catholics-from-argentina

"Blessed be God, so that we can, in a democratic and pluralistic society, express our thoughts, and we must always give thanks for the freedom of expression."

"What kind of pluralism and democracy are we talking about, when today automatically one becomes an enemy if you do not agree? We see laws of dubious legal legitimacy, based on unacceptable positivism; public policies are proposed that ignore basic human rights; the Church is attacked and there is the violation of its rights, where the attacks are unjustly ridiculing religious values and those who profess them. One cannot openly pursue believers, but they are intimidated, the right to act according to one's conscience is not respected, and this creates a climate of fear, where one can no longer profess faith and act accordingly."

"As the Catholic Church, we have repeatedly tried to point out the importance of non-violence: Violence cannot be the answer to our situation. We regularly hold prayer meetings for peace and ask everyone to be builders of peace and harmony"

"A new government always represents the option of bringing great ideals and work with greater consensus, and a change of President is always a moment of great significance. We are a nation and we want to continue to contribute to the common good. We hope to deepen the solidarity policies for the most vulnerable."

"I insisted on the necessity of social consensus for those business initiatives that could affect the environment and the health of the population. I appreciate the confidence of all people involved in this process to overcome the conflict, leaving aside personal interests. I encourage everyone to continue to build together a new era in which dialogue can sow the path of social friendship and contribute to the common good of all the inhabitants of La Rioja."

"As a diplomat with some experience of international crises, I do not hide the fact that there are no magic solutions to this crisis. The strict logic of selfish national interests and various lobbies have been active for some time and can prevent any rational solution."

"We should recuperate the meaning of the vocation and the activity of a teacher and restore to them the social appreciation they deserve."

"I would say that we must learn to overcome historical resentment. History has a weight in each of us and in social life, it cannot be denied, but we cannot be slaves of this history by repeating the same mistakes and clashes. We must put the common good above all."

"Your generous response to go on a mission to a distant place fills us with joy at your decision and at your missionary spirit, which certainly is not without its sacrifices and privations, but the Lord is with you."

"We need to move on to a more permanent mission, so that the ties with the families can be strengthened, personalizing them in a spirit of respect and gradual pedagogy."

"Work with wisdom and prudence, pray fervently for our country, for His peace and strength, and that He may grant us wisdom in dialogue and joy in a hope that does not fail."

"We always run the risk of turning into administrators if we are too many years in a job."

"Surely, in the coming days there will be a deluge of advertisements after they inaugurate the house where a fat man dressed in red lives. And we should not confuse, we should not confuse Christmas with that. Know that, in reality, the gifts come from the efforts of parents and with the help of Jesus."

"It pains me to leave, it pains me to leave you as pastor of this particular Church that is on pilgrimage in La Plata, but I am sure that God has much better plans that I cannot finish deciphering today."

"Lent can be an opportunity to rediscover the beauty and joy of being a family and that every human person is called to be part of a family because the Creator wished mankind to be a family."

"When we refuse to listen to Maryto obey what He tells us, when our will does not conform to that of God out of ignorance and refusal to accept it, the feast of our lives is left without the best wine; we no longer celebrate, but rather we waste it and squander it on things that take us away from God, on pride and arrogance that supplant God."

"The Church realises that it has an important task in this crisis because it is a situation that arises from a society which is sick and has lost many values. In this perspective the evangelising role of the Church in the light of the Catholic Church’s Social Teaching is vitally important for the building of a new society. This is the only way to solve the crisis. Unless the rebuilding of the nation is founded on ethic and moral values which lead to the rebirth of institutions which have been discredited and to recompose the structures of society in every sector, any other measures taken will be only transitional certainly not lasting."

"The pope continues to look towards the neighborhoods we live in. The people also celebrated this papal support, which goes way beyond supporting me."

"The vital reality of the Church is moving toward the East and is flourishing in Africa and Asia. I say it with sadness: I am the grandson of Europeans, and the culture that I have assumed is European, but the spirit of the revolution has devastated Christian culture; the crisis is expressed in ecclesiastical progressivism, complicit in a revolution that liquidates the natural order of creation."

"In recent years the gap has widened and the number of poor and destitute has increased. This is the real gap in Argentina and it must not continue. Our country will not be happy, if this gap is not bridged."

"The true Evangelical approach is not only to be generous, but to enter into friendship, to share life."

"He eliminates the work of his predecessors by placing arbitrary limits and obstacles to what they, with intra-ecclesial ecumenical intent and respect for the freedom of priests and faithful, established! It promotes ecclesial communion in reverse. The new measures involve a regrettable step backwards."

"I believe that the issue of drugs should be fought with prevention. Drug is not lightning in the middle of a dark night, but is caused by family situations of abandonment because of the problems of this society. We Bishops saw that there was no intention of fighting drug trafficking. On the other hand I think that unfortunately the social situation that we are living in the postmodern world, where there is much poverty and a lot of confusion among the youth contributes to this phenomenon. The Church has its faults, too because it was not missionary as the Pope wanted it to be, it did not have a missionary attitude."

"We see that the state cannot fully protect the lives and property of the population, but it takes time to rebuild the civil code, the penal code, and to impose these new paradigms that are but the tip of the iceberg of a new colonialism, a world imperialism that despises the poor in particular."

"We can't say we defend human rights if we don't defend the first human right, the Right to Life."

"There is a word that today is not very common: educe, which means to elicit, to draw out what is already in another, what I have to do is bring to light their moral values. I always think that in a child, in a young person there are essential values such as loyalty, respect. All of this needs to be educed, to be drawn out. This is the work of education."

"The objective of the Pauline Year is one of deep reflection and of evangelization. That is, in addition to its being a perfect time to awaken knowledge of the person and works of "the Apostle to the Gentiles," it is also an opportunity for all believers and men of good will to reflect more deeply on St. Paul’s inspired message on life in Christ, the message of salvation. It is a time to allow ourselves to be formed by God and His grace, to make our faith, hope, and charity (without forgetting its social dimension of solidarity) blossom in a world that is so in need of virtues."

"The Holy Spirit is the soul of the Church, infused through the Wind and the Fire of the Upper Room, such that the Church must "be converted" every day, every instant, into what she herself is, the Body of Christ and the People of God living through history."

"I try to teach serenity and inner peace. It is important not to hate, not to hold grudges. Forgiveness breeds forgiveness and that is the only remedy, even in a situation where the air is polluted with hatred, as is the case in our Argentina. There are many divisions in society, but also in the Church, and we need to change. Conversion has only one name: the person of Jesus. The relationship with Jesus is what is fundamental, more than "religion", more than the content of catechesis."

"Christian joy has to do with knowing that Jesus accompanies us; it is to be truly aware that he conquered death forever with his resurrection."

"What is said in the Gospel: the most disadvantaged and unfairly treated, the least in the social order, will be first in the Kingdom of Heaven."

"The Virgin is not indifferent to a child who allows himself to be corrupted. Listen to her sweet motherly voice; she wants you to be happy, capable of loving."

"The results of science are not the whole truth. There is philosophical interpretation and there is also the faith, for those who have received it in gift, which are something different. It’s a matter of harmonizing and not muddling things up. In general, men of science understand this difference in levels."

"I strongly believe in the religiosity of the Chilean people and in the Church of Santiago. People trust God. Chile's Church is of the people, but profound. I believe we must live a faith together with people, so that my faith will be credible and authentic. We must walk with them. And, on the other hand, I believe we must take on a great responsibility above all as an institutional church."

"We usually say that this is not Rosario, it's not Rosario yet. We are at a moment where it almost depends on us for this to not be Rosario, but if we are careless, it will be Rosario in three months, or it already is and it will be more blatant to see."

"We cannot accept the culture of death, it seems that the lives of people has no value. We must react, we cannot accept violence."

"Proclaiming the Gospel should not be an exhausting task, concentrating on criticism, full of reproaches, of questioning, of the sowing of mere doubts, but rather a joyful announcement, providing consolation, relief, challenge and hope."

"Given the necessity of explaining Mary’s subordinate role to Christ in the work of Redemption, it is always inappropriate to use the title “Co-redemptrix” to define Mary’s cooperation. This title risks obscuring Christ’s unique salvific mediation and can therefore create confusion and an imbalance in the harmony of the truths of the Christian faith, for “there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). When an expression requires many, repeated explanations to prevent it from straying from a correct meaning, it does not serve the faith of the People of God and becomes unhelpful. In this case, the expression “Co-redemptrix” does not help extol Mary as the first and foremost collaborator in the work of Redemption and grace, for it carries the risk of eclipsing the exclusive role of Jesus Christ — the Son of God made man for our salvation, who was the only one capable of offering the Father a sacrifice of infinite value — which would not be a true honor to his Mother. Indeed, as the “handmaid of the Lord” (Lk 1:38), Mary directs us to Christ and asks us to “do whatever he tells you” (Jn 2:5)."

"Without dialogue with culture, we risk our message, however beautiful, becoming irrelevant."

"Cardinal Ratzinger already affirmed that the title “Mary, Mediatrix of All Graces” was not clearly grounded in Revelation. In line with this conviction, we can recognize the difficulties this title poses, both in terms of theological reflection and spirituality."

"At any event I wasn't informed. I was a bishop from far-away America. I just tried to pray a little. Holding in mind the things that could help judgment before God."

"Remembering the past of the peoples helps to project the future. We cannot forget the history of people."

"We must always be guided by the voice of freedom, of human dignity, of our own responsibility, of the defense of human rights, proclaiming the Greatness of the Lord. If God is present with us, all of the values we proclaim will not be excuses but rather means for building a promising future."

"Let us go to Mary with the Rosary, knowing that she is the star, she is our hope. Although we are surrounded by darkness and life appears hopeless, by the feeling that there are no true values, and the powers of the Beast assail us, let us have recourse to the strength that flows from the humility of the Woman God chose to be His Mother, and our country chose to by its Patron."

"Nobody is immune. We all bear responsibility for the huge social debt that Argentina has, and the kids that assaulted us are victims of that debt."

"We go back, in the sense that we also explore the beginning of the universe from the point of view of science, but we also go far away, because we also study the farthest, the most distant galaxies ... And this brings up the questions that we all should ask about the relationship between science and faith. I think this is the mission of the Observatory: go out to the truly most distant boundaries, the boundaries of the universe, that is always a gift of God."

"It must strike us that, in the present time of an increasing presence of the elderly in our western society, as the demographers tell us, it is a man of over eighty who heads our Church and hence to perform in her and before the world this difficult and necessary task. This, too, must be seen and valued as a gift of Divine Providence."

"Young people and teenagers are the most valuable asset of a nation and should be a major concern of all those who have responsibilities in their formation. One can love children even if one says no to some of their needs. God should be present in homes through daily family prayer, the appreciation of spiritual realities and domestic peace. One should strive to offer important values that give meaning to the effort and sacrifice for the sake of an ideal."

"We have to help those who have fallen to get up and prevent others who are vulnerable to fall... We will never be able to replace families, but as a Church, we are the family of God, and we must make every effort to create a space in which children are able to feel cared for and protected."

"In a deformed concept of the Church one cannot in turn discover the authentic face of Jesus and His very personal salvific mission."