Catholics From Italy

"The foundations of the future Catholic Church were laid with the active participation of the faithful: in fact, everyone took part in the construction of the temple, from the smallest to the oldest, including the disabled and the sick. Furthermore, when they returned to their historical homeland, hundreds of former local parishioners brought new life to the life of the Church in Germany, Poland and other countries. As in the first centuries, the sufferings and blood shed by these Catholics multiplied the number of Christians, giving life to this Church."

"The Congregation has the task of deepening, developing and promoting the fundamental principles of Catholic education, as proposed by the Magisterium of the Church, both regarding the People of God, as well as society at large. In this sense, it is committed to ensuring that the faithful can fulfill their obligations in this area, and that society at large might also recognize and protect their rights."

"Priests must take into consideration the main message of Pope Francis, in which he asks to give life to a Church with a priestly path of holiness and not of perfection."

"The societies are a providential gift to the Church. Let us pray to the Lord of the Mission to help you come out with a clear understanding and plan of our great task of evangelization,"

"We must acknowledge that the Christian life cannot be lived only in front of a computer's screen. Christian life calls for living in community. Then I can encounter Jesus thanks to the rich and purposeful help of an Internet site, but afterwards I must find a community that receives me and enables me to undertake a concrete journey of faith."

"I'm afraid that because I'm a cardinal people will think of me as a success. I'm immensely afraid of that, since I'm here to bear witness instead. The Lord has given me a great grace, but if I'm a bishop it is not that I've succeeded more than others. I have more responsibility, that's for sure. Even if, as things are, because of the increasing importance of the mass media, there's no point in being a cardinal if you only come out with banalities."

"There is no Church without the Eucharist. The fact that it is not available makes us become a Protestant Catholic Church, because we lack the Eucharist and the other sacraments."

"It is beautiful to bear witness for a God who teaches us through His heart to broaden our horizons, to stop concentrating solely on our own interests and instead open up more and more. That is His love for us. And that is what we should bear witness to and teach. That is the good news, the gospel. And for me that it is the colour of Catholicism."

"Faith is not only, or above all, information; faith is self-giving; it is communion with Jesus who gives himself. Let us ask the Lord for the grace to cure our blindness. Let us ask him to give us the truth, the only one that makes us truly free, and, at the same time, let us ask for the strength to make it concrete in our lives, following him on the path that leads to Jerusalem, certain that glory is already in the cross."

"Perhaps Catholics in Georgia are less enthusiastic, but this is normal. It is just like a plane: it takes off quickly, but then it has to keep the route. I am not worried."

"Preaching is difficult due to differences in language, traditions, laws and social resistance. So we are preaching first of all in the language of love by caring for the poor, the abandoned, the young and the old, by helping the suffering and visiting those in hospitals and prisons. The response is good. People notice that we are with the poor. It is not propaganda, but concrete presence."

"I try to solve problems, always remembering that the world has already been saved by the Lord, we must only participate in this salvation. It is a fact that I often repeat to myself."

"The missions are recorded in the DNA of the Church in Poland, which was born, grew up and was formed in society through the Missionary activities of its patron."

"The Holy See gives voice to those who have no voice. This is perhaps a poetic way to phrase it. But I would like to point out that this is the most challenging, interesting, sometimes difficult, but always gratifying side of my daily activity. I am referring to dioceses, associations, religious congregations, and individuals who turn to us, confident that we can help them to meet with and present to the right offices and persons their views and requests, which are usually humanitarian in nature."

"Reciprocity is a fine thing. Complete reciprocity is obviously to be desired. But we must be realists. Today we cannot demand reciprocity on non-essential, marginal things, which sometimes not even Muslim groups who are a minority in their own countries enjoy. And I believe that the essential is the freedom to be able to practice one's own religion, to have a place of worship, to be respected as sons of God."

"[Solov'ëv was] Passionate defender of man and allergic to all philanthropy; tireless apostle of peace and opponent of pacifism; proponent of unity among Christians and critic of all irenicism; in love with nature and far removed from today's ecological infatuations: in a word, friend of truth and enemy of ideology. It is precisely guides like him that we sorely need today."

"In Ethiopia I really understood the Gospel."

"Our main concern now is to bring peace to the hearts of the people. Schools have an important role in this since classes have children of different ethnic groups and this is where they can be educated to live side by side."

"The concept seemed ambiguous to me, and the emphasis with which "pastorality" was attributed to the current Council was somewhat suspect: was it not meant to implicitly say that the previous Councils did not intend to be "pastoral" or had not been pastoral enough? Had it not had pastoral relevance to make it clear that Jesus of Nazareth was God and consubstantial with the Father, as defined at Nicaea? Had it not had pastoral relevance to clarify the realism of the Eucharistic presence and the sacrificial nature of the Mass, as had been done at Trent?. There was a danger of no longer remembering that the first and irreplaceable mercy for lost humanity is, according to the clear teaching of Revelation, the mercy of truth, a mercy that cannot be exercised without the explicit, firm, constant condemnation of every misrepresentation and every alteration of the deposit of faith, which must be preserved. St Thomas Aquinas noted this in the 'Summa contra Gentiles' (I, 2): the task of theology is to "manifest the truth professed by the Catholic faith, eliminating errors contrary to it"."

"Christianity has an admirable example of the natural union between faith and freedom in Dante Alighieri. Precisely his undoubted adherence to Catholic truth allows and illuminates his perfect autonomy of judgement, free from any fear or human conditioning. Dante is not afraid to criticize the work of the popes and their operational choices, to the point of placing several of them in the depths of hell. But in him "the reverence of the supreme keys" never diminishes and never diminishes in the slightest (Inf. XIX, 101). When it comes to expressing reservations or criticisms that he considers due, there are no discounts neither for lay people, nor for ecclesiastics, nor for monarchs, nor for ordinary citizens... all of whom are required, without exception, to abide by the law evangelical."

"Christmas is not only the telling of what has been; it is perception of what is. It is not only perception of a circumscribed and datable episode; it is savoring of a perennial and universally effective actuality; it is exultation over a richness that is given to us. The annotation that Christmas is after all a birthday would be enough to convince us of this. Now birthdays are for living men. For the dead-even if they are great and very famous-at most, centenarians are remembered. So to celebrate Christmas every year is to express the certainty that Jesus of Nazareth-that child born two thousand years ago in a stable-is a living person: he is really, truly, physically alive; he is still the principle of salvation for us; he is still the center of our every existence and of the whole of history."

"The believer knows that chastity is not the ridiculous mania of complex people, but it is the ability to lord it over our bodies with the help of grace so that we can meekly enter, each according to his or her condition, into God's loving plan."

"Every Christian community is legitimated the moment it feels the weight, responsibility and apostolic impulse which throb and pulse in the heart of the one Bride of the Lord; every Christian community - within its possibilities - must strive to respond to this ineluctable prompting. This is particularly true with regard to the command to evangelise, in the most intense acceptation of the term."

"It is prophesied that the Antichrist will present himself to the whole of humanity like a pacifist, animalist, ecologist, vegetarian, ecumenist, biblical exegete, philanthropist, as a person who has faith in the progress of science and in universal forgiveness."

"Interview with His Eminence Cardinal Crescenzio Sepe: “My heart will always beat for mission” (2 June 2006)"

"Original dispositions of the Creator can never be annulled. Biblical anthropology suggests, therefore, that one must address with an attitude of relationship and not of competition, the problems that at the public or private level affect the differences of sex."

"I think that to safeguard the earth and maintain its great heritage it is important to exalt human responsibility, because the only being responsible for the other beings is man. Nothing less can come about from his humanity and his responsibility."

"The seed of hope may be the smallest, but it can give life to a lush tree and bear much fruit if we have the courage to face the fears that threaten our city, if we have the strength to break the code of silence and, in solidarity with one another, are able to organise new structures and new forms of charity to lift up those who are alone, those in material and spiritual need. Without indulging in lamentation or victimhood, without waiting for others to take the fate of the south to heart, without clinging to pure welfare, the time has come for the Neapolitans to reclaim their land, relaunching politics as a service to the city, as a school of legality, as a centre for observing the most thorny social issues. We have the energy to do it!"

"Determined to confront the structures of injustice in order to assert their children's rights, Neapolitan mothers not only know how to protect their children, like all mothers, but they also know how to defend the freedom of this land, passing on from generation to generation those universal and immutable ethical values that make every man a true man. Always present, they know how to dry their children's tears, but they also know how to be objective and strict when a child betrays the family spirit. When we say “mum”, we mean a safe haven, but also the law. When the rulers of our city changed, when the state was absent, those who truly reigned and jealously guarded the traditions, customs and practices that have come down to us were, then as now, mothers."

"Yet a martyr is not only someone who performs extraordinary deeds, but in a certain sense, it is also someone who, for the love of his faith, knows how to make the ordinary extraordinary."

"[...] it is characteristic of Neapolitans to rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep (cf. Romans 12:15), establishing those deep and sincere relationships of friendship and respect that are capable of transforming the world. If it is true, as Augustine of Hippo said, that "nothing is dear to man without a friend", then the fact that friendship is sacred in Naples is already a sign of hope, a glimpse of the real possibility of making all things new."

"I know that the religious sentiment of our people is often, and wrongly, labelled as colourful folklore, in which legend and magic, the sacred and the profane, merge in our millennial history which, in the eyes of cold secularism, appears incapable of distinguishing superstition from faith. It is true that much superstition still creeps into the authentic Christian message, but I believe that superstition should not be confused with popular piety. This people, who, since the first liquefaction of the blood, have taken St. Januarius as the protector of their city, know how to grasp, in the manifestation of the miracle, the profound meaning of faith: the hope of resurrection. It is an inexpressible mystery which, in order to be conceived, requires symbols capable of representing the link between pain and redemption. The blood that has miraculously come back to life is a sign that refers to the immortality of the soul, to life beyond death, to the resurrection of the flesh."

"True love never fails... True love, Christian love, love for one's brothers and sisters, for one's roots, never changes, never strays from its path. And it is with this love that I have returned, as a father and pastor, to this land of blood and hope, to commit myself to restoring dignity to our big-hearted people who, repeatedly deprived of freedom throughout their tormented history, have always been able to combine pain with hope."

"Time passes and the world changes, but true love never changes. So wrote Salvatore Di Giacomo in one of his famous songs, which my mother used to hum when I was a child. It was May, the month when the sun warms the air and the scent of spring is at its most intense, when I, a boy from the provinces, came to Naples, attracted, like all young people, by the grandeur of the metropolis and, above all, by a city that is unique, I would say exaggerated in its beauty and its manifestations, for better or for worse."

"Santità, a Maronna t'accumpagni."

"There is no doubt missionary work is not easy and it faces no few problems and challenges, old and new. But one this is certain: if the Lord calls us to such a demanding task it is because He will not fail to supply us with the means to achieve it."

"Rediscover the faith in its own characteristics, overcoming every possible reduction and distortion. The risk is to make it an intellectual or sentimental reality, no longer grasping it as a salvific event that leads to the fulfillment of humanity; man can not do it by himself and faith allows him to fulfill his humanity; faith completes what my being a creature only glimpses and predicts."

"The purpose of all the Church's activity is the salvation of souls. The Curia and other institutions are instruments that must be as flexible as possible in the Pope's and Bishops' hands, to take Christ to the ends of the world."

"On the pastoral level, the Cardinal should help the Holy Father as he does as a member of the universal Church."

"The Gospel is about the poor: if we removed from the Gospel the pages about the poor, only the cover would remain, so if I want to live the Gospel, I must take the poor into account. And if I take the poor into account, perhaps I can really meet Jesus, since he identifies himself with the poor."

"I say that coming to the Holy Land is also a nice gesture of solidarity. It helps to know that other Christians - despite everything - come here."

"World Youth Day in Sydney was a moment of great grace. And now, it is very important that the WYD spirit remains alive through creative initiatives, designed to promote and renew youth ministry in Australia."

"The entire work of Adrienne von Speyr is configured as a "world" so constituted that isolating some partial aspect within it can be dangerous as the global perspective is lost."

"Without being a prophet, I am optimistic, in spite of everything. I trust the Tunisian people who want to live in peace and build their own Country."

"The human being is open to the Kingdom of God in his nature and the Kingdom of God exists with the purpose of belonging to us human creatures. Our human nature has been made and organised in such a way of being directed, despite the freedom of choice given to us, towards the value of the Kingdom of God, for it is only in that value and through it, that it achieves its utter fullness."

"The Christian life really starts from an inner renewal, from a conversion: the return to God. I believe it is a good opportunity to rediscover the foundations of the fundamental choice of Christian life: live it every day in relationship with others and in a dimension of solidarity and openness to the world."

"The unity of the Church and the unity of Christians in Nigeria should be a sign for the whole of society and an example for our Muslim brothers."

"Here the Church was born and then went out to others, with the wounds of the passion still in one hand and a piece of bread in the other."

"The "easiest" and most effective in helping the Holy Land is by going there on pilgrimage. A pilgrimage is good for both the pilgrim and the local Christian and is not an added burden for anyone."

"Ours is an apostolate of life: we present Christ simply trying to live according to his teachings."