Eugene Kennedy Quotes

If there is anyone who's living the work of the New Testament, it's the nuns of the Catholic church and not the Catholic hierarchy.

But I make a distinction between the doctrines of the Church, which matter, and the structure invented by half a dozen Italians who got to be pope and which is of very little use to anybody.

The Vatican is like a huge kind of magician's club. The more you look into it the more awful it becomes. And they're laughing at us. That's when I get angry.

The Roman Curia has its defects, but it seems to me that people often overemphasize its defects and talk too little about the health of the many religious and laypeople who work there.

Even as a small child, I wondered why the Dominican nuns who educated me were subservient to the Jesuit priests who educated my brothers.

It is a thoroughly anti-christian doctrine that the Spirit of God, and therefore the life and governing power of the Church, resides in the ministry, to the exclusion of the people.

I never liked the Hierarchy of the Church … but if the Clergy combine, they will have their influence on Government

If the pope were the head of the Christian Church, then the Church were a monster with two heads, seeing that St. Paul says that Christ is her head. The pope may well be, and is, the head of the false Church.

The Church of Christ is constituted in two orders, the clergy and the people, the one having the care of the Church that all may be ruled for the salvation of souls; the other contains kings, princes, and nobles who have to carry on secular government that all things may lead to the peace and unity of the Church.

Germany has an established and well-furnished Catholicism, often with employed Catholics who handle the church like a labor union. For them, the church is simply the employer.

A spiritual organization with a hierarchical structure can convey only the consciousness of estrangement, regardless of what teachings or deep inspirations are at its root.The structure itself reinforces the idea that some people are inherently more worthy than others.

I never liked the Hierarchy of the Church-an equality in the teacher of Religion, and a dependence on the people, are republican sentiments-but if the Clergy combine, they will have their influence on Government

Catholics don't scream about Jesus, they scream about the bishop.

The Catholic priest, from the moment he becomes a priest, is a sworn officer of the pope.

In the case of the Catholic Church, it's hard to understand how they so willfully sacrifice the children.

In the Catholic Church, there are many other things which most justly keep me in her bosom. The consent of peoples and nations keeps me in the Church; so does her authority, inaugurated by miracles, nourished by hope, enlarged by love, established by age. The succession of priests keeps me, beginning from the very seat of the Apostle Peter, to whom the Lord, after His resurrection, gave it in charge to feed His sheep (Jn 21:15-19), down to the present episcopate.

Since God has been pleased to give us the Papacy, let us enjoy it.

By the former of these (canon law), the most refined, sublime, extensive, and astonishing constitution of policy that ever was conceived by the mind of man was framed by the Romish clergy for the aggrandizement of their own order.

I think anarchy is natural to the Catholic. The Church is pretty anarchistic, you know. Who pays attention to the Pope or the Cardinals?

Christianity is completely and radically anti-democratic; it is committed to spiritual aristocracy.

Wherever the bishop shall appear, let the multitude of also be, just as wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the catholic [i.e., universal] church. It is not lawful either to baptize or to celebrate a love feast without the bishop, but whatever he approves of, that is also pleasing to God.

The Catholics have a Pope. Protestants laugh at them, and yet the Pope is capable of intellectual advancement. In addition to this, the Pope is mortal, and the church cannot be afflicted with the same idiot forever. The Protestants have a book for their Pope. The book cannot advance. Year after year, and century after century, the book remains as ignorant as ever.

I tell priests to flee from clericalism because clericalism distances people. May they flee from clericalism and I add: it's a plague in the Church.

The humble were the elect of God. Did not the priests teach so, in their gemmed, kingly robes, from their towering pulpits?

Clericalism: the habitual confusion between that which is of Caesar, and that of God.