Catholics From Italy

"I have been a priest for 60 years and I would never have imagined that I would find myself in such a difficult and dramatic situation. I believe that Mary still has to help us a lot. If we do not make a vow we should at least make a promise to be more faithful and disciples of Christ."

"Do not forget that in the person of the bishop, Jesus is present among his people, and by your service you will announce fearlessly the Word of God and sanctify the faithful through the sacraments."

"We wish to approach, in the name of the Church, all people who are suffering, entering spiritually into every hospital and place of care, into all residences for the elderly and into homes together with their families and those who care for them, who are admirably attentive to human frailty."

"The migrant shouldn't be looked upon as a problem by both the Church and the State. In the Church there are no foreigners. She is like a mother who welcomes, loves and values everyone, because they are all her sons and daughters."

"My ongoing duty will be to support and strengthen the climate of mutual respect and trust through sincere and constructive dialogue, and I am sure, Mr. President, that I can count on your help and on your kind understanding, as well as on the good intentions and help of all people of good will, regardless of their religious and political affiliations."

"As pertaining to the Church's public charity, we must underline the following: in the relations of the Catholic Church with the States and with the European Union we believe that one must certainly overcome confessionalism as well as hostile laicism. The prospect of healthy laity must become ours, which involves recognizing that society needs the contribution of religious professions to ensure its ethical-cultural foundations."

"The Vatican is a sovereign state, anything can be done, but the question is will it be authorized."

"More publicized cases are treated in the same way as the lesser known cases, always according to the rule of law. We do not have "subjects" before us, but people: the accused, alleged victims, possible witnesses... In general, there is always a picture of particular suffering. Certainly, media attention regarding the issues in question has multiplied in recent years, and this is a further stimulus to the Congregation to try to do justice in an ever more correct and effective way."

"We must start anew from the Paschal Event to encounter our European culture. Christianity carries in its heart a "death of God", a night, that went beyond any cultural proclamation of the nothingness or of the "death of God". In the reason for Christ on the Cross we can find all the reasons of man. I believe that this is the most breathtaking point in the encounter between Christian annunciation and our European culture."

"The Christians of Asia need to open up, to meet their non-Christian brothers and sisters, to have courage, remaining consistent with our faith, and to recognize the greatness of their spiritual values by looking for what unites us before stopping before what separates us. If the other person sees our sincere esteem and our spontaneous love, he or she cannot remain indifferent forever."

"Today, after years of reflection, prayer and dialogue, the churches of Padua and Roraima thank the Lord for this epiphany of the Spirit which is visibly manifested in the missionary commitment between two Churches in dialogue and cooperation."

"We make every effort to indicate true devotion to Mary, that which leads to Christ. And I think this teaching is amply received. As for the rest, I think these things need time to settle, a period of waiting, and great patience. The supernatural, especially in a world that doesn't believe in God and that has lost values, cannot be demonstrated if it doesn't bear fruits."

"We are all invited to a concrete commitment against the expansion of initiatives that refer to the world of the occult. Carry out an appropriate sensitization in parishes through the parish priests, avoiding counterproductive fears and psychosis and useless alarmism."

"The years of my diplomatic service have taken me to work in different countries with different sensitivities in Church-State relations. In all of them, however, I seemed to perceive a common denominator: the State looks at the Church with attention and interest. Why is this so? Perhaps because the Church has always shown itself to be more inclined to what unites than to what divides."

"It is dangerous to distinguish between the charismatic Church and the institutional Church, entrusting the former with the promotion and presence of movements and the latter with "second class Christians". The Church is wholly and always charismatic as an institution."

"The situation is complex and this complexity must be understood and respected. But too often in Italy I have heard speeches that excuse war. This also happens in the Catholic world, where instead I would like to see a tension, a passion for the gospel message of peace that I don't see all too often."

"God will use each one of you to build His house thanks to the precious talents received from Him. Though we are limited in some aspects of human nature, God can still use us to accomplish His plans."

"Jesus Christ made Peter the leader of the other Apostles and appointed him as the foundation and source of unity of faith and community in the Church. Metropolitan Archbishops must be vigilant to maintain unity and communion with the successor of Peter, the Vicar of Christ and the visible head of the Church, namely the Holy Father."

"I remembered the prophet Jeremiah: as national catastrophe loomed, wiping out the Kingdom of Judah, he bought a field, investing in the future. This was the opposite of those who, in this day and age, have become even richer without caring about providing jobs or redistributing wealth."

"The Catholic University is working on and thinking about a more humanistic economy. What's the point of calling ourselves Catholic if we're designing the same economy as Harvard or Bocconi?"

"We need to overcome the emotional reaction that says that to be good we must accept everyone, or that to be serious we must reject everyone. This emotional aspect may serve as a slogan for election campaigns, but not for the society we want."

"The spiritual emergency is more widespread. All we hear about is the COVID-19 pandemic of 2019-2021. This has led to a state of spiritual aridity, with people besieged by emotions, apprehensions and news. We live in limbo, but beneath the news there is often a void."

"Blessed are you, Milan, for the multicoloured faces of your people [...], because you give voice to those who have no voice and come to the aid of those who have no help."

"The death of Sister Luisa Dell'Orto leaves us heartbroken and disconcerted, it becomes a revelation of the good she did and of the holy life she lived, it becomes pain and prayer. On behalf of the Ambrosian Church, I express my participation in the mourning of her family, in the grateful and sorrowful memory of all those who knew her, and in the certainty that her death, so similar to that of Charles de Foucauld, united to the death of Jesus, may be a seed of new life for the land of Haiti and for its entry into glory."

"We always rank at the bottom of the list when it comes to economy, wealth and wellbeing. Unfortunately, there is no common scale for measuring values, such as intelligence, charity and generosity. Otherwise, we would rank at the top because this small diocese has a big heart."

"The solution to problems is not in violence, nor in confrontation, but above all in dialogue, harmony, and unity among the Bolivian people."

"The sword of St. Michael the Archangel must remember the weapons with which the Christian must always struggle: prayer, unity and love."

"It is with a trembling heart that I take up this new commitment as the Bishop of Moroto Diocese, returning to a place where I consider my Diocese and my people, where I spend my best years as a Missionary priest. I greatly rely on your prayers, support and cooperation as I take up the service of shepherding the people of God."

"Work and the environment are two closely interrelated themes. They are the two important issues that we have experienced in a painful way in Taranto, given the problems related to the former Ilva and environmental pollution that has caused many deaths of children and adults with the consequent problem of unemployment also."

"Evangelicals grew particularly in the suburban areas and in regions of recent deforestation and rural occupation by migrants. We're not as fast as those churches and we haven't been able to secure our presence in those areas. We always noticed a sentiment of abandonment by the people in the region. They usually tell us that they joined the church that was available."

"Women are already doing the work of ordained deacons in many places, so I don't see why such a reality can’t be acknowledged. I believe this is only a matter of power."

"Help the Pope to ensure that the Gospel of Jesus reaches all people, especially those who have never heard it. "Mission" begins at home."

"Communism fought against religious faith and that to which religious faith is tied: the sacredness of all human life, the family, the spiritual dimension of the human person, and the call to eternal life."

"The main message that we have is the message of hope. I'm absolutely convinced that what we proclaim is the good news."

"Are we changing for good, for the real well-being, or are we impoverishing our comprehension of the human being, our respect for the human being, therefore also our respect for society, respect for our history? Those questions in this moment call, among other things, my attention in this great country which is Canada."

"I have great feelings about the people of this country who are extraordinary. It's a people who know how to express feelings of true friendship, of affection and this is engraved in my heart."

"It is necessary to interrupt one's time and dedicate part of it to one's own cultural growth."

"We have the power of prayer and we want to pray every time we are afraid; in this case, we must pray that the flow of lava will stop."

"the Church-Family of God is Catholic, ie universal; therefore it knows no regional or provincial borders. We are all members of the same and only Church, and no Catholic is a foreigner in another Diocese. Imagine for a moment, if the first Missionaries and Bishops of Burkina Faso had never come from outside, in this case from France, there would be no Catholic Church now in Burkina Faso. Thus, at the recent Synod for Africa, the Synod Fathers asked that the faithful and priests welcome, in a spirit of faith, the Bishop that the Holy Father sends them as their Pastor of the Diocese."

"By the prayers of the Church, your journey – at this moment painful for us – will finish at the gates of the heavenly home where the merciful father already awaits you."

"I will bring with me wonderful memories of the Filipino people who, in spite of their many hardships and trials, remain resilient supported by resolute faith in God. They do not ask God to provide only for their materials needs but rather to abandon themselves to Him as their Father. They believe that God is greater than all their needs."

"I saw destruction everywhere but people were ready to start again with their faith."

"While Positivism was founding the social sciences (proclaiming the death of theology) and Marxism was instigating the proletariat to leave institutional religion branded as the ‘opium of the people’, thousands and thousands of people were attempting to communicate with the spiritual worlds through mediums and seers."

"Spiritualism opposes reasoning with the force of its conviction, its facts, its miracles, its supernatural. It is the religion of the 19th century, without rituals, without priests, and wrapped in an envelope of scientificity. Imagination and sentiment find their place there, and rituality is represented by invocations, prayers, evocations and continuous revelations."

"Italy, the unchallenged fiefdom of Catholicism until World War II, has gradually seen the emergence of a new religious landscape in which non-Catholic Christian sects occupy a considerable place."

"Eusapia Palladino's popularity went into crisis in Cambridge, where during a séance the medium was caught moving an object with her hand that should have levitated by occult force. Accused of fraud, she defended herself by declaring that she had only acted because she was driven by an unconscious and irresistible impulse."

"Positivist historiography defined the belief in witches as a mass psychosis that happened to mix Christian ideas and relics of ancient paganism. The premises rested on the one hand on fear-laden ideas about the Devil, who really existed for Christian culture, and on the other on fantasies such as the magical capacity for malefiction, the possibility of harm with the help of demons, flying, animal metamorphoses and sexual intercourse with demons in the famous Sabbath."

"The complex process that has led to the current spread of magic and esotericism is constituted on the one hand by secularisation and secularism, and on the other by the alternative gnosticisms heavily advocated by secular, ‘disenchanted’ and progressive thought. Such is the humus on which thrives the new magism, as weel as the "supermarket occultism" of our times that journalists and mass communicators ennoble and repropose in the dominant cultural vacuum."

"The State can ensure quality education at a lower cost than the direct management of schools and the Church enjoys a fundamental tool to evangelization and human promotion."

"Inter-religious dialogue is necessary to promote a culture of peace and to promote the essential values of the Council of Europe that are often in line with the Catholic Churchs action and teaching, such as peace, education, justice, and reconciliation."