Catholic Quotations

True friendship ought never to conceal what it thinks.

Hearing nuns' confessions is like being stoned to death with popcorn.

The artistic taste of the Catholic priests is appalling and I am most anxious to have a Catholic church in which everything is genuine and good, and not tawdry and ostentatious.

'The Fifth Gospel' is set entirely inside the Vatican and told from the perspective of a Catholic priest. I'm not Catholic myself, yet authenticity and factual accuracy are very important to me, so the novel required an enormous amount of research.

I was married awfully young and I felt trapped. My wife had been divorced and all the time we were married we were out of the Church. It wasn't until we were divorced that we became good Catholics again.

I went to a Catholic School, and underneath my school uniform, I wore a metal shirt.

The great achievement of the Catholic Church lay in harmonizing, civilizing the deepest impulses of ordinary, ignorant people.

Catholics and evangelicals need to remain allied, and in solidarity, against the increasingly aggressive secularism of our age.

Be at peace with your own soul, then heaven and earth will be at peace with you.

I was born and raised Catholic, so it's in my blood. I don't go to church... I was born and raised Catholic, which is about the extent of my religion. My parents made one request: that I have my first Holy Communion.

With my Roman Catholic upbringing, I have a set of principles that serve me well in good times and bad.

I support non-discrimination for homosexuals, but I think, or at least I have the right to think - without saying whether I think it or not - I have the right to think, along with the catechism of the Catholic Church, that homosexuality is morally wrong.

The death of Pope John Paul II led many of different faiths and of no faith to acknowledge their debt to the Roman Catholic Church for holding on to absolutes that the rest of us can measure ourselves against.

I was raised Catholic, but my father's people were Methodist, so we went to both churches.

Nightclubs are the equivalent of a Catholic Church in a poor country. You hear a lot of stuff about churches filled with gold while the people are starving. But what elitists don't get is that for poor people, the church is their own mansion. Nightclubs fill the same function.

I don't really go down one path. I wouldn't call myself a Buddhist, or a Catholic or a Christian or a Muslim, or Jewish. I couldn't put myself into any organized faith.

They're after one world religion and one world government. That's why they've attacked the Catholic Church so strongly, to ultimately take control over it by their doctrine.

Jealousy is the tribute mediocrity pays to genius.

I am really glad I was raised Catholic. I like the fundamental aspects of that religion. I think they give you great grounding in terms of having a moral code. But I do not subscribe to any religion specifically now.

If I have any worth, it is to live my life for God so as to teach these peoples; even though some of them still look down on me.

Interesting enough, we had a reunion of the 12 of us who graduated, right? The only one who wasn't there was the guy who became a priest, and he was literally in prison in Libya, for being a Catholic priest. Isn't that interesting? Everybody else made the reunion but that guy.

I never planned any of this, so I don't even think about getting acting jobs. If they call, they call. I sure don't sit on the sidelines waiting to be asked, like a nice little Catholic girl at the dance. I keep myself extremely busy. I've written 91 plays! I love to read. And I always have something to clean.

I was nerdy girl who went to Catholic school and wanted to be an engineer. I was all set to attend the Illinois Institute of Technology. And then I took a hard left turn and studied Liberal Arts at Northern Illinois University, majored in Communications. Then worked in radio as a disk jockey and as the weather girl.

Vatican II was a force that seized the mind of the Roman Catholic Church and carried it across centuries from the 13th to the 20th.

The principal end both of my father and of myself in the conquest of India... has been the propagation of the holy Catholic faith.

I got in trouble in Catholic school for rolling the waist of my skirt down.

I'm really an honorary Jew, you know; all the best people are. I really do feel Jewish, even though I'm a Catholic. The way the Church has been behaving, I'm happy to be Jewish.

Hey, I'm a Catholic deer hunter, I am happy to be clinging to my guns and my religion.

I was born and bred a Catholic. I was brought up a very strong Catholic - I practiced in a seminary for four years, from eleven to fourteen, and trained to be a Catholic priest. So I was very steeped in all that.

Pope Francis is not only changing the face of the Catholic Church, he's challenging us to be the face of God in the world by seeing the face of God in the person we least expect to see it, including the person in the mirror.

The Lord opened the understanding of my unbelieving heart, so that I should recall my sins.

I'm an Irish Catholic and I have a long iceberg of guilt.

I've also committed my time and resources to many local organizations like Christmas in April, Catholic Community Services, and Hudson County Meals on Wheels.

The Roman Catholic Church, had it captured me, as it nearly did, would have sent me on some mission of danger and sacrifice and utilised me as a martyr; the Church established by law transformed me into an unbeliever and an antagonist.

The nation doesn't simply need what we have. It needs what we are.

In the nineteenth century, many Anglican theologians, both evangelical and catholic, embraced positively the proposal of evolution.

I have very good relations with Pope Francis. I read constantly what he says and follow his speeches. Pope Francis has come to renew the Catholic Church, and he has new air to renew the spiritual world. Now, Venezuela does not need mediation.

I was born in Paris in 1950. I had a strict upper-class Catholic education but I never really fitted in the system and revolted against it quite early.

The Catholic faith never changes. But the language and mode of manifesting this one faith can change according to peoples, times and places.

I don't think you can be a Catholic without an accompanying measure of guilt.

I'm not a practicing Catholic now. I didn't like what the church was doing with what Jesus had said, in a way. But I wouldn't say I'm not religious.

I went to a Catholic school, so of course we had to wear uniforms. My only form of expression was in shoes and the style of my hair.

The fact that President-elect Kennedy would be the first Catholic president did not sit well with many Americans. There was a fear that, as president, Kennedy's decisions would be based on his religion and dictated by the pope.

Like many other scientists who hold the Catholic faith, I see the Creator's plan and purpose fulfilled in our universe. I see a planet bursting with evolutionary possibilities, a continuing creation in which the Divine providence is manifest in every living thing. I see a science that tells us there is indeed a design to life.

A man of strength and wisdom, John Paul became an inspiration to generations of both Catholics and non-Catholics throughout the world by encouraging freedom, promoting peace and respecting all faiths.

I was raised Catholic in the Midwest, so I cant enjoy anything.

Christ beside me, Christ before me, Christ behind me, Christ within me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me.

I come from a long line of staunch Irish Catholics.

The Roman Catholic church... carries the immense power of very directly affecting women's lives everywhere by its stand against birth control and abortion

It is now for the Catholic Church to bend herself to her work with calmness and generosity. It is for you to observe her with renewed and friendly attention.

I'd love to go and visit the Mosque in Mecca again, just for the sheer beauty of it, not for God - much the way a non-Catholic might go to Vatican City because of the beauty of the buildings and the artifacts.

I think for a long time I wasn't really out to myself growing up in Omaha, Neb., to a Catholic conservative family. It took me a while to come out to myself, and not long after that, I came out to them. I think that it really couldn't have been a better experience. They were all immediately supportive.

I went to Catholic school, and there was this teacher, a Brother, who saw I could go either way, good or bad. He took an interest in me and got me to do a play. I got hooked on acting, and it gave me something constructive to do. I had a lot of energy.

As a former Catholic, and as someone who even today is not opposed to being called a Christian, I felt I had every right to use the symbols of the Church and resented being told not to.

From the ages of five to twelve, I attended the Saint Laurence O'Toole elementary school in Lawrence, a city next to Methuen, and was taught by sisters of the Catholic order of Notre Dame de Namour. I enjoyed all my subjects there. I do not remember ever learning any science, except for mathematics.

The Roman Catholic Church and its rituals were so much part of life that, although my parents would often question a small matter of dogma and none of us seemed more religious than anyone else, no one ever questioned the rituals or the basic tenets of belief.

Those who join the Carmelite Order are not lost to their near and dear ones, but have been won for them, because it is our vocation to intercede to God for everyone.

I know many Catholics love God with all their heart. I have genuine respect for anyone who truly has given their life to Christ. We read about Mother Teresa and what a wonderful example she was.

I hope that by going to visit the pope I have enabled everybody to see that the words Catholic and Protestant, as ordinarily used, are completely out of date. They are almost always used now purely for propaganda purposes. That is why so much trouble is caused by them.

When the problems in Northern Ireland started, it was not a question of Protestantism or Catholicism, because the Catholic church was the only church at that time-it was a nationalist conflict.

I always say I'm Catholic - but a cultural Catholic. I wouldn't say I'm a spiritual person, although I pray every day.

I went to Catholic school. Do as you're told; don't ask questions and you will be illuminated.

Being raised Catholic myself, I think people who are Catholic tend to carry a lot of guilt. It's almost a joke.

I was brought up a Catholic, so I suppose I have to believe in the goodness of human beings. I think we're not so bad after all.

My granny was very concerned that we weren't baptised - Mum had been desperate to escape her own Catholic upbringing. But Granny thought we were blighted. Whenever we turned up at her house, she would flick holy water - from the font she kept by the door - over us, in the hope that it would save us from damnation.

The Catholic Church is an innately conservative rock - they call themselves the 'rock of Peter' - and its resistance to change is, ironically, what has kept it constant throughout the ages.

I don't know, maybe it's because I was raised Catholic. Confession has always held a great appeal for me.

In 2000, Pope John Paul II canonized 120 saints of China, 87 of whom were ethnically Chinese. My home church was incredibly excited because this was the first time the Roman Catholic Church acknowledged Chinese citizens in this way.

I went to an all-girls Catholic high school. The three things that they focused on were reading, writing, and arithmetic. My goodness, this is a novel idea in this modern society. I was really good at all three of these things. I was particularly good at math.

What makes a comedian has nothing to do with religion. Think of Red Skelton, Jimmy Durante, Jackie Gleason, who were all Catholics.

So often, generalizations don't apply to Catholic voters. Catholics are concerned about the war, the economy, about issues like abortion, issues pertaining to the budget and funding Medicaid and Medicare and what happens to the environment.

I was raised in a heavily Catholic family. Early and consistent encounters with mysticism.

I like talking to priests, to Catholics. Everyone has their beliefs.

I'm a firm believer in God himself, but that's as far as I can go. I'm not any denomination. I'm not Catholic or Presbyterian or Baptist or Methodist or Jewish or Muslim. I'm none of those things. And I'm sure that's just fine with God.

In bringing the subject of religious oppression to a wider audience, I didn't just want to kick the Catholic Church but to poke a finger in the throat of theocracy and to let it be known that people shouldn't tolerate this anymore.

I am drawn to Christ but I have real problems with the Catholic Church.

I had a born-again experience at the age of 33. As a result of that I found a church where I felt I was being fed properly. I don't say that as a reflection on Catholicism. But once I was born again, I got an evangelical spirit.

Even Martin Luther and John Calvin believed that the Roman Catholic church, up to the Council of Trent, was basically orthodox - a true church with sound fundamental doctrines as well as significant error.

Life is like a cash register, in that every account, every thought, every deed, like every sale, is registered and recorded.

Remarkable is the greater openness of the Catholic Church towards people of other religious traditions and persuasions. The development has not been without problems, since some people have resisted it and others have pushed openness beyond the desirable point.

I have my own religion. I'm sort of one-quarter Baptist, one-quarter Catholic, one-quarter Jewish.

I have real good parents. I have two brothers, and we got good educations. My parents didn't have a whole lot of money, but they spent the money they had on private school for us, Catholic school.

I said the rosary, and I said the Our Father, as they call it in the Catholic Church. One of the things I learned in the conversion process was to say the rosary, and I had a set of rosary beads. So I said 'Hail Mary, full of grace.'

I grew up in a working-class Catholic family in south Louisiana. I went to a state university. I taught literature, wrote a novel that was the novel I wanted to write, and got a couple of good reviews but no real traction. I had no idea how to get a job in TV.

I went to a catholic public school St Helens and learned English by watching bugs bunny cartoons.

The idea of right and wrong, being righteous, acknowledging when you make a mistake, repentance - all these important things I got from my Catholic background.

If I were a Roman Catholic, I should turn a heretic, in sheer desperation, because I would rather go to heaven than go to purgatory.

I spent three years at RMIT doing a bachelor of arts and media studies. It was a hugely formative experience. As someone who had a private Catholic school upbringing, the world suddenly became a much bigger and better place for me.

The inviolability of the seal of confession is so fundamental to the very nature of the sacrament that any proposal which undermines that inviolability is a challenge to the rights of every Catholic to freedom of religion and conscience.

I was brought up Catholic, and I felt the power of art from a very young age - seeing the brutality of all those images of flayed apostles and tortured saints was a pretty strong introduction.

I remember one time when all the nuns in my Catholic grade school got around in a semicircle, me and Mom in the middle, and they said, 'Mrs. Farley, the children at school are laughing at Christopher, not with him.' I thought, 'Who cares? As long as they're laughing.'

My longing for truth was a single prayer.

I think the strength of the Catholic church is that when it does finally identify a problem, it works to resolve it.

It doesn't really matter how much of the rules or the dogma we accepted and lived by if we're not really living by the fundamental creed of the Catholic Church, which is service to others and finding God in ourselves and then seeing God in everyone - including our enemies.

Mom was always doing something for somebody. She came from a Czech background, one that made her a devout Catholic and gave her a strong belief in the family.

Catch, then, O catch the transient hour; Improve each moment as it flies!

One of the things I regret is that too often in our society a person's whole identity is shaped by their sexuality, or by their sexual orientation. In good Catholic eyes, a person's sexual orientation does not matter.

The mystery of being human and, certainly, of being a Catholic lies in our embracing together the imperfect state known as the human condition. First and foremost, if we could ever be perfect or do things perfectly, we would eliminate mystery, an essential ingredient in the good life and the spiritual life.

If there is anyone who's living the work of the New Testament, it's the nuns of the Catholic church and not the Catholic hierarchy.

I was born a Catholic and now I'm a lapsed Catholic. I'm something but I'm not a believer any more.