Dana Gioia Quotes

I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation and is but a reflection of human frailty.

It bums me out tremendously what the church has become, and if it's got me bummed, imagine what Jesus Christ must be feeling.

The church is a sort of hospital for men's souls and as full of quackery as the hospital for their bodies.

In the Eucharist, the Son of God comes to meet us and desires to become one with us; eucharistic adoration is simply the natural consequence of the eucharistic celebration, which is itself the Church's supreme act of adoration.

I'm disappointed that my own Catholic Church has decided that capital punishment is wrong. Which is pretty hypocritical if you think about it, because they wouldn't even have a religion if it wasn't for capital punishment.

Each man, in his suffering, can also become a sharer in the redemptive suffering of Christ.

Theology, not morality, is the first business on the church's agenda of reform, and the church, not society, is the first target of divine criticism.

God hath yoked to guilt her pale tormentor,--misery.

I am the wheat of God, and am ground by the teeth of the wild beasts, that I may be found the pure bread of God.

What price would God demand from the churches for having the audacity to lighten the color of his son's skin, and straighten out his nappy hair?

If God has nothing better to do than punish schoolgirls for a bit of tomfoolery, then I've no use for God.

In hell, sinners shall forever lay all the blame on their own wills. Hell is a rational torment by conscience.

I abjure with a sincere heart and unfeigned faith, I curse and detest the said errors and heresies, and generally all and every error and sect contrary to the Holy Catholic Church.

What gnashing is not a comfort, what gnawing of the worm is not a tickling, what torment is not a marriage bed to this damnation, to be secluded eternally, eternally, eternally from the sight of God?

Who can estimate the misery that has been caused by this infamous doctrine of eternal punishment? Think of the lives it has blighted-of the tears it has caused-of the agony it has produced. Think of the millions who have been driven to insanity by this most terrible of dogmas. This doctrine renters God the basest and most cruel being in the universe. ... There is nothing more degrading than to worship such a god.

In contrast, traditional Catholic churches serve vast numbers of people who have little or nothing in common, and they are often impersonal supermarkets for the sacraments.

These guys [the Catholic church] make Enron look like altar boys.

No more is your master a god, Nobility, but he wants offerings from all. When Black God claims us, who will be punished for giving worship and power to a false god? The prince? Or Banjiku?

She lived almost fifty years of her life completely dedicated to the care of the poor and the marginalized. Astonishingly, for those nearly fifty years she identified completely with the poor she served by her own experience of being seemingly unwanted and unloved by God. In a mystical way — through this painful interior "darkness" — she tasted their greatest poverty of being "unwanted, unloved, and uncared for."

Two or three angels Came near to the earth. They saw a fat church. Little black streams of people Came and went in continually. And the angels were puzzled To know why the people went thus, And why they stayed so long within.

What wise God would consign a man to Hell for ignorance, instead of teaching him better in the afterlife?

When Catholicism goes bad it becomes the world-old, world-wide religio of amulets and holy places and priestcraft. Protestantism,in its corresponding decay, becomes a vague mist of ethical platitudes. Catholicism is accused of being too much like all the other religions; Protestantism of being insufficiently like a religion at all. Hence Plato, with his transcendent Forms, is the doctor of Protestants; Aristotle, with his immanent Forms, the doctor of Catholics.

You find the most in not any particular denomination specifically. It's the style of worship. So if we have what we call a charismatic worship style, that means upbeat music and a more lively style of preaching usually, people are allowed to clap, say "Amen," whether they're mainline Protestant, conservative Protestant, and Catholics, whatever, they're much more likely to be integrated.