God has given us the Papacy. Let us enjoy it.
Some holiday traditions are sacred. In our house one such tradition is the annual Christmas classic cinema celebration.
I knew that no matter what door you knock on in a Cretan village, it will be opened for you. A meal will be served in your honor, and you will sleep between the best sheets in the house. In Crete, the stranger is still the unknown god. Before him, all doors and all hearts are opened.
Wherever the bishop appears, there let the people be, even as wheresoever Christ Jesus is, there is the catholic church.
The Roman Church has never erred, nor can it err until the end of time.
Christianity is a formula: it is nothing more.
Apparently God takes reception of Holy Communion seriously. Apparently some things are more sacred than politics. Apparently it's all or nothing when it comes to being Catholic.
There is great power in prayer. I strongly encourage personal and family prayer, which are important in building strong families. I'm wondering if many of you parents, you couples, have lost that essential moment of kneeling together at the end of the day, just the two of you, holding hands and saying your prayers. If that has slipped away from your daily routine, may I suggest you put it back-beginning tonight!
Theology moves back and forth between two poles, the eternal truth of its foundations and the temporal situation in which the eternal truth must be received.
In fact, there is only one true and holy religion, founded and instituted by Christ Our Lord. Mother and Nurse of the virtues, Destroyer of vice, Liberator of souls, Guide to true happiness, she is called Catholic, Apostolic, and Roman.
Religion is the most powerful alternative to God.
The community in which one hears the voice of God structures how one hears that voice and interprets what it says.
In speaking of Jesus, I must speak about Christianity because I do not think it possible or profitable to divide the two.
Seeing there are many who think they hold the opinions of Christ, and yet some of these think differently from their predecessors, yet as the teaching of the Church, transmitted in orderly succession from the apostles, and remaining in the Churches to the present day, is still preserved, that alone is to be accepted as truth which differs in no respect from ecclesiastical and apostolica tradition.
All religious notions are uniformly founded on authority; all the religions of the world forbid examination, and are not disposed that men should reason upon them.
Religion is the source of liberty, the soul of government, and the life of a people.
Clearly the person who accepts the Church as an infallible guide will believe whatever the Church teaches.
We were granted the right to exist by the God of our fathers at the glimmer of the dawn of human civilization nearly 4,000 years ago. For that right, which has been sanctified in Jewish blood from generation to generation, we have paid a price unexampled in the annals of the nations.
We like to put sacred texts in flowing waters, so I rolled it up, tied it to a piece of wood, placed a dandelion on top, and floated it in the stream which flows into the Swat River. Surely God would find it there.
The Church doesn't censor. It tries to guide its faithful through catechism.
The Church should say, 'I'm frightened that women will be ordained;' that's honest, say that. But don't say, 'It's a grave sin,' because that's nonsense.
That rule must be absolutely observed which states that, except for the most serious reasons and with the Apostolic See, no innovations are to be introduced into the holy rites of the liturgy.
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.
Religion! O Diabole! Fie, I am asham'd, however that I seem, To think a word of such simple sound, Of such great matter should be made the ground.
Prayer is the inheritance we receive and the legacy we leave.
