QUOTATION: Truth and Democracy

It is a mistake to apply American democratic procedures to the faith and the truth. You cannot take a vote on the truth. The value of democracy stands or falls with the values which it embodies and promotes.

--Pope John Paul II

QUOTATION: Religion in the Public Square

To wish to draw an exact line of separation between religion and life, between the natural and the supernatural, between the Church and the world, as if they had nothing to do with each other, as if the rights of God were valueless in all manifold realities of daily life, whether human or social, is entirely foreign to Catholic thought and is positively anti-Christian.

--Pope Pius XII, On Christian Rebirth, 1947

QUOTATION: Words and Deeds

Actions speak louder than words; let your words teach and your actions speak. We are full of words but empty of actions, and therefore are cursed by the Lord, since he himself cursed the fig tree when he found no fruit but only leaves. It is useless for a man to flaunt his knowledge of the law if he undermines its teaching by his actions.

--Saint Anthony of Padua

QUOTATION: The Necessity of Faith

That is why Faith is such a necessary virtue: unless you teach your moods "where they get off," you can never be either a sound Christian or even a sound atheist, but just a creature dithering to and fro, with its beliefs really dependent on the weather and the state of its digestion.

--C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

QUOTATION: The Laity

I want a laity, not arrogant, not rash in speech, not disputatious, but men who know their religion, who enter into it, who know just where they stand, who know what they hold and what they do not, who know their creed so well that they can give an account of it, who know so much of history that they can defend it. I want an intelligent, well-instructed laity – I wish [them] to enlarge [their] knowledge, to cultivate [their] reason, to get an insight into the relation of truth to truth, to learn to view things as they are, to understand how faith and reason stand to each other, what are the bases and principles of Catholicism.

--Blessed John Henry Newman

QUOTATION: Trusting God

Trust the past to the Mercy of God, the present to His Love, and the future to His Providence.

-- St. Augustine

QUOTATION: Virtue

True virtue is not sad or disagreeable, but pleasantly cheerful.

--St. Josemaria Escriva

QUOTATION: Compromise

In matters of faith, compromise is in contradiction with God Who is the Truth.

--John Paul II, Ut Unum Sint, 1995

QUOTATION: Pride in the Believer

How is it that people who are quite obviously eaten up with Pride can say they believe in God and appear to themselves very religious? I am afraid it means they are worshipping an imaginary God. They theoretically admit themselves to be nothing in the presence of this phantom God, but are really all the time imagining how He approves of them and thinks them far better than ordinary people: that is,they pay a pennyworth of imaginary humility to Him and get out of it a pound's worth of Pride towards their fellow-men.

--C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

QUOTATION: Religion in the Public Square

There are those who would advocate that the voice of religion be silenced, or at least relegated to the purely private sphere. There are those who argue that the public celebration of festivals such as Christmas should be discouraged, in the questionable belief that it might somehow offend those of other religions or none. These are worrying signs of a failure to appreciate not only the rights of believers to freedom of conscience and freedom of religion, but also the legitimate role of religion in the public square.

-- Pope Benedict XVI, 2010

QUOTATION: Closeness to God

The sinner who is ashamed to do evil is closer to God than the upright man who is ashamed to do good.

--Saint Padre Pio

QUOTATION: Prayer

Prayer is helplessness casting itself on Power, infirmity leaning on Strength, misery reaching to Mercy, and a prisoner clamoring for Relief.

--Bishop Fulton J Sheen

QUOTATION: Belief in God

Belief in God is the unshaken foundation of all social order and of all responsible action on earth.

--Pius XI, Caritate Christi Compulsi, 1932

QUOTATION: Tolerance

And as to tolerance, it is surprising how far removed from the equity and prudence of the Church are those who profess what is called liberalism. For, in allowing that boundless license of which We have spoken, they exceed all limits, and end at last by making no apparent distinction between truth and error, honesty and dishonesty. And because the Church, the pillar and ground of truth, and the unerring teacher of morals, is forced utterly to reprobate and condemn tolerance of such an abandoned and criminal character, they calumniate her as being wanting in patience and gentleness, and thus fail to see that, in so doing, they impute to her as a fault what is in reality a matter for commendation. But, in spite of all this show of tolerance, it very often happens that, while they profess themselves ready to lavish liberty on all in the greatest profusion, they are utterly intolerant toward the Catholic Church, by refusing to allow her the liberty of being herself free.

--Pope Leo XIII, Libertas Praestantissimum, 1888

QUOTATION: Authority

The modern mind will accept nothing on authority, but will accept anything on no authority. Say that the Bible or the Pope says so and it will be dismissed without further examination. But preface your remark with “I think I heard somewhere, or, try but fail to remember the name of some professor who might have said such-and-such”, and it will be immediately accepted as an unshakable fact.

-- G.K. Chesterton

QUOTATION: The Unconditional Yes

When you say Yes to God unconditionally, you have no idea how far this Yes is going to take you. Certainly farther than you can guess and calculate beforehand... but just how far and in what form? At the same time, this Yes is the sole, non-negotiable prerequisite of all Christian understanding, of all theology and ecclesial wisdom.

-- Hans Urs Von Balthasar

QUOTATION: Mary's Intercession

Jesus is the mediator of justice; Mary obtains for us grace; for, as St. Bernard, St. Bonaventure, St. Bernardine of Siena, St. Germanus, St. Antoninus, and others say, it is the will of God to dispense through the hands of Mary whatever graces he is pleased to bestow upon us. With God, the prayers of the saints are the prayers of His friends, but the prayers of Mary are the prayers of His mother.

--St. Alphonsus Liguori

QUOTATION: Freedom and Objective Truth

When freedom is detached from objective truth it becomes impossible to establish personal rights on a firm rational basis; and the ground is laid for society to be at the mercy of the unrestrained will of individuals or the oppressive totalitarianism of public authority.

--John Paul II, Evangelium Vitae, 1995

QUOTATION: Selective Belief

If you believe what you like in the Gospel, and reject what you don't like, it is not the Gospel you believe, but yourself.

--St. Augustine

QUOTATION: Thrills

It is simply no good trying to keep any thrill: that is the very worst thing you can do. Let the thrill go-let it die away-go on through that period of death into the quieter interest and happiness that follow -and you will find you are living in a world of new thrills all the time. But if you decide to make thrills your regular diet and try to prolong them artificially, they will all get weaker and weaker, and fewer and fewer, and you will be a bored, disillusioned old man for the rest of your life.

--C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

QUOTATION: Freedom

Finally, true freedom is not advanced in the permissive society, which confuses freedom with license to do anything whatever and which in the name of freedom proclaims a kind of general amorality. It is a caricature of freedom to claim that people are free to organize their lives with no reference to moral values, and to say that society does not have to ensure the protection and advancement of ethical values. Such an attitude is destructive of freedom and peace.

– Pope John Paul II

QUOTATION: The Blessed Virgin Mary

No one has access to the Almighty as His Mother has.

--Blessed John Henry Newman

QUOTATION: The Humble Man

The humble man is not cast down by the censures or the slights of others. If he has unconsciously given occasion for them, he amends the faults; if he deserves them not, he treats them as trifles.

--Archbishop Fulton Sheen

QUOTATION: Obedience as Penance

Obedience is a penance of reason, and, on that account, a sacrifice more acceptable than all corporal penances and mortifications.

--St. John of the Cross

QUOTATION: Obedience

Obedience is a virtue of so excellent a nature, that Our Lord was pleased to mark its observance upon the whole course of His life; thus He often says He did not come to do His Own will, but that of His Heavenly Father.

--Saint Francis of Sales

QUOTATION: The Passion

There is no remedy so powerful against the heat of concupiscence as the remembrance of our Savior’s Passion. In all my difficulties I never found anything so efficacious as the wounds of Christ: In them I sleep secure; from them I derive new life.

--Saint Augustine

QUOTATION: The Blessed Virgin Mary and Grace

To desire grace without recourse to the Virgin Mother is to desire to fly without wings.

--Pope Pius XII

QUOTATION: Pope Pius XII on The Nazis

The Nazis are in reality only miserable plagiarists who dress up old errors with new tinsel. It does not make any difference whether they flock to the banners of social revolution, whether they are guided by a false concept of the world and of life, or whether they are possessed by the superstition of a race and blood cult.

--Pope Pius XII

QUOTATION: Authentic Faith

What needs to be done by Catholics today for their country? The answer is: Don’t lie. If we say we’re Catholic, we need to prove it. America’s public life needs people willing to stand alone, without apologies, for the truth of the Catholic faith and the common human values it defends. One person can make a difference – if that individual has a faith he or she is willing to suffer for.

-Archbishop Charles J. Chaput, Render Unto Caesar

QUOTATION: Sin

Pride inflates man; envy consumes him; avarice makes him restless; anger rekindles his passions; gluttony makes him ill; comfort destroys him; lies imprison him; murder defiles him... the very pleasures of sin become instruments of punishment in the hands of God.

--Pope Innocent III, On the Misery of Human Condition, c. 1204

QUOTATION: God's Mercy

When once I asked the Lord Jesus how He could tolerate so many sins and crimes and not punish them, the Lord answered me, “I have eternity for punishing, and so I am prolonging the time of mercy for the sake of sinners. But woe to them if they do not recognize this time of My visitation.”

--St. Faustina Kowalska

QUOTATION: Religion in the Public Square

Forcing religious faith out of a nation's public square and out of a country's public debates does not serve democracy... What it does do is impose a kind of unofficial state atheism. To put it another way, if we ban Christian Churches or other religious communities from taking an active role in our nation's civic life, we're really just enforcing a new kind of state-sponsored intolerance -- a religion without God.

--Archbishop Charles J. Chaput

QUOTATION: Chastity

Clear thinking is the reward of chastity.

--G.K. Chesterton

QUOTATION: Suffering

If God causes you to suffer much, it is a sign that He has great designs for you, and that He certainly intends to make you a saint. And if you wish to become a great saint, entreat Him yourself to give you much opportunity for suffering; for there is no wood better to kindle the fire of holy love than the wood of the cross, which Christ used for His own great sacrifice of boundless charity.

– St. Ignatius Loyola

QUOTATION: Crosses

However much we do to avoid them, we shall never lack crosses in this life if we are in the ranks of the Crucified.

--St. Teresa of Avila

QUOTATION: Humility

Humility is ‘thy will be done.’ Humility is focused on God, not self. Humility is not an exaggeratedly low opinion of yourself. Humility is self-forgetfulness. A humble man never tells you how bad he is. He’s too busy thinking about you to talk about himself. That’s why humility is such a joy and so close to the beatific vision, where we will be so fascinated with God that we forget ourselves completely.

--Peter Kreeft, "How Does the Weakness of the Cross Make Us Strong?"

QUOTATION: On Canadian Pro-Lifers

Who might be closest to martyrdom in our own situation? Would it be those who struggle for the life of the unborn? They may at times be carried away in their zeal appearing to claim that “it is either their way or no way”. If it were not for them, however, our Church would be as mealy-mouthingly ineffective on pro-life issues as is many another Christian community. Our pro-life people are not daunted by the haughty disdain of the media, nor are they afraid of being branded as zealots. We may be tempted to seize upon one or another tactic of theirs as an excuse for not speaking out more often, failing to consider the possibility that our silence is forcing them to be more vocal. We ought to ask ourselves whether our “reasonableness” might be due to our fear of public opinion. Were it not for our sisters and brothers in the pro-life trenches, we, the “sensible ones”, would become the object of attack—if our politically correct media should think us worth attacking.

--Cardinal Aloysius Ambrozic

QUOTATION: What does immortality have to do with the State?

If individuals live only seventy years, then a state, or a nation, or a civilisation, which may last for a thousand years, is more important than an individual. But if Christianity is true, then the individual is not only more important but incomparably more important, for he is everlasting and the life of a state or a civilisation, compared with his, is only a moment.

--C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

QUOTATION: Morality

No circumstance, no purpose, no law whatsoever can ever make licit an act which is intrinsically illicit, since it is contrary to the Law of God which is written in every human heart, knowable by reason itself and proclaimed by the Church.

--John Paul II, Evangelium Vitae, 1995

QUOTATION: The Devil

When the devil reminds you of your past, remind him of his future.

--St. Teresa of Avila

QUOTATION: Liberalism

For, to reject the supreme authority to God, and to cast off all obedience to Him in public matters, or even in private and domestic affairs, is the greatest perversion of liberty and the worst kind of liberalism; and what We have said must be understood to apply to this alone in its fullest sense.

--Pope Leo XIII, Libertas Praestantissimum, 1888

QUOTATION: Truth

Every truth without exception—and whoever may utter it—is from the Holy Spirit.

--St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, 1-2, 109,I

QUOTATION: Full Communion

Full communion of course will have to come about through the acceptance of the whole truth into which the Holy Spirit guides Christ's disciples. Hence all forms of reductionism or facile "agreement" must be absolutely avoided. Serious questions must be resolved, for if not, they will reappear at another time, either in the same terms or in a different guise.

--John Paul II, Ut Unum Sint, 1995