Catholic Practice Quotes

I would describe myself as a practising Catholic. This is only my opinion; others may disagree.

At home we ate fish every Friday, as Catholics were then supposed to do. Being Jewish, I compromised. I wore a hat when I ate fish, out of respect for my own religion and the fish's family.

Being a Catholic in any way is great, but I feel particularly blessed to have served at the altar, where the work of Christ through the priest can be seen up close.

There's an interesting contrast between born Catholics and converts. Converts are often much more rule-directed. Catholicism isn't something that they breathed in from their childhood, so they think that if you don't toe the line on abstract doctrine you can't be part of the Church.

I was born and bred a Catholic. I was brought up a very strong Catholic - I practiced in a seminary for four years, from eleven to fourteen, and trained to be a Catholic priest. So I was very steeped in all that.

There was only one decline in church attendance, and that was in the late 1960s when the Vatican said it was not a sin to miss Mass. They said Catholics could act like Protestants, and so they did.

The Irish innovation was to make all confession a completely private affair between penitent and priest - and to make it as repeatable as necessary. (In fact, repetition was encouraged on the theory that, oh well, everyone pretty much sinned just about all the time.)