#priest

The minister and the priest teach that the organization is greater. No great philosophy has ever come from an organization, but from an individual whose research has been a personal study of God and ITS ways. ↗

— Paul Twitchell

#come #ever #god #great #greater

The fact that the church is convinced of not having the right to confer priestly ordination on women is now considered by some as irreconcilable with the European Constitution. ↗

— Pope Benedict XVI

#confer #considered #constitution #convinced #european

We have one of our priests in prison right now, Steve Kelly, for his antiwar actions, and three of us in the community are forbidden to visit him because we're all convicted felons. ↗

— Daniel Berrigan

#antiwar #because #community #convicted #forbidden

Art is not a pastime but a priesthood. ↗

— Jean Cocteau

#pastime #priesthood

I hate that which we have decided to call realism, even though I have been made one of its high priests. ↗

— Gustave Flaubert

#call #decided #even #hate #high

Let judges secretly despair of justice: their verdicts will be more acute. Let generals secretly despair of triumph; killing will be defamed. Let priests secretly despair of faith: their compassion will be true. ↗

— Leonard Cohen

#be true #compassion #despair #faith #generals

I was amazed, shocked, and sickened by what I heard throughout the day, over and over, by many victims' stories. I can think of no one with whom I didn't recognize a common thread. These monsters, these evil priests, used the same words and methods on all of us. With each session, I would find something that sent a cold chill down my spine. It amazed and frightened me that the actual words used on me, to rape me, to rape me, were the same as the words used on so many others from all over the United States. You would think that all these priests either were educated in how to concur and rape us, or they met privately with each other to compare notes and develop their plan of attack on us. The pattern was so much the same, with the same words, that you would swear it was scripted and disbursed to these priests. Do they secretly have closed-door meetings on how to abuse us? A chilling thought. Neary's routine of saying the “Our Father” during the rape and making me say it with him, repeating the “thy will be done” over and over, the absolution given me after he “finished,” the threats of having God take my parents away, the lectures about offering my suffering up to God, etc., etc., etc. My experience was identical, word-for-word, to that of many others. The exact words during the abuse were not just close, but exactly the same, as if it were some kind of abuse ritual. Ritual abuse is not limited to the religious definition and can include compulsive, abusive behavior performed in an exact series of steps with little variation. How could these similarities occur without the priests taking the same “abuse seminar” together some place, somehow? Was it taught in the seminary? In some dark corner? It goes beyond coincidence—the similarities in deeds and verbiage that these predators use on us. It truly chilled me to the very marrow of my bones. ↗

— Charles L. Bailey Jr.

#catholic #church #clergy-abuse #cover-up #coverup

It's okay for Christians throughout centuries to exterminate races and for their priests to rape little kids throughout decades, but trying to give the people the power to think and be individual, that's evil? ↗

— Glenn Danzig

#christians #decades #evil #exterminate #give

Had I become a priest, the sermons would've been electric! ↗

— Johnny Vegas

#been #electric #had #i #priest

That was my aspiration, so I was there in a seminary with just boys who were studying to be priests. Pretty rigorous schooling; we never got home, we stayed there all year. ↗

— Peter Jurasik

#got #home #i #just #never