All Quotes

"I am disturbed about Roman Catholicism. This church stands before the world with its pomp and power, insisting that it possesses the only truth. It incorporates an arrogance that becomes a dangerous spiritual arrogance. It stands with its noble Pope who somehow rises to the miraculous heights of infallibility when he speaks ex cathedra. But I am disturbed about a person or an institution that claims infallibility in this world. I am disturbed about any church that refuses to cooperate with other churches under the pretense that it is the only true church. I must emphasize the fact that God is not a Roman Catholic, and that the boundless sweep of his revelation cannot be limited to the Vatican. Roman Catholicism must do a great deal to mend its ways."

"Despite what many think, the Vatican may not impose teachings on an unwilling faithful. Through the concept of reception, Catholics have a role to play in the establishment of church law. The popular notion that whatever the pope says on a serious topic is infallible is an exaggeration of the principle of infallibility. While some ultra-conservative groups claim that the teaching on abortion is infallible, it does not in fact meet the definition of an infallible teaching. Since the doctrine of papal infallibility was first declared in 1870, only three teachings have been declared infallible: the Immaculate Conception of Mary, the Assumption of Mary, and the declaration on infallibility itself."

"The monarchic and infallible papacy is, however, I many ways a modern development. To take one example, for most of the history of the church, bishops were either elected by the priests of the local cathedral or appointed by the secular ruler. It was not until 1917 that official church law decreed that all bishops were to be appointed by the pope. Papal infallibility was a disputed issue up until it was officially declared by the first Vatican Council (1869-1870). Prior to that declaration, there was a strong and continuing claim that Church Councils were the supreme authority on matters of policy. The high point of “concilarism” occurred at the crucial Council of Constance (1414-1418), which resolved the scandal of three rival popes. The Council clearly asserted its authority in a famous decree Haec Sancta: The holy synod of Constance, constituting a general council…does hereby ordain, ratify, decree and declare … that any person of whatever rank, or dignity, even a pope who contumaciously refuses to obey the mandate, statutes, ordinances and regulations enacted by this holy synod or any other general council … shall be subject to condign penalty and duly punished. From the time of Constance to the first Vatican Council there was a continuing ideological struggle about authority: pope or council. It would seem that Vatican I settled the issue. Pius IX’s comment, Lo sono la tradizione, io sono la Chisea. (“I am the tradition, I am the Church”), seems to sum up the present situation of papal authority."

"When declaring the infallibility of the pope, the Vatican Council did not have in mind a situation in which, his papal prerogative acknowledged, the faithful might have a wider field of thought and action in religious matters; rather the infallibility was declared in order to provide against the special evils of our times, of license which is confounded with liberty, and the habit of thinking, saying, and printing everything regardless of truth. It was not intended to hamper real serious study or research, or to conflict with any well-ascertained truth, but only to use the authority and wisdom of the Church more effectually in protecting men against error."

"...We teach and define that it is a dogma divinely revealed that the Roman pontiff when he speaks ex cathedra, that is when in discharge of the office of pastor and doctor of all Christians, by virtue of his supreme Apostolic authority, he defines a doctrine regarding faith or morals to be held by the universal Church, by the Divine assistance promised to him in blessed Peter, is possessed of that infallibility with which the divine Redeemer willed that his Church should be endowed in defining doctrine regarding faith or morals, and that therefore such definitions of the Roman pontiff are of themselves, and not from the consent of the Church, irreformable."

"The stepped pyramid design, also known as stepped cross or crenellation patterns, was a basic element in the decorative artwork of the southern areas. It was commonly used on pottery, woven textiles, jewelry, metalwork at the end of the 4th/early 3rd millennium at Namazga, Sarazm, and Helmand sites (Mundigak, Shahr-i Sokhta, and Rud-i Biyaban), and even recognized in a wall painting from the early 3rd millennium palace at Tal-i Malyan in Fars. The same design has been identified on 5% of the ceramic decoration of the Sintashta and Potapovka ceramic tradition. This is possibly among the earliest evidence of southern influence and movement of goods to the north. It subsequently became a standard design element also on Petrovka and Andronovo pottery. It has been suggested that the design was conveyed to the northern steppes on textiles, possibly one of the commodities exchanged for metal."

"The diffusion of double-spiral-headed pins across northern and southern Eurasia demonstrates that objects, and the idea behind them, propagate between and through cultures due to various mechanisms and for various reasons, and that they are often transformed. Perhaps this explains why the spirals and their variations are so geographically and culturally scattered. Yet, once in the Eurasian steppe, the pins undoubtedly took on a local and not a Central Asian shape, and possibly also another meaning. The foreign idea was translated into a local medium, functioning in a local setting with its specific and local significance. Characteristic material culture forms and materials are transportable, but their meanings can be re-shaped and re-applied to fit diverse sociopolitical settings and a different array of participants. Thus, while the double-spiral-headed pins may have indeed originally been first produced in southwestern Central Asia (after Europe and the Near East), once they found their way to the Eurasian steppe they took on an indigenous shape and meaning, with each case different from the others."

"It is important to see this type of forum multiplying because Congolese women must be prepared to participate consciously in political life."

"Another reason, perhaps the most important one, why only men and not women can become priests in the Church is based on the fact that, when offering the Eucharistic sacrifice on the altar, the priest acts in persona Christi, the Heavenly High Priest (cf. Heb. 2:17). ‘Christ is here preparing the supper,’ says John Chrysostom (De Jud. 6), ‘for it is not by the work of a man that what is on the altar becomes the Body and Blood of Christ. When he approaches the altar and presents his priestly supplication there, he is only the interpreter and representative of the Saviour, but the grace and power that accomplishes everything is that of the Lord.’Now, since Jesus here on earth as a man was precisely a man, a woman cannot represent him at the altar, even if she were fully worthy. On the contrary, a man is suitable to do so, not because of his character or because he is worthy but solely because this is the will of Jesus by virtue of priestly consecration."

"In our opinion nothing so clearly proves the assistance of the Holy Spirit and the necessity for a ruling power in the bosom of the Church as this law of harmonious development. It would seem that those who reject the idea of such a power are obliged either to ignore all that is done by that power and to raise up an entirely new Church, or to take the illogical and insincere method of adopting for their own a part only of the Church's institutions and rejecting the rest."

"Another reason, perhaps the most important one, why only men and not women can become priests in the Church is based on the fact that, when offering the Eucharistic sacrifice on the altar, the priest acts in persona Christi, the Heavenly High Priest (cf. Heb. 2:17). ‘Christ is here preparing the supper,’ says John Chrysostom (De Jud. 6), ‘for it is not by the work of a man that what is on the altar becomes the Body and Blood of Christ. When he approaches the altar and presents his priestly supplication there, he is only the interpreter and representative of the Saviour, but the grace and power that accomplishes everything is that of the Lord.’Now, since Jesus here on earth as a man was precisely a man, a woman cannot represent him at the altar, even if she were fully worthy. On the contrary, a man is suitable to do so, not because of his character or because he is worthy but solely because this is the will of Jesus by virtue of priestly consecration."

"God created the world through an active speech. God's Word is not descriptive, it is creative. God speaks the worls is being...God's Word changes, it is effective, makes things happen...What God says, is. If Jesus is just a spiritual teacher among many, one great religious figure, okay, fine. But there are thousands of those. What claims the Church is He is not a human figure amomg many, but He is the Word made flesh. The very embodiement of God [as a] transformative and creative work. The night before he dies, that Jesus took bread, the Pasqual bead, and said: "This is my Body." Taking the goblet with the meal, said: "This is the chalice of my Blood". If that [was said] by a human being, a great hero, a philosopher, a social reformer, okay, we say: "He is using a symbolic talk." But who is saying that? The Word made flesh. The Word whose speech constitutes reality at the deepest level. Just as if God spokes you to be, so Jesus speaks His presence into being, over the appearence of bread and wine...We move into His very identity at that point. We now commence to speak in the first person, saying: "Take this, all of you, and eat it. This is my Body given for you." We speak in persona Christi, we speak in the very Word of Jesus."

"We must know and believe that the Blessed Virgin, by a special grace of God, is the one spoken of in the Proverbs of Solomon, and that she was chosen to be the Mother of God before anything was created."

"As the world closes you in, as its noises deafen you, and as its attractions draw you, try to remember always for what you have been made. You are made to serve God for ever; to see His face; and to have His name in your foreheads. With less than this you could never be satisfied, and more you cannot have."

"If we trivialize Communion, we trivialize everything, and we cannot lose a moment as important as that of receiving Communion, of recognizing the real presence of Christ there, of the God who is the love above all loves, as we sing in a hymn in Spanish."

"God created the world through an active speech. God's Word is not descriptive, it is creative. God speaks the worls is being...God's Word changes, it is effective, makes things happen...What God says, is. If Jesus is just a spiritual teacher among many, one great religious figure, okay, fine. But there are thousands of those. What claims the Church is He is not a human figure amomg many, but He is the Word made flesh. The very embodiement of God [as a] transformative and creative work. The night before he dies, that Jesus took bread, the Pasqual bead, and said: "This is my Body." Taking the goblet with the meal, said: "This is the chalice of my Blood". If that [was said] by a human being, a great hero, a philosopher, a social reformer, okay, we say: "He is using a symbolic talk." But who is saying that? The Word made flesh. The Word whose speech constitutes reality at the deepest level. Just as if God spokes you to be, so Jesus speaks His presence into being, over the appearence of bread and wine...We move into His very identity at that point. We now commence to speak in the first person, saying: "Take this, all of you, and eat it. This is my Body given for you." We speak in persona Christi, we speak in the very Word of Jesus."

"...it is recognised in England that home drinking is no real pleasure. We pray in a church and booze in a pub: profoundly sacerdotal at heart, we need a host in both places to preside over us. In Catholic churches as in continental bars the host is there all the time. But the Church of England kicked out the Real Presence and the licensing laws gave the landlord a terrible sacramental power. Ted was giving me grace of his own free will, holding back death – which is closing time – making a lordly grant of extra life."

"'Twas God the Word that spake it, He took the Bread and brake it: And what that Word did make it, That I believe and take it."

"The new Mass has shortcomings and hides dangers. Of course, not every new Mass is directly scandalous, but the repeated celebration of the new Mass leads to a weak faith and even to its loss. We see how every day there are fewer and fewer priests who still believe in the Real Presence."

"Ecclesiastical Freemasonry seeks to destroy this reality with a false ecumenism, which leads to the acceptance of all Christian Churches, claiming that each of them possesses a part of the truth. It cultivates the plan to found a universal ecumenical Church, formed by the fusion of all Christian denominations, including the Catholic Church. Ecclesiastical Freemasonry, in many subtle ways, seeks to attack the ecclesial piety towards the Sacrament of the Eucharist. It values only the aspect of the Supper, tends to minimise its sacrificial value, and seeks to deny the real and personal presence of Jesus in the consecrated hosts. For this reason, all external signs indicative of faith in the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist have been gradually suppressed, such as genuflections, public hours of adoration, and the holy custom of surrounding the Tabernacle with lights and flowers."

"In any proposed external communication from God, the channels of human faculty are never to be got rid of; so, if they do not in their own native quality constitute divine vouchers, they must operate as barriers to any communication with God. Of God, who is essentially supersensible, there can be no such thing as a presentation directly to our senses; and all belief that sensible facts mean his real presence must rest at last on inferential judgments of our reason, while these will be nothing but self-continuing circles, worthless for evidence, unless our reason is granted to have in itself the real revelation of what accords with the Divine mind. An absolutely direct utterance of God in the external world, evident strictly in itself, is thus upon close examination unintelligible and unthinkable. Yet this is what is implied in a consistent doctrine of Authority.”"

"A weaker evidence can never destroy a stronger; and therefore, were the doctrine of the real presence ever so clearly revealed in scripture, it were directly contrary to the rules of just reasoning to give our assent to it. It contradicts sense, though both the scripture and tradition, on which it is supposed to be built, carry not such evidence with them as sense; when they are considered merely as external evidences, and are not brought home to every one's breast, by the immediate operation of the Holy Spirit."

"I am compelled, almost alone, to engage with enemies, I know not whether to call them foreign or domestic ones. They are indeed our own countrymen, but enemies in heart, dwelling in a hostile land... [O]ur enemies, when they accuse our cause of novelty, both wrong us and deceive the people; for that they approve new things as if they were old, and condemn as new things of the greatest antiquity; that private masses, and mutilated communions, and natural and real presence, and transubstantiation, &c. (in which things the whole of their religion is contained), have no certain and express testimony either of holy scripture, or of ancient councils, or of fathers, or of anything that could be called antiquity."

"There is very great need to have the unique aspect of spirit in man and its relation to the divine spirit in the universe freshly interpreted in a world that has become bogged down with material conceptions of life and the world. There is very great need of a more vital grasp of the unique Person at the headwaters of our faith linked up with the Real Presence of the inward Christ who is the Life of our lives..."

"Let us not forget that the sunlight is God's smile of benediction; that the sunshine is Heaven's light and life and glory, the true Shekinah, the real presence with which the temple needs most to be filled; that the cooling breeze is the breath of heaven, a veritable messenger of life, carrying healing on its wings."

"The Authority of the 'man of the moment' pertains to the fact that it is he, par excellence, who represents 'actuality', the Present, the 'real presence' of something in the world (Hegel's Gegenwart), as opposed to the 'poetic' unreality of the past and the 'utopian' unreality of the future."

"The Church established by Christ is one: holy, catholic, apostolic, one, founded on Peter. Like Jesus, the Church founded by Him, which forms His mystical body, is truth, life and way."

"The crisis that the clergy, the Church, the West and the world are experiencing is radically a spiritual crisis. It is a crisis of faith in God. One cannot say that there is no crisis of faith, when we see clearly that the churches in most European countries are empty. As an example: In Germany, every year, there are 200,000 Catholics who leave the Catholic Church, in parallel, 300,000 Protestants who leave the Protestant church. The decline of faith in the real presence of Jesus Christ is at the heart of the current crisis of the Church and its decline, especially in the West. There is really no longer a belief in the real presence of Jesus Christ. After watching a priest celebrate the mass, one can know if he has the faith or not... When the priest has the Eucharist one can know if he has the faith or not... By how they behave when people come to ask for the Eucharist on the language one can know if he has faith or not, the father who treats them badly (that is, he does not know what he has in his hands). One has frequently said (says George Bernanos), one frequently sees with tears of helplessness, laziness, or pride, that the world is becoming de-Christianized, but the world has not conquered Jesus Christ... It is we who have received it through him , it is from our hearts that God withdraws... It is we who de-Christianize ourselves... miserable..."

"Christianity is not an encyclopaedia of contents and values, nor a list of battles to be fought, but an openness to the surprise of God. Without the experience of his Real Presence, without the encounter with the person of Christ, Christianity becomes a rigid ideology. But beware! God is to be sought and found everywhere in the world. He is present and active in the world and in history. He is not necessarily where we think He is."

"The Hindu religion appears … as a cathedral temple, half in ruins, noble in the mass, often fantastic in detail but always fantastic with a significance — crumbling or badly outworn in places, but a cathedral temple in which service is still done to the Unseen and its real presence can be felt by those who enter with the right spirit."

"Two men had a conspicuous influence in creating and leading the Conservative movement: one was Pitt and the other was Burke. Pitt was the practical leader who headed the opposition to the French Revolution and behind whom the Toryism of George III, the natural conservatism of Burke, the zeal for the imperial greatness of the country, of which he himself was the best exponent, coalesced together and found their sphere of activity in resisting revolutionary France as the enemy of Church and King, the destroyer of all that was ordered and settled, the formidable enemy of the greatness and even the safety of England. And in Burke Conservatism found its first and perhaps its greatest teacher, who poured forth with extraordinary rhetorical power the language of an anti-revolutionary faith, and gave to the Conservative movement the dignity of a philosophical creed and the fervour of a religious crusade."

"The essential characteristic of a Tory is that in controversies relating to Church and King he takes the royal and ecclesiastical side."

"Probably no function of Conservatism is more important at the present time than to watch over the religious life of the people in the sphere of politics. Religion, as has been pointed out, touches politics very closely in respect to many questions—such as the claims of rich and poor, all measures for ameliorating the condition of the people, the connection between Church and State, and national education. Its indirect influence extends beyond these limits as far as any controversy which raises issues of moral obligation. The championship of religion is therefore the most important of the functions of Conservatism. It is the keystone of the arch upon which the whole fabric rests. As long as Conservatism makes the fulfilment of its duties to religion the first of its purposes, it will be saved from the two principal dangers that alternatively threaten it: the danger of sinking into a mere factious variation of Liberalism, supporting the claims of another set of politicians, but propounding measures not distinguished by any pervading principle: or the other danger of standing only for the defence of those who are well off, without any sincere endeavour to consider the interests of the whole people, or any higher object than the triumph of the sagacious selfishness of the prosperous. Religion is the standard by which the plans of politicians must be judged, and a religious purpose must purify their aims and methods. Emphasising this truth, Conservatism will be the creed neither of a superfluous faction nor of a selfish class."

"It is often assumed that Conservatism and Socialism are directly opposed. But this is not completely true. Modern Conservatism inherits the traditions of Toryism which are favourable to the activity and authority of the State. Indeed Mr. Herbert Spencer attacked Socialism as being in fact the revival of Toryism; he called it “the new Toryism.” And he was so far right, that Toryism was on the side of authority and that it was rather the Whigs, and still more the Liberals of the second and third quarters of the nineteenth century, who insisted on the dangers of State interference and the importance of the liberty of the individual."

"Historically the principle was adopted that every one must be saved from death by starvation or exposure, but that on the other hand no one ought to be supported by the State in idleness. This was the policy of Elizabeth's famous Act establishing the Poor Law. Nor is it unfair to claim the Poor Law as at any rate of Tory extraction. It was imposed by religious sentiment, and it was the solution of a difficulty caused by an attack on the Church. It arose out of the suffering which had been occasioned by the dissolution of the monasteries under Henry VIII, and by the consequent cessation of the relief of the poor which the monasteries had been wont to give. Under the Poor Law the State took over the work that had formerly been performed by the alms of the Church; and in so doing the State acted under the moral ascendency of Church teaching."

"For the tradition of authority is naturally a Tory tradition, and, but for the influence of Conservative prudence and justice, the successors of the Tories might probably have been ready to use the authority of the State with a freedom which we associate with Socialism."

"The value of human character, the sacredness of justice on the one side, reverence for authority and tenderness towards human suffering upon the other, make the religious standpoint at once the safest and the most practical for the task of social reform. Toryism even within itself contains balanced principles which make for safety, and when united with the prudence of the natural conservative it forms the most efficient and the most secure political guide for a social reformer."

"For the rest, he continued to be a brilliant figure in the social life of his time; his presence welcome, his conversation witty, his views original, his candour entertaining, his power of exposition remarkable, his charm unaffected. No sketch can hope to give the peculiar flavour of his personality, nor is it easy to disinter even from the vast chambers of the dead a parallel for him. Yet a Plutarch, in search of his compeer, might find in Montalembert—the Montalembert of Sainte-Beuve's portrait—enough points of resemblance to justify a comparison between two ardent devotees of liberty, and, according to their respective interpretations, of Catholicism."

"The South Carolina outbreak of lettuce-rot occurred in , the second largest lettuce-growing district on the eastern coast of the United States, with a reputation of growing the finest quality of on the entire eastern coast. The South Carolina disease may be either a stem or a leaf infection ... In an early stage the plants are a lighter green color than the healthy ones; later the head may show rot through the center or only on the top. A general wilting of the head may occur with or without visible spots or rot. In some cases rotting is rapid; in others the heart remains sound, while the outer encircling leaves are in a bad state of decay. The diseased plants are not firm in the soil, the stem is brittle, and can be easily broken off at the surface or a little below the surface of the soil. In an early stage of disease the stem when cut across shows a blue-green color; in a later stage it is brown."

"A bacterial leafspot disease of the occurs widespread in the Eastern States. It is mostly a disease but occurs occasionally on plants grown out of doors. The organism was isolated from diseased plants received from different sources and the disease reproduced on the leaves of healthy plants. Warm, moist conditions with poor ventilation are necessary for the organism to infect the leaves extensively. Care in regulating the temperature, air, and moisture conditions of the greenhouse and in giving plenty of space to plants grown out of doors will go far toward preventing the appearance of the disease and toward curing it when it is present. All spotted leaves should be removed and destroyed. Very sensitive varieties should be discarded. The name Bacterium pelargoni is suggested for the organism causing the disease."

"A disease of es which caused big losses to the growers occurred last June in Texas, and in August and September in Nebraska. The disease is first noticed in green full-grown tomatoes, but it is hard to detect at this stage unless close attention is given to the stems. When the fruits are green they show a little brown spot or a dark ring around and under the stem. As the fruit is shipped green, the packers may overlook this condition very easily. When the tomatoes reach their destination they have become a pink color, the disease has advanced and shows more plainly, for the stem end has then become a dark brown. The inspector notices this and, although there is not much external evidence of disease, he breaks the fruit open and finds a hard brown center. The rot is usually down the center and may extend from stem end to blossom end but sometimes it takes an oblique course and includes a portion of the seeds, darkening them also. There is no slime or ooze. Bacteria occur in great numbers in the tissues. The same organism was isolated from both the Texas and Nebraska material and the disease was reproduced in green and ripening fruits in the greenhouse, using pure cultures."

"A wily wench there was (as I have read) Who us’d to capricorn her husband’s head."

"Skin more pure than Ida’s snow, Whiter far than Moorish milk, Sweeter than ambrosia too, Softer than the Paphian silk, Indian plumes or thistle-down, Or May-blossoms newly blown, Is my mistress rosy-pale, Adding beauty to her veil."

"To Banbury came I, O profane one! Where I saw a Puritane-one Hanging of his cat on Monday, For killing of a mouse on Sunday."

"I'd rather die Maid, and lead apes in Hell Than wed an inmate of Silenus' Cell."

"It felt like I was losing my mind because my career and everything had been put on hold, and now this child [for whom it was done] was not here."

"A lot has been done to tear families apart, to traumatise and disenfranchise them."

"We are that generation who have to take the baton and say, 'How do we normalise life for our children and their children?'"

"That was the most profoundly painful thing God has ever done to me, but it was necessary."

"I was going to die in that marriage. I had lost myself to the point where I couldn’t recognise who I was when I looked in the mirror. My dreams were gone. I didn’t want to act anymore; I thought I had no talent."