Clergy From The United States

"At any measuere, absolutely everything that humans rely on... is now in precipitous free fall, unstoppable."

"Homo colossus is Willam Catton's term for "industrial" humanity. That's where each of us uses 20-50 times the resources, and exudes 20-50 times the waste as Homo sapiens."

"[P]aradoxically, "hope-free" collapse acceptance may be the only thing that can help us not make a bad situation worse—and live fully, fearlessly, and deeply meaningfully, even at TEOTWAWKI."

"The history of more than 80 previous boom and bust societies... reveals how and why Homo colossus is destined for near-term extinction."

"The stability of the biosphere has been in decline for centuries and in unstoppable collapse for decades. This "Great Acceleration" of technology and market-driven ecocide is an easily verifiable fact... [A]ll you have to do is Google "Great Acceleration.""

"We all have denial instincts... so we... can have compassion for ourselves and for each other... [D]enial often gets a bad wrap. It's often just adaptive inattention."

"Collapse is when a gradual downward trend in biophysical health and wellbeing goes into unstoppable decline; runaway, out of control; etc., it's... abrupt climate change... like 10,000 years of climate change in half a human lifetime. ...This is known as "The Great Acceleration" of Biospheric Collapse."

"Unstoppable collapse... These extinction level tipping points... thresholds that are already in the rear view mirror. Loss of the world's ice... I consider Dahr Jamail's The End of Ice... my favorite book on climate change. If you only read one book on climate change this year, read that..."

"Evidence is also compelling that the vast majority... will deny this, especially those benefiting from the existing order, those legitimately concerned about the consequences of collapse, and those who fear that accepting reality means "giving up." ...Virtually all of us fit that paragraph ..."

"The monastery is a house of prayer, study, and hospitality, a place in which they can await the return to Christ, the Spouse, in order to participate in the Heavenly Banquet."

"It has been a work in progress (the Lord gently leading) that I have noticed ever since I lost interest in being either a cowboy or a fireman. My image of the priesthood has grown with me and continues to grow."

"Parents tell me about their children and say, "Basketball is his life," or "Skiing is her life" but at a deeper level as Catholics we say, "Christ is my life," and so the athletes and every Catholic need to be integrating that relationship into their activities — sports or otherwise."

"The work of a missionary is to put yourself out of the job."

"We give thanks for what has happened in the early years, a sign of the Holy Spirit, we live in the present with enthusiasm and we look forward with hope to the future. Arguments, hatred, jealously are the work of the devil, while peace is the way of Christ. Noro, with its different denominations, cultures and customs is a sign of hope for sharing the Good News with all."

"War is the science of destruction."

"Popular prejudice is seldom removed by argument"

"Christianity had undermined all the temples of idolatry, and was enthroned as the established religion of the Roman empire. Ambitious men rallied about it as a great political power. Wicked men nominally embraced it as an essential step to worldly advancement. Christianity had thus, perhaps, more to fear from favoritism than from persecution. Unprincipled men, grasping at wealth and power, embraced Christianity merely as an instrument for the promotion of their own temporal aggrandizement. They hated its spiritual teachings, and endeavored to make it a religion of dead doctrines and of pompous ceremonies, rather than a rule to govern heart and life. They crucified Christianity while crowning it."

"Civil war burst upon the United States, with almost the suddenness of the meteor's glare. It was, however, but like the eruption of the volcano, whose pent-up fires had, for ages, been gathering strength for the final explosion. The whirlwind which our country has reaped, is but the natural harvest of that seed which, for long years, we have been sowing."

"The cornerstone role is a real challenge. But you can be certain that if you are gay or lesbian the Holy Spirit is calling you to take some steps in that direction, to be more open about your gayness, to be more open about the depth of your spiritual life. We must seek God's guidance because a cornerstone, after all, is a small, if essential, part of a building, the entirety of which is the work of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit waits on our freedom to invite her in to make use of our gifts and talents in bringing about the reign of God, a reign of justice and peace, a reign where God's glory is achieved through the fullness of life that all humans share, gay and straight alike."

"John J. McNeill was a Jesuit for nearly forty years before being expelled from the Society of Jesus in 1987 for his views on gay and lesbian sexuality. Since 1975 he has practiced psychotherapy in New York City. The Church and the Homosexual, also available from Beacon Press."

"One's whole life can be caught up in this attitude with the result that the quality of life is destroyed. The high-school student waits for graduation; the college student waits for graduate school; the graduate student waits for a job; the worker waits for a vacation; the vacationer waits to go back to work; the veteran worker waits for retirement. Our whole life can be spent waiting for what comes next. Then death intervenes and in a way it can be said that we never really existed, because we never found time to do something for its own sake; that is to say, we never played."

"I don't think that it's my role as a bishop, to run around and judge. It's rather to run around and invite people into a relationship with Jesus. The Lord accepted people for who they are, and where there are, and tried to lead them to a better life, to lead them to a life that was more holy, a life that was more filled with His love and mercy. A life that was not self-centered, but self-giving. That's the example he showed to us. At times, the church needs to be a voice in the public square, but the church's voice should never be dictated by the public square."

"Freedom, the most distinctively human and humanizing of all gifts, becomes in human history a temptation to power and self-centeredness - just the opposite of what we need and are made for. The very gift that makes us most human and after which we most deeply yearn is the very cause of so much human pain and deterioration, for unless we use this freedom for our own good and the good of one another, we end up making one another slaves."

"The ethics of the Church and the fundamental human ethics are the same thing, they are linked. Therefore, my appeal is that we treat these farmworkers as we treat other workers in the State of New York, with the same dignity, simply because they are human beings. They are entitled to the same kind of protections that other workers in the State of New York have."

"When I get asked the question, "When did you know you wanted to be a priest?," many times I say "This morning." Every day you have to wake up and say, "God, what are you calling me to do today?" The layers of lived experience is what brings us to an appreciation for what we’re called to do in that moment."

"Everything we do as a church these days needs to have as its heart a desire of evangelization. Every conversation about how we pray together in the liturgy, how we do faith formation — whether it’s in our Catholic schools or in our parish religious education programs, RCIA, adult formation — all of that has to ask the question: "How are we using these things to evangelize, to bring others to Jesus Christ?""

"I make decisions consultatively with others, not in a vacuum, and I know in doing so I'm listening to the Holy Spirit and to those who advise me to look out for God's people. I really compare it to being a parent in a family. Sometimes parents have to make unpopular decisions that might not be understood by everyone in the family, and they might be disliked for a while, but I think parents have to make decisions for the good of the whole family."

"People think that I have more power than I do. As the archbishop, I have to live not by "fiat" or by decree, but I have to live by gathering the people of God. Some people say that all I have to do is say it to be done, but it doesn't work that way. It is a position for great responsibility within the Church, but it is a ministry of the Church. I think that any power that I exercise has to be exercised with humility and in the light of the Gospel."

"The priest as a man needs to be courageous enough to welcome his masculinity, embrace it, and express it in a balanced way. Ironically, the priest who’s not able to do this is prone to lapsing into one of two destructive extremes. He may either repress his masculinity and become “wishy-washy” and indecisive, feeling guilty and apologizing for his maleness, or he may fall into the other extreme, becoming aggressive, power-hungry and domineering. Becoming a mature male means being comfortable with one’s masculinity, not needing to hide it or exaggerate it. We ought not to apologize for being a man. At the same time, we should not use our masculinity as a weapon."

"I've been through a lot of life's changes, but it's always my faith that I've been able to fall back on; that I draw strength from. I come from a family of Christians, also a long military tradition. So, faith in our family has always sustained us as a family, but also as individuals. It's because of that upbringing, because of that trust, that there is something greater than myself"

"To me it is really beautiful and it really expresses the catholicity of the Church, that the people have embraced the faith as something that is truly theirs, something that is truly meaningful to them. They don't look upon it as something foreign, as something coming from the outside."

"The Catholic Church, and our Catholic faith, is the answer to this darkness and bringing people into relationship with Jesus and teaching the dignity of the human person are the best ways of changing people’s attitudes and changing their behavior"

"We want parents and teachers to regularly have conversations with young men and women about God's plan for their lives. These should be ordinary conversations; otherwise, when the topic of vocations comes up, it seems like something arcane, unfamiliar, or mysterious."

"Philosophy of science can bring a strong array of analytical and synthetic tools to questions of ultimate causation, ultimate reality and “the whole of reality” because these questions are both physical and metaphysical—entailing methodological procedures from both science and philosophy."

"I’ll just simply say we haven’t done any apologetics in a concerted fashion since Vatican II. I don’t know why. I’m still trying to figure this out myself—why did apologetics became a bad word, why did it become a reflection of some kind of inauthenticity of faith? We’ve somehow drifted into a Kierkegaardianism—we have to take a leap of faith across an infinite chasm. But I’ve never thought that at all! I luckily had great teachers who believed reason and faith came from the same source, with God never intending us to jump over an infinite chasm."

"Unleash The Gospel is not a numbers game. It's about falling in love with the one who loves us, and that's a person-by-person change."

"The second key to this study is the phenomenon of deliberate falsification of history as part of the enslavement of others. It is generally agreed, even by the Franco-Latin nobility, that the civilization of the Roman Empire was Hellenic in its inception. But this same nobility claims that this Romano-Hellenic Civilization changed into a Western Civilization in the 8-9th centuries in Western Europe and into a Byzantine Civilization in the East at about the same time. But what had really happened was that the Franco-Latins had reverted to a period of sheer barbarity under the leadership of the Carolingian Franks which up until recently was still being called the "Dark Ages." How else can one describe France, for example, in 1789 when 85% of her population were still serfs and villains guarded from escape by 40,000 castles. How can such a France be better described than part of the Dark Ages. It can, of course, be made to look like a civilized society only when history is controlled by the aristocracy and the middle class of 13% which still keep this so-called "free" 85% in abject slavery to history as written by themselves."

"I’m grateful to the Church for recognizing him. I’m proud of him for not giving up, meeting his daily challenges and trusting in God’s promise to give him eternal life. Stanley was one who lived simply, gave his best, and I’m sure has heard the Lord say to him, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”"

"From Nowheresville Oklahoma to Heavensville Heaven, it's amazing."

"It could be that the army group here was recalled to help out in El Salvador because the war there is now picking up in intensity. This whole Central American area is in the process of change and if the Governments don't want to do it peacefully, then it will be done by war. It is sad but it has to happen. I haven't been able to confirm the report that the army did move out. Just say a prayer on occasion that we will be safe and still able to be of service to these people of God."

"He was an ordinary man who was a good steward of the gifts God gave him. He cultivated those gifts, those natural talents. They were not necessarily the kinds of talents one would have identified as those of a future saint, but he used those gifts that God gave him faithfully and generously and allowed the Lord to lead him. He said, “Yes” to the promptings of grace in his life and was very generous in his response. So God calls all of us to be holy. All of us are called to sanctity. But the path that each of us walks is uniquely ours."

"You have the SSPX problem of taking decrees and doctrinal pronouncements from the people that they theoretically recognize as the Pope have to pass in review in front of the Superiors of the Society who decide which of them are in accord with Tradition and which are not. This was the idea of sifting – the French word was cribler – they do the sifting. And, that seems like a pretty dead end to me, because I don’t see that anywhere in a Catholic theology book. We know that the Church can’t defect. It’s contrary to the nature of the Church. But we know that the Church does not cease to exist when you don’t have a Pope for a while, not even for a long time. There’s no theologian who says that."

"It is hard for me to even conceive of the traditional movement without Father Cekada. Together we made a good team, each contributing the preservation and defense of the Catholic Faith against the onslaughts of the modernists."

"It’s like, "Hey the house is on fire!" I’m not going to ask anybody’s permission to go scream that the house is on fire... that’s the distinction that I would make."

"If someone came along and said that you or I were not human, we don’t want the law to make them believe we’re human. We want the law to protect our lives no matter what they believe. They have the freedom to believe what they want, and that’s what the pro-life movement is saying. These babies in the womb are identifiably, undeniably, scientifically human beings and, therefore, they should be protected by the law."

"I have often asked myself: “Why has Jesus let all of this happen?” The only answer that comes to mind is that Jesus wants to manifest just how weak is the faith of many within the Church, even among too many of her bishops. Ironically, your pontificate has given those who hold harmful theological and pastoral views the license and confidence to come into the light and expose their previously hidden darkness. In recognizing this darkness, the Church will humbly need to renew herself, and so continue to grow in holiness."

"The world needs holy men today, especially fathers–both biological fathers and spiritual fathers, priests and bishops. Today many men are confused about what it means to be a man, a husband, and a father. Addictions to pornography and entertainment (especially sports) have consumed the lives of men around the world. Furthermore, for those who want to try and break free of the cycle of cultural brain-washing, education and career systems have been put in place to beat down any traditional understanding of strong male leadership, determining and classifying traditional manhood as toxic. This has left many men feeling emasculated and adrift in a society that views their fatherhood and leadership as dispensable. We need St. Joseph to serve as the model for men (fathers, husbands, and clergy) today. From St. Joseph they learn to be servant leaders, sacrificial and chivalrous men not afraid to confront the darkness, slay spiritual dragons, and combat the politics of death. If St. Joseph is the Terror of Demons (and he is), all men are called to resemble him and also be a terror to the forces of evil."

"If my experiences define me, then that’s who I am. Or if I’ve chosen the wrong thing, if I’ve gone down this path that I shouldn’t have gone down—if my experiences define me, then that’s who I am. But I can be defined by something more, by my origin, by the fact that I’ve been made on purpose by a God who loves me, and am defined by my end, which is that I am made to live with that God forever and that I’ve been created on purpose. If I’m a Christian, I’ve been recreated as a son or daughter of God himself, and so even if my experience or even my story has a lot of brokenness in it—and I think a lot of ours do—and even if my experience or my story has a lot of pain or attraction to whatever, it doesn’t matter. My identity is not that. And I can rise above that. I can live it. It’s part of my story, but that’s not the end of my story."

"All the saints say that you must have a deep devotion to Our Lady to be a saint. Medieval chivalry and medieval Marian devotion go hand in hand. A man must always live, work, and pray as if he were under the gaze of a Mother."

"Against the false claim of that good-willed but misled pastor, Saint Thomas Aquinas can be easy, simple, and accessible to any Catholic who is able to read. I am so convinced of this that I earned my Ph.D on the Philosophy of Thomas Aquinas, and I have made it is my life goal to make the world “a more Thomistic place.""