Roman Catholic Priests

"A great deal depends on the temper of the court. Facts depend for their interpretation upon the point of view."

"Perhaps that is the reason that I think I see it all so plainly; just because I want to see it plainly."

"The development of a nation is strangely paralleled by the development of an individual. There comes in both a period of adolescence, ... and there is a curious mingling of refinement and brutality, stupidity and tenderness."

"Whenever your soul begins to be disturbed and anxious, put yourself in His Hands, and refuse to decide for yourself. It is so easy, so easy."

"Surely the King of Love needed no herald when Himself was here."

"Democracy doesn't give the Average Man any real power at all. It swamps him among, under his friends — that is to say, it kills his individuality; and his individuality is the one thing he has which is worth anything."

"Man must have liberty — he was made for it; but what liberty would that be which he has not learned to use?"

"Ignorance may be bliss, but it certainly is not freedom, except in the minds of those who prefer darkness to light, and chains to liberty. The more true information we can acquire, the better for our enfranchisement."

"I agree that your troubles are real enough. But all the better. ... I think that the Authorities are pleased sometimes 'to give us something to cry for.' ... Most of us cry without anything. ... And I think that the insane desire one has sometimes to bang and kick grumblers and peevish persons, is a Divine instinct. ... Ergo. ... Therefore thank Them that you something to cry for. One doesn't get far without it."

"So long as there is Sin in the world, so long must there be Penance."

"Honors and privileges are worth nothing if every one has them. If we all wore crowns, the kings would go bareheaded."

"It is a good deal more fashionable, and considered a great deal more 'spiritual,' to stand outside creeds and churches than within them."

"Cast away Authority, and authority shall forsake you."

"To each soul Christ comes, all trusting as a friend, and in each soul He is betrayed over and over again."

"The one condition of progress and the building of Jerusalem, on the planet that happened to be men’s dwelling place, was peace, not the sword which Christ brought or that which Mahomet wielded; but peace that arose from, not passed, understanding; the peace that sprang from a knowledge that man was all and was able to develop himself only by sympathy with his fellows. To Oliver and his wife, then, the last century seemed like a revelation; little by little the old superstitions had died, and the new light broadened; the Spirit of the World had roused Himself, the sun had dawned in the west; and now with horror and loathing they had seen the clouds gather once more in the quarter whence all superstition had had its birth."

"Remember human nature, Monsignor. After all, it was only intense self-importance that used to make men say that they were independent of exterior beauty. It's far more natural and simple to like beauty. Every child does, after all."

"It is strange, sometimes, to find that some silent old lady has a power for sounding human character, which far shrewder persons lack."

"Well, what they call the Incarnation is really the point. Everything else flows from that. And, once a man believes that, I must confess that all the rest follows—even down to scapulars and holy water." "Mr. Francis, I don’t understand a word you’re saying." He smiled indulgently. "Of course not," he said; "it is all incredible nonsense. But, you know, I did really believe it all once." "But it’s unreasonable," she said. He made a little demurring sound. "Yes," he said, "in one sense, of course it is—utterly unreasonable. But in another sense——"

"He pictured the peace of the ransomed soul, that knows itself safe in the arms of God; that rejoices, even in this world, in the Light of His Face and the ecstasy of His embrace; that dwells by waters of comfort and lies down in the green pastures of the Heavenly Love; while, round this little island of salvation in an ocean of terror, the thunders of wrath sound only as the noise of surge on a far-off reef."

"She has been taught to hold herself in, and not to show her feelings; and that, I think, is as much a drawback sometimes as wearing the heart upon the sleeve."

"Religion always is and always has been at the root of every world-movement."

"Christians...deliberately severed themselves from that Body of which by human generation they had been made members. They were as mortified limbs yielding themselves to the domination of an outside force other than that which was their only life, and by that very act imperilled the entire Body. This madness, then, was the one crime which still deserved the name. Murder, theft, rape, even anarchy itself, were as trifling faults compared to this monstrous sin, for while these injured indeed the Body they did not strike at its heart—individuals suffered, and therefore those minor criminals deserved restraint; but the very Life was not struck at. But in Christianity there was a poison actually deadly. Every cell that became infected with it was infected in that very fibre that bound it to the spring of life. This, and this alone, was the supreme crime of High Treason against man—and nothing but complete removal from the world could be an adequate remedy."

"To say 'Hail Mary, Hail Mary,' is the best way of telling her how much we love her. And then this string of beads is like Our Lady's girdle, and her children love to finger it, and whisper to her. And then we say our paternosters, too; and all the while we are talking she is shewing us pictures of her dear Child, and we look at all the great things He did for us, one by one; and then we turn the page and begin again."

"A growing lad, while he is clumsier, yet manages to leap higher than a year ago."

"The human race was now a single entity with a supreme responsibility towards itself; there were no longer any private rights at all, such as had certainly existed, in the period previous to this. Man now possessed dominion over every cell which composed His Mystical Body, and where any such cell asserted itself to the detriment of the Body, the rights of the whole were unqualified."

"There is no such thing, of course, really as Irreligion — except by a purely conventional use of the word: the 'irreligious' man is one who has made up his mind either that there is no future world, or that it is so remote, as regards effectivity, as to have no bearing upon this. And that is a religion — at least it is a dogmatic creed — as much as any other."

"Every man may err, but not the whole gathered together; for the whole hath a promise, but so hath not every particular man."

""Until our Lord comes back," he thought to himself; and for an instant the old misery stabbed at his heart. How difficult it was to hold the eyes focussed on that far horizon when this world lay in the foreground so compelling in its splendour and its strength!"

"The car was now ascending rapidly towards the pass up across the huge tumbled slopes, ravines, and cliffs that lie like outworks of the enormous wall. Seen from this great height they were in themselves comparatively insignificant, but they at least suggested the vastness of the bastions of which they were no more than buttresses."

"Nothing is so bad as not trusting God."

"Growth means the unfolding of interior capacities through the assimilation of external substances."

"Philosophers tell us that the value of existence lies not in the objects perceived, but in the powers of perception."

"The process of digestion in every organism separates the healthy and useful from the harmful and useless elements."

"Their nakedness was their armour, their slow tongues their persuasiveness, their weakness demanded God’s strength, and found it."

"The sense of home-coming was stronger than all else — that strange passion for a particular set of inanimate things — or, at the most, for an association of ideas — that has no parallel in human emotions."

"In these days, when there is so much enterprise, money has become, as it were, a living thing that grows; or at the least a tool that can be used."

"We offer no rewards except those which God Himself has promised to those that love Him, and lay down their life for Him; no promise of peace, save of that which passeth understanding; no home save that which befits pilgrims and sojourners who seek a City to come; no honour save the world’s contempt; no life, save that which is hid with Christ in God."

"It is perfectly true that Protestantism is dead. Men do recognise at last that a supernatural Religion involves an absolute authority, and that Private Judgment in matters of faith is nothing else than the beginning of disintegration. And it is also true that since the Catholic Church is the only institution that even claims supernatural authority, with all its merciless logic, she has again the allegiance of practically all Christians who have any supernatural belief left. There are a few faddists left, especially in America and here; but they are negligible."

"You see, when competition ceases, effort ceases. Human nature is human nature, after all. The Socialists forgot that."

"Z or , the good kitchen-maid; She prayed, and she prayed, and she prayed, and she prayed."

"The State can only give for economic reasons, however conscientious and individually charitable statesmen may be; while the Church gives for the Love of God, and the Love of God never yet destroyed any man's self-respect."

"The Socialist saw plainly the rights of the Society; the Anarchist saw the rights of the Individual. How therefore were these to be reconciled? The Church stepped in at that crucial point and answered, By the Family — whether domestic or religious. For in the Family you have both claims recognized: there is authority and yet there is liberty. For the union of the Family lies in Love; and Love is the only reconciliation of authority and liberty."

"If a soul lives long enough on the plane of sensuality or of ambition, she finds that Christ is worth less than nothing there."

"Man’s highest life does not consist in self-expression, but in self-sacrifice."

"In the ages of faith a very inadequate grasp of religion would pass muster; in these searching days none but the humble and the pure could stand the test for long, unless indeed they were protected by a miracle of ignorance. The alliance of Psychology and Materialism did indeed seem, looked at from one angle, to account for everything; it needed a robust supernatural perception to understand their practical inadequacy."

"It is understood now, by fanatic barbarians as well as by civilised nations, that the reign of War is ended. 'Not peace but a sword,' said ; and bitterly true have those words proved to be. 'Not a sword but peace' is the retort, articulate at last, from those who have renounced Christ’s claims or have never accepted them. The principle of love and union learned however falteringly in the West during the last century, has been taken up in the East as well. There shall be no more an appeal to arms, but to justice; no longer a crying after a God Who hides Himself, but to Man who has learned his own Divinity. The Supernatural is dead; rather, we know now that it never yet has been alive. What remains is to work out this new lesson, to bring every action, word and thought to the bar of Love and Justice; and this will be, no doubt, the task of years. Every code must be reversed; every barrier thrown down; party must unite with party, country with country, and continent with continent. There is no longer the fear of fear, the dread of the hereafter, or the paralysis of strife. Man has groaned long enough in the travails of birth; his blood has been poured out like water through his own foolishness; but at length he understands himself and is at peace."

"You say Christianity is absurd and impossible. Now, you know, it cannot be that! It may be untrue,— I am not speaking of that now, even though I am perfectly certain that it is absolutely true—but it cannot be absurd so long as educated and virtuous people continue to hold it. To say that it is absurd is simple pride; it is to dismiss all who believe in it as not merely mistaken, but unintelligent as well."

"He began, as his custom was in mental prayer, by a deliberate act of self-exclusion from the world of sense. Under the image of sinking beneath a surface he forced himself downwards and inwards, till the peal of the organ, the shuffle of footsteps, the rigidity of the chair-back beneath his wrists—all seemed apart and external, and he was left a single person with a beating heart, an intellect that suggested image after image, and emotions that were too languid to stir themselves. Then he made his second descent, renounced all that he possessed and was, and became conscious that even the body was left behind, and that his mind and heart, awed by the Presence in which they found themselves, clung close and obedient to the will which was their lord and protector. He drew another long breath, or two, as he felt that Presence surge about him; he repeated a few mechanical words, and sank to that peace which follows the relinquishment of thought."

"The Holy Father was attended at the altar by the usual sovereigns; and Percy from his place watched the heavenly drama of Christ’s Passion enacted through the veil of His nativity at the hands of His old Angelic Vicar. It was hard to perceive Calvary here ; it was surely the air of Bethlehem, the celestial light, not the supernatural darkness, that beamed round the simple altar. It was the Child called Wonderful that lay there beneath the old hands, rather than the stricken Man of Sorrows."

"Men have thought—led astray by seducers—that the unity of nations was the greatest prize of this life, forgetting the words of our Saviour, Who said that He came to bring not peace but a sword, and that it is through many tribulations that we enter God’s Kingdom. First, then, there should be established the peace of man with God, and after that the unity of man with man will follow. Seek ye first, said Jesus Christ, the kingdom of God—and then all these things shall be added unto you."