Roman Catholic Bishops

"The gift of counsel prevents a perpetually adolescent life: it is a gift that makes us adults."

"True theologians are saints: a recent and admirable example is Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, who reached a point of synthesis of all revealed truth and was proclaimed Doctor of the Church."

"Holy priests move history and set it on the right path."

"There is a crisis of vocations, but first there is a crisis of life. Today, people no longer have children."

"There is no cause-and-effect relationship between celibacy and paedophilia. Paedophilia is a perversion, a disease, a fragility that is also found in married people."

"The priest lives in constant spiritual tension, but the scenario in which he lives is anything but exhilarating. If he is unable to defend himself, he stumbles in the mud."

"There is a need for something else that only the priest, as a man of God, can give. Ultimately, it is God that man lacks."

"Pain undoubtedly frightens everyone. But when it is enlightened by faith it becomes a way to cut back selfishness, banalities and frivolities. What’s more, we Christians live pain in communion with the Crucified Jesus: clinging to Him, we fill our pain with love and transform it into a force that challenges and overcomes the selfishness that is still present in the world."

"Mary’s openness to God is an essential element in God’s plan for our salvation. By her openness to bear the Son of God, she becomes a primary instrument in our salvation. Now, we are also invited to be instruments of God’s plan for our salvation and the salvation of others. We do so first of all by responding to God’s offer of mercy personally and striving to become holy persons. We do so secondly by being instruments of grace and mercy as we help others to become holy. An image I often use to convey this is that of an electrical charge flowing through a copper wire. The wire cannot store up the electrical charge, but only allow it to pass through. If it cannot pass through the wire, it never enters into it. Mercy acts very much like this. If mercy does not flow through us, it never actually enters into us. Paradoxically, it is when we allow it to pass through us that we grow in grace."

"I was a priest to the Catholics and a chaplain to all."

"We're still a mission diocese and we have missionary needs."

"We are committed as followers of Jesus to respect life, for the whole of life. That’s what it means to be pro-life. It means that, when seeking the common good, we help expectant mothers and their babies, support marriages and families and care for the elderly who have given so much to us. We reverence life and the dignity of each person from birth to a natural death."

"So many sacrifice other needs to pay for the cost of this Catholic education. It isn't always easy, and isn't always appreciated, yet the sacrifice is worth it."

"I hear from other Bishops, he says, that there is a failure of Catechesis, that things are not sticking, that kids are going to Catholic Schools and then they are graduating from the Catholic Church, not just from school. It’s not a marketing question! It’s a question of how are we going to express the deep questions in their heart? How are we going to help them find answers?"

"Friends are admiring my age and health, and asking me the secret to live to such an age in good health. I usually answer them frankly: I have never paid attention to my health and age."

"I don’t have any particular work. I pray for the Jesuits, relatives and friends. Every morning I give communion to the senior and sick fathers in the infirmary. Sometimes Jesuit fathers and brothers come to me for spiritual advice. I try my best to help them."

"Waging war costs a great deal; however, being bombed even more, years of international sanctions and the damage inflicted by the NATO bombing in 1999—which has yet to be repaired—have been very hard on the economy, especially as it involves industry and the transportation infrastructure. Serbia has been thrown back at least 50 years."

"It is difficult to say how deep is your faith and how deep is your preparation for this service. It is not that for the first time, someone will go to the altar. But you have to make a certain preparation, to know how to behave, what are the different actions, language, signs used in the Liturgy, the meaning, so that only once you are prepared, you can be fully at the service of the Lord."

"It is the duty of all lay Catholics to bring to the attention of the pastors of the Church their needs, their desires, and their views of ecclesial matters. This duty is set forth in the chapter on the laity in the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, . So those lay Catholics who see "deconstructing" going on, it seems to me, should exercise their right and duty to make this known to those who they feel are engaged in such activities."

"Indeed a Golden Jubilee is a day for looking to the past. But it is above all an occasion for renewing our commitment in the future, our commitment to facing up to the realities of joy and sorrow in our lives."

"Many have sacrificed their lives for our freedoms, and of course among the first and the founding freedoms of our country was that of religious liberty. Does a service member have to forfeit their constitutional right when they put on the uniform?"

"It’s been a great joy for me to have been here as the bishop, a true gift from the Lord, not that everything has been perfect, because no life is perfect. But if I put everything on a scale, I have to say that the scale goes way up here to the good."

"When someone is moved by apostolic zeal, he always moves forward, with a very open spirit, with the desire of always doing good. The Lord then does the rest."

"First, I'd like them to say that he was always loyal to his church. Second, that he was a friend to Catholic education. And third, if they don't want to say the first two, at least I hope they would chisel on the stone, 'He served the poor."

"We shelter the homeless, educate those hungry for knowledge, and care for the sick not because they are Catholic, but because we are Catholic. They are Jesus in disguise."

"In the years remaining for me, I shall strive to be a caring pastor, a faithful teacher, a loving father and brother and a true servant of the people of God in the District of Columbia and the five counties of Maryland. I am truly honored, very humbled and deeply grateful that our Holy Father, Pope John Paul II, has chosen me to serve as a cardinal of the church."

"Every week, since the Supreme Court's decisions of January 22, 1973, there have been as many deaths from abortion as there were deaths at Nagasaki as a result of the atomic bomb. Every nine days there are as many deaths from abortion as there were American deaths in the 10 years of the Vietnam war."

"The early Christians compared the human mind to a constantly grinding millstone; it is up to the miller to determine what it will grind: good wheat or worthless weeds. Our minds are always grinding, but it is up to us to choose what to feed them."

"When we have God at the centre of our Church, we can lead our people to reach God's Kingdom. Without God at the centre or our Church surrounding God, then not much of anything can be achieved."

"I've always been very happy as a priest and I expect to be very happy in just kind of getting to know people. I think one of the most important things a priest does is that he has an opportunity to spend time with people and I'm looking forward to that."

"The past and present speak to the future. The future does not speak, but waits to see what we bring to it."

"Be ready to be called names, such as being discriminatory, intolerant, insensitive and fanning hatred when flagging out unhealthy human behavior"

"God’s word can heal our anger, intolerance and tendency to violence so that we can start to treat one another with love and mercy in all situations without calculation, especially with those we live. I believe we give room to intolerance and violence when we begin calculating. When people start calculating, they give room to sowing discord, and this brings bitterness."

"Of course, priesthood has its difficulties: often the things that are tiresome and harassing are not things that are integral to priestly ministry but responsibilities that have grown up around it. But we mustn't let them distract us from the profound significance of what we do, or from going forward together, from living our priesthood to the full, and from engaging with the challenges and dilemmas that lie before us. It's not for us to be disheartened about God's purposes and God's future. What is more, we know all too well the pattern of God's work in the world is a pattern of dying and rising. There's nothing strange about trouble. Our life must be one that is lived in patience but in faith in the power of God. Let us celebrate this day and this Holy Week in confidence and peace, and as we follow in the footsteps of Christ, our High Priest, let the wisdom of the Cross be our source of life and hope."

"I would say ... that for most of those coming into the Catholic Church that [i.e. not knowing what is going to develop in the Church of England] isn't the single-issue reason for their journey. The clergy and the people coming have long hoped for corporate reunion between the Catholic and the Anglican Church; that has been their genuine desire and hope."

"Christian Youth is the inheritance of Christianity. Youth must come forward to show their abilities, talents and God’s gifts to promote human values and they must have Christ’s teaching in their lives to show tolerance, brotherly love, forgiveness and their self-respect and importance in society."

"Justice and peace go together. Anyone who wants genuine peace must work for justice. For peace and security to reign in Nigeria, there must be political justice, religious justice, ethnic justice, economic justice, judicial justice—justice for everyone."

"I am humbled and grateful to Pope Benedict XVI for his confidence in choosing me for this indispensable ministry in the Church. I pledge to His Holiness my loyal communion, fraternal love and respect as a bishop of the Church. And to all of the people of the diocese I want to express my esteem for you as brothers and sisters in faith. I pledge to all of you that I will serve you in the name of the Lord to the best of my ability."

"Regardless of the problems in the family they can live a happy life. This is translated in mutual care in respect for each other."

"When we walk away from communion with the Church, what are we saying to the Jesus Who entrusted His words and His sacraments to her bishops and saints? Has His promise to be with His Church to the end of the world ceased to be true? Can He Who is The Truth be entangled in a tissue of lies?"

"The Church is a family of families and, therefore, strengthening a Diocese must involve strengthening the families within that Diocese. The family is not just the building block of society but also of the Church."

"I came here to be who I am, to do the work the way I know how to do, and that's the way I've been doing it."

"I put a high priority on communications. I think we can't over communicate."

"The Church in the West is a quite historic church, and its history is very rich, especially in our communities where all the early bishops were French, they came to this area to Santa Fe with Archbishop Lamy. Probably in Chicago the history gets a little lost over time as the city develops, grows. Here there’s that deeper sense of historicity, with the fact that the church has been richly engaged with this community from the very beginning."

"Many get problems because they no longer have faith in their lives, and some get something small and end up killing themselves. We do not know where this world is heading to after people losing faith and start behaving badly in public. If people continue to lose faith in their lives many bad things will continue to happen in this world, which leads many people to do ill to others."

"We condemn the violence and reaffirm the right to practice our religious faith in this country, in accordance with the Constitution. To Christians I say: do not be afraid, let us move forward without fear, with faith in God who is our salvation."

"The time has come to love the creation of God more with our heart and soul. We have a responsibility to pass on a good earth to future generations. If we fail, they will blame us for ruining God's creation."

"Parents do not care about children: there is a failure of the family. They have given them only money and good life without taking care of their education, ideas, mentality. They have exposed them to the ideological propaganda that promised them to become heroes or have Heaven, by killing. There is a generation gap."

"We should always be ready to offer our pastoral service to make a really Catholic family. Sometimes they face tensions from the local community for having broken the. But we must welcome those who want to come back and offer them confession so that they can begin a new life in the Catholic community."

"There’s this great mystery that I cannot understand — of how God decided He wanted to use me to try to be a witness to His love, to the importance of justice in our world, to the fact that the only way to true peace is when we all live and are striving to be just. That is what I’ve been trying to do for these past 50 year"