QUOTATION: Dissent

There is no less danger in contradicting the moral teachings of Jesus Christ than in rejecting his doctrine, for usually what causes the loss of faith is disorder in moral behavior.

--St. Jean Baptiste de la Sale, Meditations

QUOTATION: Accepting Church Teaching

He who does not embrace the teaching of the Church does not have the habit of faith.

--St. Thomas Aquinas

QUOTATION: Christian Teaching on Sexuality

The validity of Christian teaching on sexuality and marriage is demonstrated in the wounds of those who do not practice it.

--Cardinal George Pell, Test Everything, Hold Fast to What is Good

QUOTATION: Unpopular Doctrine

When the true doctrine is unpopular, it is not right to seek easy popularity.

--Pope St. John Paul II

QUOTATION: Faith

We all must have the faith of children, but the doctrine of theologians.

--St. Josemaria Escriva

QUOTATION: Vatican II Doctrine

Whatever were our opinions about the Council's various doctrines before its conclusions were promulgated, today our adherence to the decisions of the Council must be whole hearted and without reserve; it must be willing and prepared to give them the service of our thought, action and conduct. The Council was something very new: not all were prepared to understand and accept it. But now the conciliar doctrine must be seen as belonging to the magisterium of the Church and, indeed, be attributed to the breath of the Holy Spirit.

--Pope Paul VI to the Roman Curia, 23 April, 1966

QUOTATION: Doctrine

Under no circumstances can we conceive of the possibility of change, of evolution, or of any modification in matters of faith. The Creed remains always the same.

--Pope Paul VI

QUOTATION: How to Believe

We all must have the faith of children, but the doctrine of theologians.

--St. Josemaria Escriva

QUOTATION: No Compromising on Faith

Throughout history, the people of God have always been tempted to chop a piece off faith, not to be too rigid. But when we start to cut down on faith, to negotiate faith, selling it to the highest bidder we take the path of apostasy, we begin to lack faith in the Lord.

--Pope Francis

QUOTATION: Doctrine

If one yields ground on any single point of Catholic doctrine, one will later have to yield later in another, and again in another, and so on until such surrenders come to be something normal and acceptable. And when one gets used to rejecting dogma bit by bit, the final result will be the repudiation of it altogether.

-- St. Vincent of Lerins

QUOTATION: The Test of Time

So far as a man may be proud of a religion rooted in humility, I am very proud of my religion; I am especially proud of those parts of it that are most commonly called superstition. I am proud of being fettered by antiquated dogmas and enslaved by dead creeds (as my journalistic friends repeat with so much pertinacity), for I know very well that it is the heretical creeds that are dead, and that it is only the reasonable dogma that lives long enough to be called antiquated.

--G. K. Chesterton, Autobiography

QUOTATION: Doctrine

To put into practice the teachings of our holy faith, it is not enough to convince ourselves that they are true; we must love them. Love united to faith makes us practise our religion.

--St. Alphonsus Liguori

QUOTATION: Submission to the Magisterium

Intellectually speaking, the position of one who "submits to the Church" is that of one who has reached a satisfactory induction--namely, that the Church is infallibly guided into all truth--and can infer from it, by a simple process of deduction, the truth of the various doctrines which she teaches. He does not measure the veracity of the Church by the plausibility of her tenets; he measures the plausibility of her tenets by the conviction he has already formed of her veracity. Thus, and thus only can the human intellect reasonably accept statements which (although they cannot be disproved) cannot be proved by human reason alone.

--Msgr Ronald Knox, The Belief of Catholics