatican, but every religious
institution is a septic tank of prejudice.
Till you cut ties to all authoritarianism,
you'll never sense the spark of holiness.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Dervis Vadisi: 100 Promissory Sonnets

“Bells and incense!” scoffs the Puritan, but God gave people ears and noses. Are those organs of perception too humble to bring into church?”
― Dana Gioia, The Catholic Writer Today: And Other Essays

“It is an error to believe that Christ did not teach a determined body of doctrine applicable to all times and to all men, but rather that He inaugurated a religious movement adapted, or to be adapted, to different times and different places.”
― Pope Pius X

“We Christians are in the world but not of the world. We belong to God, and our home is heaven. But we're here for a reason: to change the world, for the sake of the world, in the name of Jesus Christ. The work belongs to us. Nobody will do it for us. And the idea that we can accomplish it without engaging in a hands-on way the laws, structures, the public policies, the habits of mind, and the root causes that sustain injustice in our country is a delusion.”
― Charles J. Chaput, Render Unto Caesar: Serving the Nation by Living our Catholic Beliefs in Political Life

“There is no obligation for the faithful of the Church or citizens of a state to obey anything that is not consonant with the traditions handed down by the will of God. Subjects need not justify disobeying novelties, rather it is the innovators who must demonstrate that they are not introducing contradictions to tradition, either secular or ecclesial. It is not necessary for something to be innovation to be foreign to tradition and alien to the revealed Word and will of God. One would have an extraordinarily difficult time explaining how anything describable as an "innovation", "novelty", or "change" can be consonant with immemorial, unchanging, divine Truth.

Obedience binds only to tradition in scripture, doctrine, and practice. If the faithful are presented with teachings, examples, or documents that do not reflect fidelity to God through the unchanging patrimony of the Church then they are free to ignore the innovations. This holds whether the context of the innovations is in man's secular relations or within the workings of Holy Mother Church. Those who are so gifted may be obligated to present questions for clarification to those in authority. Any who are confused should not suffer any qualms about doing what the Church has always done, in all places, by all the faithful, of all times. What has always saved, will always save. Doubts arise only when deviations are offered in the place of definitions. When the shifting sands of time encroach, the faithful are always safe in planting their feet firmly on the solid rock of the timeless Faith. (page 398)”
― Fr. Lawrence Smith, Distributism for Dorothy