Catholic Church Quotes

Father Coughlin has the right to express his views on current events, but he is not authorized to speak for the Catholic Church, nor does he represent the doctrine or sentiment of the Church.

I have a problem with censorship by the lawyer - by legal people by the publishing firm, and I may be changing publishers. They don't seem to want to take too many risks with living people.

To criticize a person for their race is manifestly irrational and ridiculous, but to criticize their religion, that is a right. That is a freedom.

We're the guys who, if someone says you really shouldn't do an episode making fun of Scientologists, we say, 'Whatever.' Someone says, 'They might come try to burn your house down,' we say, 'We'll just get another one.'

So sometimes the facts are good and sometimes the facts are bad, the important thing from the point of view of a principle as broad and important as freedom of speech is that the courts articulate and set forth in a very protective way what those principles are.

... the worst plague of all, namely, unrestrained liberty of opinion and freedom of speech.

Heretical—one which is contrary to Catholic truth. Erroneous—that which does not directly contradict the faith, but some conclusion evidently deducible from the faith. Savoring of heresy—not contradicting the faith by evident consequence, but by very probable and morally certain consequence. Ill-sounding—that which has a double sense, one Catholic and the other heretic, but usually accepted in the latter. Rash—that which is not governed by reason and lacks all authority. Scandalous or offensive to pious ears—that which gives occasion to another to err, such as ‘heretics are to be tolerated and not to be slain.’ Schismatic or seditious—tending to disrupt the unity of the Church. Impious—contrary to Catholic piety. Insulting—defamatory of some Christian profession or illustrious person. Blasphemous—insulting to God.

Faith should be defended, by legal edicts, from the efforts of all who seek to contradict it, and that whatever ideas have arisen through the influence of error, be removed by legal proceedings; therefore, we decree that no man of whatever race or lineage, either native or foreigner, proselyte or old in faith, visitor or resident, shall openly or silently, impugn the unity of the Catholic faith; or take part in any injurious disputes affecting the truth of said faith; or countenance the same by remaining silent." No one shall attack the decrees of the Gospel, or criticize the institutions of the Church, or call in question the sacred institutions established by the ancient Fathers; no one shall treat with contempt discussions concerning points of doctrine which arise in modern assemblies, no one shall entertain any thoughts against the holy edicts or the true religion, or shall utter any words in depreciation of the same; or perfidiously cause a controversy to arise with an obstinate unbeliever; or engage in a quarrel on account of the contempt of honor exhibited by a listener. Any person who violates any of the provisions aforesaid shall be arrested; and should he be an ecclesiastic, or belong to any religious order, he shall lose his rank and dignity, shall be regarded forever as a criminal; and shall be punished by the loss of all his property. If he should belong to the laity, he shall be deprived of honor and position, and stripped of all his possessions. Every violator of this law shall be condemned to perpetual exile, unless he should be converted from his errors by the interposition of Divine mercy, when he may be suffered to remain and live in accordance with the commands of God.

… most censorship took place in the heads of writers, and what the writers failed to cut usually got filtered out by editors in publishing houses.

Self-censorship, the most important and most successful form of censorship, is rampant. Debate is identified with dissent, which is in turn identified with disloyalty. There is a widespread feeling that, in this new, open-ended emergency, we may not be able to 'afford' our traditional freedoms.

We're gonna get away from political correctness .

Religious liberty might be supposed to mean that everybody is free to discuss religion. In practice it means that hardly anybody is allowed to mention it.

The next time you get the urge to shut somebody up because they don't see the world exactly the same way you do, take a deep breath, get out your Bill of Rights, and count to the ten amendments.

If liberty of speech is to be untrammeled from the grosser forms of constraint, the uniformity of opinion will be secured by a moral terrorism to which the respectability of society will give its thorough approval.

Without a free press there can be no free society. That is axiomatic. However, freedom of the press is not an end in itself but a means to the end of a free society. The scope and nature of the constitutional guarantee of the freedom of the press are to be viewed and applied in that light.

A country whose population has been trained to accept the government's word and to shun those who question it is a country without liberty in its future.

Once you capitulate to one dictator, does that mean that the next dictator or the next terrorist that says you're not going to make a comedy about - or a film at all about ISIS. All of us in public life have a responsibility right now to speak out and to say, 'No, Sony, you did the wrong thing' and to say to Hollywood, come behind - the other studios should come behind Sony and offer their support.

Freedom of press and freedom of speech: What a blessing for a country while in the hands of honest, patriotic men; what a curse if in the hands of designing demagogues.

I fear that the impact of university censorship and university denial of due process will be to mis-educate a generation of students away from core values of civil liberties and constitutional safeguards. Students who have been led to believe by university administrators and faculty that censorship and denial of due process are acceptable norms will be more susceptible to accepting those norms in their post-university lives. That would be a tragedy for America.

Take away freedom of speech, and the creative faculties dry up.

The taboos that I have mentioned are extraordinarily harsh and numerous. They stand around nearly every subject that is genuinely important to man: they hedge in free opinion and experimentation on all sides. Consider, for example, the matter of religion. It is debated freely and furiously in almost every country in the world save the United States, but here the critic is silenced. The result is that all religions are equally safeguarded against criticism, and that all of them lose vitality. We protect the status quo, and so make steady war upon revision and improvement.

Religion, a mediaeval form of unreason, when combined with modern weaponry becomes a real threat to our freedoms. This religious totalitarianism has caused a deadly mutation in the heart of Islam and we see the tragic consequences in Paris today. I stand with Charlie Hebdo, as we all must, to defend the art of satire, which has always been a force for liberty and against tyranny, dishonesty and stupidity. 'Respect for religion' has become a code phrase meaning 'fear of religion.' Religions, like all other ideas, deserve criticism, satire, and, yes, our fearless disrespect.

You have a right to protest. But I don't quite understand why anybody thinks it's a good idea to deny somebody else the right to express his or her point of view.

Censors are necessary, increasingly necessary, if America is to avoid having a vital literature.

If you ask someone whether our Constitutional rights are being flushed down the porcelain oubliette, and their response is, "If I answer that honestly they'll arrest me," then you already have your answer.