QUOTATION: Doctrines

Originally there was no such thing as a series of doctrinal propositions that could be enumerated one after the other and entered in a book as a well-defined body of dogmas. Such a notion, which today may be difficult to resist, would have to be described as a misconception of the nature of the Christian assent to the God revealed in Christ.

--Cardinal Josef Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI), Introduction to Christianity, 1968

QUOTATION: Unpopular Doctrines

But the prevalent irreligion of the age does exercise a continual unconscious pressure upon the pulpit; it makes preachers hesitate to affirm doctrines whose affirmation would be unpopular. And a doctrine which has ceased to be affirmed is doomed, like a disused organ, to atrophy.

--Msgr Ronald Knox, The Belief of Catholics, 1927

QUOTATION: Assent of Faith

Our belief in the teachings of the Church de fide must be an absolute and unconditional one, but we should not imagine that our fidelity to the Church's theoretical authority is satisfied merely by acceptance of ex cathedra pronouncements. We must also adhere wholeheartedly to teachings of the Church in matters of morality, even if they are not defined ex cathedra. The teachings of the encyclical Humanae Vitae, for example, is binding because its content had always been part of the teaching of the Church; in it we are confronted with the theoretical authority of the Church embodied in the tradition of the ordinary Magisterium. It is not a mere practical commandment of the Church, like the commandment to go to church on Sunday.

--Dietrich Von Hildebrand

QUOTATION: Knowledge of the Faith is a Necessity

We therefore grossly deceive ourselves in not allotting more time to the study of divine truths. It is not enough barely to believe them, and let our thoughts now and then glance upon them: that knowledge which shows us heaven, will not bring us to the possession of it, and will deserve punishments, not rewards, if it remain slight, weak, and superficial. By serious and frequent meditation it must be concocted, digested, and turned into the nourishment of our affections, before it can be powerful and operative enough to change them, and produce the necessary fruit in our lives. For this all the saints affected solitude and retreats from the noise and hurry of the world, as much as their circumstances allowed them.

-- Saint Apollinaris of Hierapolis

QUOTATION: The Restoration of the Sense of Sin

The restoration of a proper sense of sin is the first way of facing the grave spiritual crisis looming over man today. But the sense of sin can only be restored through a clear reminder of the unchangeable principles of reason and faith which the moral teaching of the Church has always upheld.

--Pope John Paul II, Reconciliatio et Paenitentia

QUOTATION: Of Faith

For this reason the Fathers of the Vatican Council laid down nothing new, but followed divine revelation and the acknowledged and invariable teaching of the Church as to the very nature of faith, when they decreed as follows: "All those things are to be believed by divine and Catholic faith which are contained in the written or unwritten word of God, and which are proposed by the Church as divinely revealed, either by a solemn definition or in the exercise of its ordinary and universal Magisterium" (Sess. iii., cap. 3).

--Pope Leo XIII, Satis Cognitum, On the Unity of the Church, 1896.

QUOTATION: Moral Doctrine

The Church, in her life and teaching, is thus revealed as "the pillar and bulwark of the truth" (1 Tm 3:15), including the truth regarding moral action.

--Pope John Paul II

QUOTATIONS: Moral Doctrine

As this Pope [i.e. Pope John Paul II] has affirmed again and again, revealed moral doctrine is truly doctrine of the faith. What is at stake is infinitely more than intramural squabbles between liberals and conservatives, progressives and traditionalists. What is at stake is whether people understand that they are invited to the high moral drama of Christian discipleship, of living in the truth. Souls are at stake. And if we do not believe that souls are at stake, we must seriously ask ourselves what business we think we are in.

--Fr. Richard John Neuhaus, 'To Propose The Truth'

QUOTATION: Church Doctrines on Sexuality

It is no secret that the Church's teaching on sexuality, marriage, and family is ignored by many Catholics and is derided by the world. This is not to say that the teaching is rejected, for to be rejected it must be understood, and to be understood it must be taught. All too frequently the Church's truth about marriage and the family is not taught-not confidently, not persistently, not winsomely, not with conviction.

--Fr. Richard John Neuhaus, 'To Propose The Truth'