QUOTATION: Clerical Authority

We can’t not exercise the service of authority: leave everything be, not intervene, not speak the truth which can hurt but which clarifies and helps us to get back up. We then leave people in confusion for fear of hurting them or speaking a truth that is not at all popular and which goes against the ambient culture. This applies to bishops, priests and pastors. It is a greater charity to communicate a truth that alienates a person from us for a time, a time during which he can come to realize that we acted in his favour.

--Cardinal Marc Ouellet, Actualité et avenir du Concile oecuménique Vatican II

QUOTATION: Pastors

Many pastors of souls are more afflicted if the revenues  of the Church are diminished or lost than if a great number of souls  perished through their absence or neglect.

--St. Robert Bellarmine, The Seven Words on the Cross

QUOTATION: Priests Must Be Ministers of Mercy

The Church has sometimes locked itself up in excessive attention to detail, in small-minded rules. The most important thing is the first proclamation: Jesus Christ has saved you. And the ministers of the Church must be ministers of mercy above all. The confessor, for example, is always in danger of being either too much a rigorist or too lax. Neither are merciful, because neither of these roles really takes responsibility for the person. The rigorist washes his hands and leaves it to the commandment. The lenient minister washes his hands by simply saying ‘This is not a sin’, or something similar. In pastoral ministry we must accompany people, and we must heal their wounds.

--Pope Francis, My Door is Always Open: a Conversation on Faith, Hope and the Church in a Time of Change 

QUOTATION: Clergy

The people of God want pastors, not bureaucrats or clergy acting like government officials.

--Pope Francis, My Door is Always Open: a Conversation on Faith, Hope and the Church in a Time of Change

QUOTATION: Clergy Must Be Ministers of Mercy

The Church has sometimes locked itself up in excessive attention to detail, in small-minded rules. The most important thing is the first proclamation: Jesus Christ has saved you. And the ministers of the Church must be ministers of mercy above all. The confessor, for example, is always in danger of being either too much a rigorist or too lax. Neither are merciful, because neither of these roles really takes responsibility for the person. The rigorist washes his hands and leaves it to the commandment. The lenient minister washes his hands by simply saying ‘This is not a sin’, or something similar. In pastoral ministry we must accompany people, and we must heal their wounds.

--Pope Francis, My Door is Always Open: a Conversation on Faith, Hope and the Church in a Time of Change

QUOTATION: The Clergy on Judgement Day

Let us fear lest the angered judge say to us: If you were the enlighteners of My Church, why have you closed your eyes? If you pretended to be shepherds of the flock, why have you suffered it to stray? Salt of the earth, you have lost your savor. Light of the world, they that sat in darkness and the shadow of death have never seen you shine. You were apostles; who, then, put your apostolic firmness to the test, since you have done nothing but seek to please men? You were the mouth of the Lord, and you have made that mouth dumb. If you allege in excuse that the burden was beyond your strength, why did you make it the object of your ambitious intrigues?

–-St. Charles Borromeo

QUOTATION: The Church in Danger

The Church is in danger when the laity are more spiritual than the clergy.

--Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen

QUOTATION: Bad Clergy is God's Punishment

The most evident mark of God's anger, and the most terrible castigation He can inflict upon the world, is manifest when He permits His people to fall into the hands of a clergy who are more in name than in deed, priests who practice the cruelty of ravening wolves rather than the charity and affection of devoted shepherds. They abandon the things of God to devote themselves to the things of the world, and in their saintly calling of holiness, they spend their time in profane and worldly pursuits. When God permits such things, it is a very positive proof that He is thoroughly angry with His people and is visiting His most dreadful wrath upon them.

--St. John Eudes

QUOTATION: Why Heretics Succeed

The heretics have made their false theology popular and presented it in a way that is within the capacity of the common people. They preach it to the people and teach it in the schools, and scatter pamphlets that can be bought and understood by many; they influence people by their writings when they cannot reach them by preaching. Their success is largely due to the negligence of those who should have shown some interest, and the bad example and the ignorance of Catholics, especially the clergy, have made such ravages in the vineyard of the Lord.

--St. Ignatius Loyola, Letter to St. Peter Canisius