Garry Wills Quotes

Clearly there are individuals who don't understand what the church teaches, or they think it's so limiting.

Religions have always stressed that compassion is not only central to religious life, it is the key to enlightenment and it the true test of spirituality. But there have always have been those who'd rather put easier goals, like doctrine conformity, in place.

I am a Catholic, not so committed to the church, but to the idea of the Virgin, the female face of God.

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 am an Irishman second: I am a Catholic first…. If the [Roman Catholic] hierarchy give me any direction with regard to Catholic social teaching or Catholic moral teaching, I accept without qualification in all respects the reaching of the hierarchy and the church to which I belong.

It is only the forcible propagation of conventional Christianity that makes the agnostic so bitter toward the church. He knows that all the doctrines cannot possibly be true, but he would view them with toleration if he were asked merely to let them alone for the benefit of the masses whom they can help and succour.

Like the graduates of some notorious boot camp, my brothers and sisters and I look back with a sort of perverse glee at the rigors of our Catholicism. My oldest sister, Mary, was so convinced of the church's omnipotence that when she walked into a Protestant church with some high-school friends, she was sure its walls would crash down on her head.

I say, if you want to enjoy exquisitely, become a Latter-day Saint, and then live the doctrine of Jesus Christ.

The man who never fasts is no more in the way to heaven than the man who never prays.

We even switched to a newly-formed church across the town that gave one hundred and twenty trading stamps each time we attended. (We now worship a brown and white chicken with a sunburst on its chest.)

Every person is born from an natural disposition, and the mother and father will make him into a Christian. So, I do believe that we are all born as Muslims, and, as we mature, we make decisions.

The most important thing you must decide to do every day is put the Lord first.

I can never join Calvin in addressing his god. He was indeed an Atheist, which I can never be; or rather his religion was Daemonism. If ever man worshipped a false god, he did.

Catholicism is contrary to human liberty. Catholicism bases salvation upon belief. Catholicism teaches man to trample his reason under foot. And for that reason it is wrong.

If you talked or laughed in church, told lies, had impure thoughts or conversations, you were bad; if you obeyed your parents or guardians, went to confession and communion regularly, said prayers for the dead, you were good.

We, Catholics, share many of the moral guidelines of Mormons, the difference is you guys take it seriously. When the church says something we don't agree with we say, "Oh don't be so crazy." We just laugh it off.

When I was with the serpent-handlers in Tennessee, it was the most bizarre method of worship I could think of. Yet when you sit with these people, you can kind of see how it makes sense.

There is nothing more foolish or self-defeating than for a Christian to say that he is not interested in doctrines.

The way that Russian Orthodox services work generally, and certainly the way that this worked, is that it goes on for hours and hours, and people wander in and wander out, and people talk the whole way through. One of the American women said to the other, "This is so beautiful. I can actually imagine maybe even becoming Orthodox." She went on and on, and finally a Russian seated just in front of her turned and said, "You are not member of church because it is beautiful; you are member of church because it is the single truth of God!"

Particularly as a Jew, I don't like missionary work. I've had it focused on me, and I don't like it. Let people be what they want to be.

Devotion to God is still a voluntary thing; hence the differences of attainment among Christians.

Catholic doctrine and discipline may be walls; but they are the walls of a playground.

I think Catholicism took root very quickly in Ireland because it's a very superstitious religion, the holy ghost, the holy spirit, it has a goddess, very visual, the music.

The definitions of the Church are the rules of true faith.

But perhaps the greatest attraction of Mormonism was the promise that each follower would be granted an extraordinarily intimate relationship with God. Joseph taught and encouraged his adherents to receive personal communiqués straight from the Lord. Divine revelation formed the bedrock of the religion.