All Quotes

"Life is a marathon, not a sprint."

"How you handled your adversity amidst an unforgiving public and turned them into admirers is worth noting."

"It’s a masterclass on converting public humiliation [whether your fault or not] into public respect and admiration."

"It's accumulation of your little choices that were hurting God and hurting yourself in the process."

"I want to represent women who balance ambition with real-life challenges, who continue growing no matter what life puts on their shoulders."

"I’ve let go of the perception that the younger you are, you’re more valuable and you’ll have a fresh perspective to offer the world. It is our responsibility as the more mature ones: to teach the younger ones so that they don’t make the same mistakes that we did."

"Some things God makes easy for you, and some things God makes a little more challenging."

"Dost thou believe in God the Father Almighty?"

"I believe in God the Father Almighty,"

"...τὸν δι' ἡμᾶς τοὺς ἀνθρώπους καὶ διὰ τὴν ἡμετέραν σωτηρίαν κατελθόντα ἐκ τῶν οὐρανῶν καὶ σαρκωθέντα ἐκ Πνεύματος Ἁγίου καὶ Μαρίας τῆς παρθένου καὶ ἐνανθρωπήσαντα,..."

"O you, Jews, which is more difficult, for a virgin to bear a child, or for a rod to quickened into a living thing? You admit that at the time of Moses a perfect straight rod took the form of a serpent and became an object of terror to him who cast it down, and he who before had held the rod fast now fled from it as a dragon..."

"He exists, not only inconceivably as God, but also conceivably as a man ; not only above the world, but also in the world, and of the world ; not only in a heavenly and invisible, but in an earthly and visible form. He becomes and is, He exists—we cannot avoid this statement ; to do so would be the worst kind of Docetism—with objective actuality. Does this mean, then, that He exists as one thing amongst others, and that as such He can be perceived and may be known like other things ? Well, we cannot deny that He is a thing like this, and can be perceived and knovra as such, if He was and is a man in the world, with an earthly and visible form. But, of course, a man is not merely a thing or object. As a man among men he is a human Thou, and as such distinct from all mere things."

"This skeptical way of thinking reached its culmination in the argument that Jesus as a human being never existed at all and is a myth. In ancient times, this extreme view was named the heresy of docetism (seeming) because it maintained that Jesus never came into the world "in the flesh", but only seemed to; (I John 4:2) and it was given some encouragement by Paul's lack of interest in his fleshly existence. Subsequently, from the eighteenth century onwards, there have been attempts to insist that Jesus did not even "seem" to exist, and that all tales of his appearance upon the earth were pure fiction. In particular, his story was compared to the pagan mythologies inventing fictitious dying and rising gods. (paragraph break) Some of the lines of thinking employed to disprove the Christ-myth theory have been somewhat injudicious."

"Stop your ears therefore when anyone speaks to you that stands apart from Jesus Christ, from David's scion and Mary's Son, who was really born and ate and drunk, really persecuted by Pontius Pilate, really crucified and died while heaven and earth and the underworld looked on; who also really rose from the dead, sice His Father raised Him up-His Father, who will likewise raise up all who believe in Him through Jesus Christ, apart from whom we have no real life."

"(About the Italian debate on euthanasia) We are faced with a strange alliance between technocratic culture and Catholic religious culture, both of which seek survival at all costs. But Catholic culture at least has a sense of the suffering of the dying, which is foreign to technology, interested only in the proper functioning of the apparatus."

"Nothing remains of the philosophy of '68. Simply because that philosophy never existed."

"Since ideology prevailed over criticism by a wide margin, it was precisely the authors whom the movement had chosen as teachers, or rather (since teachers were rejected) as guides, who were massacred."

"The 1968 movement was neither the subject nor the object of philosophy. It did not produce its own independent thought. Nor was it conceived as a philosophical event."

"Religion is a living thing."

"Either religion is alive and necessary, or it is not. Alive insofar as it is necessary. In the sense that it speaks to us of things we cannot do without, but above all of things that only religion is capable of speaking about."

"But what does it mean to remove the truth? It means, for example, that it will no longer be the law that has the power on its side (the power of truth, which legitimizes it), but power (power without truth) that will have the law on its side and do whatever it wants with it: perhaps legitimizing abuse on the basis of false evidence, invented for ideological purposes and power objectives. The idea that, once the truth is removed, there will finally be room for civil conversation in which what is worthy of belief or what, though not believed, deserves to be part of human heritage, will spontaneously flourish, is a beautiful idea, but perhaps hermeneutics should exercise a little of its art of suspicion on it."

"Dostoevsky puts a similar idea into the mouth of one of his characters, Versilov: that it is enough to renounce absolutes, to rid oneself of any claim to immortality is enough for men to learn to reconcile themselves with the earth, that is, with their finitude and fragility, finally loving one another, because there is no love except where there is a sharing of a common destiny and a feeling of pity for those who die, that is, for everyone. This idea in Dostoevsky's novel is not refuted, but simply put into the mouth of the Devil and dismantled with the most bitter of smiles. (chap. 5)"

"Does the name of God still mean anything to people today? According to Nietzsche, little or nothing. The very announcement that “God is dead” is destined to fall on deaf ears. Perhaps everyone repeats the phrase in relation to this or that (secularization, de-Christianization, single-minded thinking, and so on). But as if it were obvious, a foregone conclusion, to be acknowledged and then filed away without too much trouble. It's a bit like saying: we are modern, emancipated, faith in God belongs to the past. Centuries will have to pass—Nietzsche maintains—before men return to questioning the profound and mysterious meaning of this death."

"That the death of God appears to be an event that is now behind us and leaves us essentially indifferent is not atheism. It is nihilism. (chap. 6)"

"Atheism, in its own way, holds fast to the idea of God. If only to destroy and deny this idea, while at the same time dismissing all forms of transcendence: both the transcendence of moral law and the transcendence of the ultimate meaning of life. All things that, from the point of view of atheism, would force man into a state of subjugation and prevent him from realizing his full humanity. Atheism sees God as the enemy of man. Therefore, it wages war against him. (chap. 6)"

"Those who today ‘revoke’ the pseudo-excommunication have already been excommunicated for a long time. Why? Because they are modernists! With a modernist spirit, they have made a church conform to the spirit of the world. In fact, the instigator of the insulting decree of ‘revocation’ is Joseph Ratzinger, who continues undeterred in the modernist ecumenism of the Second Vatican Council, which he defined as an ‘irreplaceable beacon,’ incurring the excommunication of St. Pius X reserved for modernists. An excommunicated person revokes a non-existent censure!"

"Wherefore if forgers of money and other evil-doers are forthwith condemned to death by the secular authority, much more reason is there for heretics, as soon as they are convicted of heresy, to be not only excommunicated but even put to death."

"Orthodox Christianity recognizes harms from both involuntary and “justifiable” homicide, including homicide in a just war, both of which incur excommunication not as punishment, but as spiritual therapy (Basil, 1983, Canon 13, pp. 801-802)."

"Every age and degree of understanding should have its proper measure of discipline. With regard to boys and adolescents, therefore, or those who cannot understand the seriousness of the penalty of excommunication, whenever such as these are delinquent let them be subjected to severe fasts or brought to terms by harsh beatings, that they may be cured."

"We declare that you are fallen again into your former errors and under the sentence of excommunication which you originally incurred we decree that you are a relapsed heretic; and by this sentence which we deliver in writing and pronounce from this tribunal, we denounce you as a rotten member, which, so that you shall not infect the other members of Christ, must be cast out of the unity of the Church, cut off from her body, and given over to the secular power: we cast you off, separate and abandon you, praying this same secular power on this side of death and the mutilation of your limbs, to moderate its judgment towards you, and if true signs of repentance appear in you to permit the sacrament of penance to be administered to you."

"A passionate hater of religion, Rand founded a cult around her own person, complete with rituals of excommunication; a passionate believer in rationality and logic, she was incapable of seeing the contradictions in her own work. She was a rationalist who was not entirely rational; she could not distinguish between rationalism and rationality. Of narrow aesthetic sympathies, she laid down the law in matters of artistic judgment like a panjandrum; a believer in honesty, she was adept at self-deception and special pleading. I have rarely read a biography of a writer I should have cared so little to meet."

"When Pope Francis was elected, I thought: now comes the excommunication. But it was the opposite: Cardinal Müller wanted to have us excommunicated, and Pope Francis refused. He told me personally: ‘I will not condemn you.’ Reconciliation will come. Our Mother Church is incredibly divided at the moment. The conservatives want us, and they have said so in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. The German bishops absolutely do not want us. Rome has to deal with all these elements, we understand that. If we were simply accepted as we are, there would be a war in the Church. There is a fear that we will triumph. The Pope told journalists: ‘I will make sure that it is not a triumph.’"

"The lifting of the excommunication, together with the Motu proprio of Pope Benedict XVI on the old Mass, is an important, truly important sign for our little lifeboat. That is why I speak of joy and satisfaction. Interviewer: Where and when did you learn of the decree? Mgr. Fellay: I learned of it a few days ago in Rome, in the office of a cardinal, Cardinal Castrillon Hoyos, the president of the Ecclesia Dei Commission."

"The medieval state had one basis of unity denied to the modern—religion. Baptism was a necessary element in true citizenship in the Middle Ages and excommunication was its antithesis. No heretic, no schismatic, no excommunicate has the rights of citizenship. ... Philip of Spain's famous remark, that he would rather not reign at all than reign over heretics, was merely an assertion of medieval principles by a man who really believed in them."

"I personally have done much to have the excommunication of Freemasons removed from the new Code of Canon Law. In its time Freemasonry collaborated in ecumenical activity, then in the drafting of the Canon Code, on the concept that Christian unity also passes through those Anglican and Protestant bishops and pastors, as well as Orthodox, who are Freemasons. Freemasonry also participated in the creation of the Concordated Bible."

"I was walking peacefully along my path when suddenly I was assailed by an angry bull of excommunication."

"In his actions on child abuse and Aids, Joseph Ratzinger has colluded in the protection of paedophiles and the deaths of millions of Africans. As Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (Pope John Paul II's chief enforcer), it was Ratzinger's job to investigate the child abuse scandal that plagued the Catholic church for decades. And how did he do it? In May 2001 he wrote a confidential letter to Catholic bishops, ordering them not to notify the police – or anyone else – about the allegations, on pain of excommunication. He referred to a previous (confidential) Vatican document that ordered that investigations should be handled "in the most secretive way . . . restrained by a perpetual silence". Excommunication is a joke to me, perhaps to you, but to a Catholic it means exclusion and perhaps hellfire – for trying to protect a child. Well, God is love."

"I shall never consent to his being judge in that affair [sc. the divorce]. Even if his holiness should do his worst by excommunicating me and so forth, I shall not mind it, for I care not a fig for all his excommunications. Let him follow his own at Rome, I will do here what I think best."

"My conscience compels me to make the following declaration. In the solitude of my prison cell I have come to the bitter recognition that I have sinned gravely against humanity. As Commandant of Auschwitz I was responsible for carrying out part of the cruel plans of the “Third Reich” for human destruction."

"Offenses are either grave or light. A person guilty of a lighter offense is one who has chosen to be idle; who has come late to duty, to a meeting, or to the table; who has laughed in the choir or engaged in idle tales... who has used a book carelessly... Therefore, these and similar offenses must be corrected with a three-day excommunication."

"I will not live in the same rooms as the Borgias lived. He [Pope Alexander VI] desecrated the Holy Church as none before. He usurped the papal power by the devil's aid, and I forbid under the pain of excommunication anyone to speak or think of Borgia again. His name and memory must be forgotten. It must be crossed out of every document ad memorial. His reign must be obliterated. All paintings made of the Borgias or for them must be covered over with black crepe. All the tombs of the Borgias must be opened and their bodies sent back to where they belong — to Spain."

"I couldn’t really read all the words because I was crying and sobbing, but my eyes focused on, 'We have chosen to excommunicate you.' I guess I'm a delusional optimist because to the end I thought they would do the right thing.... It's not that I won't abandon my cause. I can't. The church that has excommunicated me has taught me to live with integrity... They're asking me to go to church every Sunday and pretend I don't think there are problems with gender equality... I think it's a hideously painful blow to any woman has ever looked around her and recognized the plain and simple truth that men and women are not equal in our church."

"In virtue of our pastoral office committed to us by the divine favor we can under no circumstances tolerate or overlook any longer the pernicious poison of the above errors without disgrace to the Christian religion and injury to orthodox faith. Some of these errors we have decided to include in the present document; their substance is as follows:[...]"

"With a pen in my hand I have successfully stormed bulwarks from which others armed with sword and excommunication have been repulsed."

"After the Council of Nicea, ... the State supported the associated churches by all the means in its power. It recognized the decisions of their councils and enforced them with civil pains and penalties; it also recognized the sentences of deposition and excommunication passed on members of the clergy or laity belonging to any one of the associated churches and followed them with civil disabilities. It did its best to destroy all Christianity outside of the associated churches, and largely succeeded. The rigour of the state persecution directed against Christian nonconformists in the fourth and fifth centuries has not received the attention due to it. The state confiscated their churches and ecclesiastical property (sometimes their private property also); it prohibited under penalty of proscription and death their meeting for public worship; it took from the nonconformist Christians the right to inherit or bequeath property by will; it banished their clergy; finally, it made raids upon them by its soldiery and sometimes butchered whole communities, as was the case with the Montanists in Phrygia and with the Donatists in Africa. And this glaringly un-Christian mode of creating and vindicating the visible unity of the Catholic Church of Christ was vigorously encouraged by the leaders of the associated churches who had the recognition and support of the State."

"The effectiveness of authority as a means of control depends first of all upon the ability to enforce it through the use of punishment. In the two organizations which have been the models for classical organization theory, the situation with respect to enforcement is clear. In the military, authority is enforceable through the court-martial, with the death penalty as the extreme form of punishment. In the Church, excommunication represents the psychological equivalent of the death penalty."

"Bernard was justly reputed the greatest mind of the age. He hesitated to enter into a learned controversy with Abelard, but smote him with a thunderbolt of excommunication, which he secured from the hands of the occupant of the Vatican throne."

"In the Code of Canon Law the term heretic means a baptized person who, while retaining the name of Christian, stubbornly denies or calls in doubt any truth which is to be accepted on Divine and Catholic Faith. ...a similar excommunication is incurred by those who publish books written by heretics upholding and commending heresy, and by all who defend or knowingly and without due permission read or keep these or any other books prohibited by name by letters Apostolic."

"Isolated as they are within a distinctly outcast category, CB weapons have acquired an array of moral and legal proscriptions that is unique among present-day armaments. This, however, is something with which most novel weapon technologies of the past have had to contend. Users of the crossbow, for example, in twelfth century Europe risked excommunication by the Church, and gunpowder went through a long period of moral opprobrium before becoming assimilated. People eventually became accustomed to these developments, and the weapons became conventional. Incendiary weapons provide a further example: witness the obloquy that fastened upon the recorded users of Greek fire in medieval Europe, or P.G.T. Beauregarde's expressions of moral outrage during the American Civil War, or the special attention given to flamethrowers in the League of Nations disarmament deliberations, and then the increasing conventionalization of napalm and other incendiaries during the Spanish Civil War, World War II, the Korean war and Vietnam."

"The cultic flaw in Ayn Rand's philosophy of Objectivism is not in the use of reason, or in the emphasis on individuality, or in the belief that humans are self motivated, or in the conviction that capitalism is the ideal system. The fallacy in Objectivism is the belief that absolute knowledge and final Truths are attainable through reason, and therefore there can be absolute right and wrong knowledge, and absolute moral and immoral thought and action. For Objectivists, once a principle has been discovered through reason to be True, that is the end of the discussion. If you disagree with the principle, then your reasoning is flawed. If your reasoning is flawed it can be corrected, but if it is not, you remain flawed and do not belong in the group. Excommunication is the final step for such unreformed heretics."