#priests

The Pope would have an easier job than the President of the United States in adopting a change of course. He has no Congress alongside him as a legislative body nor a Supreme Court as a judiciary. He is absolute head of government, legislator and supreme judge in the church. If he wanted to, he could authorize contraception over night, permit the marriage of priests, make possible the ordination of women and allow eucharistic fellowship with this Protestant churches. What would a Pope do who acted in the spirit of Obama? ↗

— Hans Küng

#celibacy #christianity #church #clergy #contraception

When the late Pope John Paul II decided to place the woman so strangely known as “Mother” Teresa on the fast track for beatification, and thus to qualify her for eventual sainthood, the Vatican felt obliged to solicit my testimony and I thus spent several hours in a closed hearing room with a priest, a deacon, and a monsignor, no doubt making their day as I told off, as from a rosary, the frightful faults and crimes of the departed fanatic. In the course of this, I discovered that the pope during his tenure had surreptitiously abolished the famous office of “Devil’s Advocate,” in order to fast‐track still more of his many candidates for canonization. I can thus claim to be the only living person to have represented the Devil pro bono. ↗

— Christopher Hitchens

#beatification #canonisation #deacons #devil #devil-s-advocate

What I think we can do is help individuals understand the church teaching, but also maybe help the church understand the viewpoint of lay men and women about what they want in regard to priests, or how do they want the hierarchy to deal with them? ↗

— William P. Leahy

#also #church #deal #help #hierarchy

The only other person attending who was close to her age was Father St. Laurent, a devastatingly good-looking Roman Catholic priest who made the RC's vows of celibacy seem like a crime against the human gene pool. ↗

— Julia Spencer-Fleming

#age

Everyone agrees the celibacy rule is just a Church law dating from the 11th century, not a divine command. ↗

— Hans Küng

#celibacy #christianity #church #priesthood #priests

When I look upon seamen, men of science and philosophers, man is the wisest of all beings; when I look upon priests and prophets nothing is as contemptible as man. ↗

— Diogenes

#contemptible #i #look #man #men

Some people go to priests; others to poetry; I to my friends. ↗

— Virginia Woolf

#friends #go #i #others #people

When you get to 15 and most of your teachers are priests, there's bound to be a conflict. ↗

— Ian Hart

#conflict #get #most #priests #teachers

How the early priests came into possession of these secrets does not appear, and if there were ever any records of this kind the Church would hardly allow them to become public. ↗

— Harry Houdini

#any #appear #become #came #church

Priests are not men of the world; it is not intended that they should be; and a University training is the one best adapted to prevent their becoming so. ↗

— Samuel Butler

#becoming #best #intended #men #prevent