Catholics From France

"It is important to strongly reaffirm the will of the Catholic Church to make its own contribution, in the spirit of service, towards an effort common to all Europeans. Many do not share our faith. Others suspect a desire for power on the part of the Church. Others think that the Church is closed, as if it were locked up in the past, and has nothing more to give to today's world. However, many are those who are expecting from the Church and from Christians, a word, a commitment."

"The situation varies from country to country, some are more liberal than others. For us, it is difficult to find the balance between defending the rights of workers and using the tact needed with regard to the authorities, in order to maintain a Christian presence. However, there is great solidarity among Christians."

"To be Christian is to walk with Christ on His way, without dodging Golgotha in the impregnable confidence that the evils that can mark our lives and those of the world are known by Christ, taken in Him in the gift He makes of His life. And that thus they are held in the power of His Resurrection, which delivers us from fear and despair."

"In these tragic events God is always on our side. He continues to visit us, to meet us, and then it's up to us to bring his peace throughout the world."

"When one is ordained it is not for oneself but for the service of a people. When one loves people, when one is loved by Christ, becoming a priest is a beautiful route to take."

"My main task now is to learn: this course has been most helpful and it will be useful for my duties in the diocese. Speaking with the other Bishops I learned that many face difficulties which are more serious than mine such as poverty, persecution. For me this seminar has been a call to take courage, not to fear the mission entrusted to me because I know I can rely on the Lord who is at my side. I was deeply moved by the meeting with the Pope. His physical weakness was an encouragement and an example for us. We saw the heroism of this man who spares no effort to fulfil the mission entrusted to him by Christ."

"In France, for several years, more and more catechumens — of all origins, all ages, all conditions, all religions or estranged from the faith –, ask for Baptism. I discovered in these persons' journey to what point Divine Mercy is at work. The great link occurred to me between the Divine Mercy and the whole journey of these men and women, at once profoundly desirous of knowing God, of experiencing His infinite Mercy, which gives strength."

"It should be noted here that a research area which has grown rapidly since the 1980s is the aforementioned STS field, that is, the sociological study of technology and science. Here, western science and technology are studied as cultural products, and many of its practitioners adhere to the so-called symmetry principle proposed by the French sociologist Bruno Latour, which entails that the same terminology and the same methods of analysis should be used for failures as for successes; in other words, that what we are doing is looking at science as a social fact, not as truth or falsity. Similarly, most anthropologists would argue that our task consists of making sense of ‘the others’, not judging whether they are right or wrong."

"The only shibboleth the West has is science. It is the premise of modernity and it defines itself as a rationality capable of, indeed requiring separation from politics, religion and reality, society. Modernisation is to work towards this."

"Philosophy is not in the business of explaining anything. Actual occasions explain what happened, not philosophy. If there is one thing which philosophy should not do, it is to try to explain anything."

"No one knows any longer whether the reintroduction of the bear in Pyrenees, kolkhozes, aerosols, the Green Revolution, the anti-smallpox vaccine, Star Wars, the Muslim religion, partridge hunting, the French Revolution, service industries, labour unions, cold fusion, Bolshevism, relativity, Slovak nationalism, commercial sailboats, and so on, are outmoded, up to date, futuristic, atemporal, nonexistent, or permanent."

"There is no control and no all-powerful creator, either – no more 'God' than man – but there is care, scruple, cautiousness, attention, contemplation, hesitation and revival. To understand each other, all we have is what comes from our hands, but that does not mean our hands have to be taken for the origin."

"What has happened to those who, like Heidegger, have tried to find their ways in immediacy, in intuition, in nature, would be too sad to retell—and is well known anyway. What is certain is that those pathmarks off the beaten track led indeed nowhere."

"As Churches in the Pacific we are remote and somewhat isolated, but we know we are part of the universal Church and our that task is to be the presence of Christ in Oceania. We will keep in close contact with Rome to nourish our faith and our fidelity to the Holy Father and strive to be always authentic announcers of the Gospel."

"Young Cambodians realize that they are apostles, and realize that evangelization is not the sole prerogative of priests and religious. It is the hope of Christ in us which we want to give to the world. The Gospel is not spread through proselytism, but by infecting people with one's enthusiasm."

"The surrendered soul has found paradise on earth."

"A few days ago, I saw something that consoled me very much. It was during my thanksgiving, when I was making a few reflections on the goodness of God — and how would it be possible not to think of this in such moments: of this infinite goodness, uncreated goodness, source of all goodness! And without which there would be no goodness, neither in people nor in other creatures."

"I understand the full extent of the expression to surrender oneself, but I cannot explain it. I only know that it is very vast, that it embraces both the present and the future."

"Our Churches make themselves servants of the Kingdom which goes far beyond the frontiers of the visible Church because the frontiers of the Kingdom are none other than those of Charity. The Church is not an enterprise that seeks to expand, but it is a witness and servant of what God is doing in humanity. The witness is first of all one who recognizes in the other the work of the Spirit. He offers himself to collaborate in it."

"The Church in Algeria has a mission. We must be weavers of friendship, brotherhood and peace with everyone. We are called to disarm our hearts. We are a Church of encounter."

"We may talk, but dialogue is not about one truth versus another. Fraternity is not about understanding who is wrong and who is right, but about discovering together how each one of us, through our respective faiths, can become true brothers and sisters."

"(About illegal immigrants) diplomacy must explore all the possible ways so that the human person is respected. Obviously, any initiative must be fostered under international law, and with the major goal to keep peace, as the Holy Father often reiterated: 'Only with peace, can we build the future'."

"(About the fall of the Berlin Wall) It was not just a reminder of the end of an era of profound division; it is a symbol of hope, showing that it is possible to overcome seemingly insurmountable obstacles for the benefit of what is deeply rooted in our human nature, namely life in dignity and freedom. And the fact that it was achieved in a marvelously peaceful manner makes us hopeful that it can be done again."

"I believe that the role of the Pope is to confirm his brothers in faith, and I believe that this is why he is coming: to say that Corsica is in his heart, and that the life of the Church in Corsica is important to him, just as the life of all churches around the world is important to him."

"(About security in Europe and around the world) It cannot be achieved without the protection of human rights," but, on the other hand, "full respect of human rights can be ensured only in a secure environment, allowing individuals to enjoy the inalienable rights and freedoms to which they are all entitled as human beings."

"The erosion of freedom of conscience also witnesses to a form of pessimism with regard to the capacity of the human conscience to recognize the good and the true, to the advantage of positive law alone, which tends to monopolize the determination of morality. It is also the Church’s role to remind people that every person, no matter what his beliefs, has, by means of his conscience, the natural capacity to distinguish good from evil and that he should act accordingly. Therein lies the source of his true freedom."

"Certainly, a dialogue with Islam may be pursued and must be pursued. Speaking about a dialogue with Islam is something abstract... we must rather pursue a dialogue with Islamic representatives, believers in Islam, and develop with them, as much as possible, common actions with them in favor of peace and development."

"As quoted in Andrea Gagliarducci, For Cardinal Mamberti, dialogue with Muslims is a must (May 13, 2015)"

"We're facing the laïcité of the state in its most unfair expression, and I believe the Catholics will remember that."

"I like to interact with the pilgrims. I am their bishop, but above all I will be a pilgrim among them."

"I am​ a servant of God. God uses me. I don't know what will happen next but trust in God. I came to Cambodia not to convert people but to help Cambodian people understand the value of their own religion. The main aim is helping people to understand clearly what Buddha taught and what Jesus said in the gospels, helping them to live together and love one another. Our life is valuable even if we are poor. We can walk together. This is the good news we proclaim in Cambodia toda."

"It made me very, very, very, very happy, because I met all those I love and I thank the heavens for giving them to me. I thank God for the trouble they went to."

"Nobody can educated by himself. Education is the transmission of tradition through a witness. And the educator should be a master. Should be someone with enough to authority, not to impose but propose. But if you are not convinced you are unable to propose."

"The Catholic Church is not the religious function of a given political society. It is a communion of an order quite different from what national belonging or the framework of the law can provide, a communion open to all."

"We must continue evangelizing people’s beliefs with regard to angels, as the Church always did in the past. I think that our teaching about angels mustn’t occupy center stage but that it is important, since it reminds us of the spiritual dimension of existence. The simple fact to think of an angelic world, that is a purely spiritual world, would be a good way to fight the world’s underlying materialism and make people understand that there aren’t only material realities. The preaching about angels invites us to have a greater and more beautiful idea of God."

"I can testify to the fertility of the Word among the small and the humble."

"The grace of God can do all things, but in face of so many moral miseries... one sees clearly that human means are powerless, and that God alone can effect so great a transformation. Prayer and penance I The farther I go, the more I see that these are the principal means of acting upon these poor souls."

"It is not medicine we should fear, but the folly of mankind. Every day, the experience of our predecessors increases our ability to change nature by using its own laws. But using this power wisely is what each generation must learn in its turn. We are certainly more powerful today than ever before, but we are no wiser: Technology is cumulative, wisdom is not."

"God has filled our hearts with desires so vast and so magnificent that nothing in creation is capable of satisfying them. Thus it is that in the hope of finding some pleasure, we attach ourselves to created objects and that we have no sooner possessed and sampled that which we have so ardently desired than we turn to something else, hoping to find what we wanted. We are, then, through our own experience, constrained to admit that it is but useless for us to want to derive our happiness here below from transient things. If we hope to have any consolation in this world, it will only be by despising the things which are passing and which have no lasting value and in striving towards the noble and happy end for which God has created us. Do you want to be happy, my friends? Fix your eyes on Heaven; it is there that your hearts will find that which will satisfy them completely."

"I shall spend every moment loving. One who loves does not notice her trials; or perhaps more accurately, she is able to love them. Why must we suffer? Because here below pure Love cannot exist without suffering. O Jesus, Jesus, I no longer feel my cross when I think of yours."

"My great surprise is that the crisis in the Church has been so long. We had prayed that the good Lord would send us a truly Catholic Pope, a holy Catholic Pope, just a few years after my consecration, and here we are, 19 years, and it is the same. It is a great disappointment. The crisis lags, and we have to continue to fight. That is the great difficulty – not for me, but for the faithful especially. The faithful have to be heartened, they must be encouraged not to be fatigued, to be tired. We must continue to fight."

"He’s a very good person, a very pious person. He has a good mind and was a good student. You know, he was always very good to me. I never had any trouble with him. He was just liked by everybody and was a very humble person but just very timid. I just think that—no matter what he thinks, he will cave into whatever is the agenda of the SSPX."

"In 1823, Dubois published a book titled—‘Letters on the State of Christianity in India’, which contained a short phrase—‘In which the conversion of the Hindoos is considered as impracticable’."

"[Dubois opined that Bible translations will] ‘expose the Christian religion and its followers to the ridicule of the public’."

"I have never seen anything in the history of the Egyptians and Jews," writes Abbe Dubois, forty years a resident of India, "that would induce me to believe that either of these nations, or any other on the face of the earth, have been established earlier than the Hindus, and particularly the Brahmans; so I cannot be induced to believe that the latter have drawn their rites from foreign nations. On the contrary, I infer that they have drawn them from an original source of their own. Whoever knows anything of the spirit and character of the Brahmans, their stateliness, their pride, and extreme vanity, their distance, and sovereign contempt for everything that is foreign, and of which they cannot boast to have been the inventors, will agree with me that such a people cannot have consented to draw their customs and rules of conduct from an alien country."

"But there is this vast difference between the ancient philosophers and the modern sages of India, that the former were too few in number to influence the public mind, and had not sufficient support, to combat successfully the errors into which the multitude had fallen ; whereas the Brahmans, from their numbers and the high consideration in which they are held, if they seriously desired it, and if their interest and passions. did not run the other way, might throw down by a single effort, the whole edifice of idolatry in India, and substitute without difficulty, in its room, the knowledge and worship of the true God; of whom they themselve still preserves the loftiest conceptions."

"With such simple tools the patient Hindu, thanks to his industry, can produce specimens of work which are often not to be distinguished from those imported at great expense from foreign countries."

"It must be admitted that the laws of etiquette and social politeness are much more clearly laid down, and much better observed by all classes of Hindus, even by the lowest, than they are by people of corresponding social position in Europe."

"And there is no stronghold of evil so impregnable as Brahmins."

"Without form or comeliness, and nailed to the cross—thus is truth to be adored."