Godfried Danneels Quotes

Rome should sometimes intervene and say this or that is not in conformity with the Catholic faith. Theologians should understand that. Some theologians go too far, for example, reducing the Catholic faith to a universal philosophy.

If I should say anything that is not in conformity with what is held by the Holy Roman Catholic Church, it will be through ignorance and not through malice. This may be taken as certain, and also that, through God's goodness, I am, and shall always be, as I always have been, subject to her.

It a heresy to deny that the stars are brought out by God from his treasure-house and hung in the sky every evening; any other view is false to the Catholic faith.

I totally respect the pope, and I totally respect the Catholic bishops and cardinals on doctrine.

I do not have deep theological understanding or opinion, but I do not read the Bible as the literal word of God.

The problem for Rome, then, is how and when the intervention should be done with a sense of the possibility of going too far in limiting the freedom of theologians. This is not an easy time - neither for Rome nor for the theologians.

In my opinion, most organized religion does neither agentic service nor relational nurturance very well.

I grew up a Catholic and I don't want to talk badly about the Catholic Church but there's a lot of routine stuff going on. You say the same prayers, you sit, you kneel, whatever.

In the John Paul II days, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger had the advantage of staying in his cupboard - the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith - exchanging views only with the Pope, and speaking publicly only through carefully written missives on doctrinal issues.

There was a time when papal encyclicals were treated as virtual pronouncements of papal infallibility. There are still a small minority of Catholics who cite Pope Paul VI's 1968 document Humanae Vitae - which outlawed artificial birth control - as the word of God.

Is it faith to understand nothing, and merely submit your convictions implicitly to the Church?

No relief was forthcoming from my then-Catholic faith, which said the practice of homosexuality was a 'mortal sin' subject to damnation.

Organized religion preaches Order and Love but spawns Chaos and Fury. Why?

What has always puzzled me is the flexibility of God's word. For instance, Catholics can now eat meat on Fridays. And limbo has been abolished. How does this work? Who tells them?

I went to work for Catholics United for the Faith, and I basically found myself in the midst of the traditionalist branch of the Catholic revival. There is an intellectual rigor that is very much valued there and that I was in awe of.

I did attend Catholic schools up to the ninth grade, and I admire much in the Catholic Church.

You are said to have publicly condemned the Apostolic and Latin church, without either a hearing or a conviction. And the chef reason for this condemnation, which displays an unexampled presumption and unbelievable effrontery, is that the Latin church dares to celebrate the commemoration of the Lord's passion with unleavened bread. What an unguarded accusation is this of yours, what an evil piece of arrogance! You place your mouth in heaven while your tongue, going through the world, strives such human arguments and conjectures to undermine and subvert the ancient faith.

To arrive at the truth in all things, we ought always to be ready to believe that what seems to us white is black if the hierarchical Church so defines it.

The Roman Church has never erred, nor can it err until the end of time.

I take the teachings of the Catholic Church seriously.

You are not to be looked upon as holding the true Catholic faith if you do not teach that the faith of Rome is to be held

There seems to be a concerted campaign to entice or kidnap Catholic Children and deprive them of their faith.

It is a mortal sin for a Catholic to become or remain a member of an organization or society, which arrogates to itself the right to bear arms or to use them against another state.

John Paul II had the last clear word on this and it stands, this stands ...

All the better; they do not force me to do anything that I would not have done of my own accord if I did not dread scandal. But since they want it that way, I enter gladly on the path that is opened to me, with the consolation that my departure will be more innocent than was the exodus of the early Hebrews from Egypt.