Victor Hugo (Les Misérables)
“
I have somewhere read of a wise bishop who in a visit to his diocese found an old woman whose only prayer consisted in the single interjection "Oh!-
"Good mother" said he to her, "continue to pray in this manner; your prayer is better than ours." This better prayer is mine also.
”
”
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (Confessions)
“
If done "as God wants.' then leadership will surely include intercessory prayer. The saintly Bishop Azariah of India once remarked to Bishop Stephen Neill that he found time to pray daily, by name, for every leader in his extensive diocese. Little wonder that during his thirty years of eldering there, the diocese tripled its membership and greatly increase in spiritual effectiveness
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J. Oswald Sanders
“
Although this detail has no connection whatever with the real substance of what we are about to relate, it will not be superfluous, if merely for the sake of exactness in all points, to mention here the various rumors and remarks which had been in circulation about him from the very moment when he arrived in the diocese. True or false, that which is said of men often occupies as important a place in their lives, and above all in their destinies, as that which they do. M. Myriel was the son of a councillor of the Parliament of Aix; hence he belonged to the nobility of the bar. It was said that his father, destining him to be the heir of his own post, had married him at a very early age, eighteen or twenty, in accordance with a custom which is rather widely prevalent in parliamentary families. In spite of this marriage, however, it was said that Charles Myriel created a great deal of talk. He was well formed, though rather short in stature, elegant, graceful, intelligent; the whole of the first portion of his life had been devoted to the world and to gallantry.
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Victor Hugo (Les Misérables)
“
diocese. True or false, that which is said of men often occupies as important a place in their lives, and above all in their destinies, as that which they do.
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Victor Hugo (Les Misérables)
“
When St. Catherine’s was built in 1938, the diocese sent over a young priest from Dublin who arrived certain that he was lost. Didn’t the bishop tell him that Mallard was a colored town? Well, who were these people walking about? Fair and blonde and redheaded, the darkest ones no swarthier than a Greek?
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Brit Bennett (The Vanishing Half)
“
Church paid more than $3 billion to settle abuse complaints between 1950 and 2015. In Boston, the archdiocese paid $154 million to settle with 1,230 victims from 2002 through June 30, 2014, the most recent figures available. Between 2004 and 2015, twelve dioceses nationwide filed for bankruptcy protection.
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The Boston Globe (Betrayal: The Crisis in the Catholic Church: The findings of the investigation that inspired the major motion picture Spotlight)
“
Think of it as plastic memory, this force within you which trends you and your fellows toward tribal forms. This plastic memory seeks to return to its ancient shape, the tribal society. It is all around you—the feudatory, the diocese, the corporation, the platoon, the sports club, the dance troupes, the rebel cell, the planning council, the prayer group . . . each with its master and servants, its host and parasites. And the swarms of alienating devices (including these very words!) tend eventually to be enlisted in the argument for a return to “those better times.” I despair of teaching you other ways. You have square thoughts which resist circles.
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Frank Herbert (God Emperor of Dune (Dune #4))
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if merely for the sake of exactness in all points, to mention here the various rumors and remarks which had been in circulation about him from the very moment when he arrived in the diocese.
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Victor Hugo (Les Misérables)
“
Stories abound of Waters confirming black and white children together in the Cathedral of the Sacred Heart in Raleigh, of his insisting on having white and black acolytes at masses at which he presided, and of his requiring the diocesan newspaper to cover the activities of black Catholics and their parishes with as much interest as they covered those of white Catholics in the diocese.
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M. Shawn Copeland (Uncommon Faithfulness: The Black Catholic Experience)
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Berry’s investigation was a searing indictment of how church officials in Louisiana buried reports of sexual abuse of minors and did their best to pay off victims to keep them silent. By the time his story ran, the tiny Lafayette diocese in which Gauthe had committed his crimes was deeply in the red from $4.2 million in confidential settlements to the families of nine victims, and $114 million in pending claims in another eleven lawsuits.
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Gerald Posner (God's Bankers: A History of Money and Power at the Vatican)
“
Saint Paul was proud of his Roman citizenship, and his letter to various Christian communities in the empire presupposed an effective communications system that only Roman government, law, and military might allowed.
"The Church's administration evolved as the imperial government's structured was modified over time. An archbishop ruled a large territory that the Romans called a province. A bishop ruled a diocese, a smaller Roman administrative unit dominated by a large city.
"The capitals of the eastern and western parts of the empire -- Constantinople and Rome -- came in time to signify unusual and superior power for the bishops resident there. When the Roman state was dissolved in the Latin-speaking world around 458 A.D., the pope replaced the emperor as the political leader of the Eternal City.
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Norman F. Cantor (Antiquity: The Civilization of the Ancient World)
“
Father Gabriele Amorth, a Roman Catholic priest, and a skilled and experienced exorcist of the Diocese of Rome, is personally convinced that the Nazis were “all possessed.” He adds: “All you have to do is think about what Hitler—and Stalin—did. Almost certainly they were possessed by the Devil” (Pisa, 2006).
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Nick Redfern (The Pyramids and the Pentagon: The Government's Top Secret Pursuit of Mystical Relics, Ancient Astronauts, and Lost Civilizations)
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Augustine, as bishop of Hippo, appointed his monk Antoninus in the 410s to be bishop of a subordinate diocese at Fussala, one of Africa’s relatively few villages, in the hills of what is now eastern Algeria. Antoninus turned out to be a bad man - he was young and from a poor family, he was promoted too fast - and he terrorized his village, extorting money, clothing, produce and building materials. He was also accused of sexual assault. Augustine removed him, but did not depose him, and tried to transfer him to the nearby estate of Thogonoetum. Here, the tenants told Augustine and their landowner that they would leave if he came.
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Chris Wickham (The Inheritance of Rome: Illuminating the Dark Ages 400-1000 (The Penguin History of Europe Book 2))
“
Besides the sinfulness of the acts from their opposition to the law of God, anyone, be he a subject of this diocese or an extern, who, within the diocese of Cork, shall organise or take part in ambushes or kidnappings, or shall otherwise be guilty of murder or attempted murder, shall incur by the very fact the censure of excommunication.
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Tim Pat Coogan (Michael Collins: A Biography)
“
Let me be clear: the president just used a Bible, the most sacred text of the Judeo-Christian tradition, and one of the churches in my diocese, without permission, as a backdrop for a message antithetical to the teachings of Jesus. Everything he has said and done is to inflame violence. We need moral leadership, and he’s done everything to divide us.” [5]
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Mariann Edgar Budde (How We Learn to Be Brave: Decisive Moments in Life and Faith)
“
How often do we hear from the local diocesan people—the bishop, the communications director, the victim assistance coordinator, and others—that this abuse is not restricted to clergy, but, rather, it is a societal problem? It does occur outside in the public realm. When was the last time you heard of a sex offender not being held accountable for his actions once caught? The Church treated the abuse as a sin only and nothing more. Out in society, sex offenders are not moved to another community quietly. “But protest that priests are 'no worse' than other groups or than men in general is a dire indictment of the profession. It is surprising that this attitude is championed by the Church authorities. Although the extent of the problem will continue to be debated, sexual abuse by Catholic priests is a fact. The reason why priests, publicly dedicated to celibate service, abuse is a question that cries out for explanation. Sexual activity of any adult with a minor is a criminal offense. By virtue of the requirement of celibacy, sexual activity with anyone is proscribed for priests. These factors have been constant and well-known by all Church authorities” (Sipe 227−228).
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Charles L. Bailey Jr. (In the Shadow of the Cross: The True Account of My Childhood Sexual and Ritual Abuse at the Hands of a Roman Catholic Priest)
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When I get home after a long day, I go to the chapel and pray. I say to the Lord, “There it is for today; things are finished. Now let’s be serious, is this diocese mine or yours?” The Lord says, “What do you think?” I answer, “I think it’s yours.” “That is true,” the Lord says, “it is mine.” And so I say, “Listen, Lord, it is your turn to take responsibility for and direct the diocese. I’m going now to sleep.”1
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Gordon MacDonald (Ordering Your Private World)
“
Although this detail has no connection whatever with the real substance of what we are about to relate, it will not be superfluous, if merely for the sake of exactness in all points, to mention here the various rumors and remarks which had been in circulation about him from the very moment when he arrived in the diocese. True or false, that which is said of men often occupies as important a place in their lives, and
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Victor Hugo (Les Misérables)
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There had been three priests, proponents of so-called liberation theology. They had opposed the reactionary tide from Rome. And in all three cases the IEA had done the dirty work for Iwaszkiewicz and his Congregation. Corona, Ortega, and Souza were prominent progressive priests working in marginal dioceses, poor districts of Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paolo. They believed in saving man here on earth, not waiting for the Kingdom of Heaven.
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Arturo Pérez-Reverte (The Seville Communion: A Novel)
“
Texts on a lifeless strings of facts, but the keys to unlocking the character of human beings, people with likes and dislikes, diocese and foibles, errors and convictions. Words have texture and shape, and it is their almost tactile quality that leads readers to sculpt images of the writers who use them. These images are then interrogated, mocked, congratulated, or dismissed, depending on the context of the reading and the disposition of the reader.
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Sam Wineburg
“
The idea that the early Christian tradition was limited to its Greek and Latin expressions is still widespread. This assumption distorts historical reality and weakens greatly our understanding of the roots of Christian theology and spirituality. In the third and fourth centuries Syriac was the third international language of the church. It served as the major means of communication in the Roman diocese of the "East," which included Syria, Palestine, and Mesopotamia.
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Kenneth E. Bailey (Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes: Cultural Studies in the Gospels)
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The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops had authorized the study.92 It concluded that 95 percent of American dioceses had at least one complaint of a sexual assault by a priest against a minor (the authors did not count incidents before 1950).93 During the five-plus decades, 4,392 priests had been accused of abusing 10,667 children, a figure that in some years was as high as 10 percent of all priests.94 At least 143 were serial molesters who carried out their attacks in multiple dioceses.95 Four out of five victims were minor boys.96
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Gerald Posner (God's Bankers: A History of Money and Power at the Vatican)
“
There was a palace faction in the diocese, and an anti-palace faction. Mr. Thumble and Mr. Quiverful belonged to one, and Mr. Oriel and Mr. Robarts to the other. Mr. Thumble was too weak to stick to his faction against the strength of such a man as Dr. Tempest. Mr. Quiverful would be too indifferent to do so, — unless his interest were concerned. Mr. Oriel would be too conscientious to regard his own side on such an occasion as this. But Mark Robarts would be sure to support his friends and oppose his enemies, let the case be what it might.
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Anthony Trollope (Complete Works of Anthony Trollope)
“
For American Catholics, a millennium that John Paul II had hailed as a “new springtime” for Christianity began instead with a wave of revelations about priestly sex abuse. There had been intimations of this crisis in the 1980s, when several high-profile instances of priestly pedophilia had surfaced in the media. But nothing prepared Catholic America for the flood of 2003, which began in New England but ultimately left no diocese or community untouched, reaching even to the doors of the Vatican itself. Horror upon horror, cover-up upon cover-up, and sacrilege piled on sacrilege—it was like an anti-Catholic polemic from the nineteenth century, except that it was all too terribly true. No atheist or anticlericalist, no Voltaire or Ingersoll or Twain could have invented a story so perfectly calculated to discredit the message of the Gospel as the depredations of Thomas Geoghan and the legalistic indifference of Bernard Cardinal Law. No external enemy of the faith, no Attila or Barbarossa or Hitler, could have sown so much confusion and dismay among the faithful as Catholicism’s own bishops managed to do.
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Ross Douthat (Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics)
“
When I became Archbishop I set myself three goals for my term of office. Two had to deal with the inner workings of our Anglican (Episcopalian) Church—the ordination of women to the priesthood which our Church approved in 1992 and through which our Church has been wonderfully enriched and blessed; and the other in which I failed to get the Church’s backing, the division of the large and sprawling Diocese of Cape Town into smaller episcopal pastoral units. The third goal was the liberation of all our people, black and white, and that we achieved in 1994.
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Desmond Tutu (No Future Without Forgiveness)
“
The Catholic Church also opposes any effort to make it easier to deport children; last week, the archbishop of Chicago, Cardinal Francis E. George, said he had offered facilities in his diocese to house some of the children, and on Monday, bishops in Dallas and Fort Worth called for lawyers to volunteer to represent the children at immigration proceedings. “We have to put our money where our mouth is in this country,” said Kevin Appleby, the director of migration policy for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. “We tell other countries to protect human rights and accept refugees, but when we get a crisis on our border, we don’t know how to respond.” Republicans have rejected calls by Democrats for $2.7 billion in funds to respond to the crisis, demanding changes in immigration law to make it easier to send children back to Central America. And while President Obama says he is open to some changes, many Democrats have opposed them, and Congress is now deadlocked.
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Anonymous
“
Fr. Joseph is member of the missionary religious community located in the Diocese of Marquette, MI that enjoys the ecclesiastical approval of his local bishop and the added endorsements of two bishops of the Detroit Diocese. As an international association that promotes the Church’s mystical tradition, the missionary community provides solo-wilderness retreats at the CCL (Companions of Christ the Lamb) spiritual center that spans well over 1,000 acres of verdure in the village of Paradise, MI. Those interested in making solo-wilderness retreats to deepen their union with God’s Divine Will may contact Fr. Joseph at soulofjesus@juno.com. Fr. Joseph is presently completing a dissertation on the writings and doctrines of the Servant of God Luisa Piccarreta at the Pontifical University of Rome. He is the author of five books on mystical and dogmatic theology, the initiator of international Divine Will communities and instructor on the proper theological presentation of the mystical gift of Living in God’s Divine Will.
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Joseph Iannuzzi (Antichrist And the End Times)
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20. Therefore by “full remission of all penalties” the pope means not actually “of all,” but only of those imposed by himself. 21. Therefore those preachers of indulgences are in error, who say that by the pope’s indulgences a man is freed from every penalty, and saved; 22. Whereas he remits to souls in purgatory no penalty which, according to the canons, they would have had to pay in this life. 23. If it is at all possible to grant to any one the remission of all penalties whatsoever, it is certain that this remission can be granted only to the most perfect, that is, to the very fewest. 24. It must needs be, therefore, that the greater part of the people are deceived by that indiscriminate and highsounding promise of release from penalty. 25. The power which the pope has, in a general way, over purgatory, is just like the power which any bishop or curate has, in a special way, within his own diocese or parish. 26. The pope does well when he grants remission to souls [in purgatory], not by the power of the keys (which he does not possess), but by way of intercession.
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Martin Luther (The Martin Luther Collection: 15 Classic Works)
“
As the scandal spread and gained momentum, Cardinal Law found himself on the cover of Newsweek, and the Church in crisis became grist for the echo chamber of talk radio and all-news cable stations. The image of TV reporters doing live shots from outside klieg-lit churches and rectories became a staple of the eleven o’clock news. Confidentiality deals, designed to contain the Church’s scandal and maintain privacy for embarrassed victims, began to evaporate as those who had been attacked learned that the priests who had assaulted them had been put in positions where they could attack others too. There were stories about clergy sex abuse in virtually every state in the Union. The scandal reached Ireland, Mexico, Austria, France, Chile, Australia, and Poland, the homeland of the Pope. A poll done for the Washington Post, ABC News, and Beliefnet.com showed that a growing majority of Catholics were critical of the way their Church was handling the crisis. Seven in ten called it a major problem that demanded immediate attention. Hidden for so long, the financial price of the Church’s negligence was astonishing. At least two dioceses said they had been pushed to the brink of bankruptcy after being abandoned by their insurance companies. In the past twenty years, according to some estimates, the cost to pay legal settlements to those victimized by the clergy was as much as $1.3 billion. Now the meter was running faster. Hundreds of people with fresh charges of abuse began to contact lawyers. By April 2002, Cardinal Law was under siege and in seclusion in his mansion in Boston, where he was heckled by protesters, satirized by cartoonists, lampooned by late-night comics, and marginalized by a wide majority of his congregation that simply wanted him out. In mid-April, Law secretly flew to Rome, where he discussed resigning with the Pope.
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The Investigative Globe (Betrayal: The Crisis In the Catholic Church: The Findings of the Investigation That Inspired the Major Motion Picture Spotlight)
“
Ordinary people had not at that date begun to see themselves as in a State of Conflict. The Bishop would have diagnosed his state of mind as a want of consistent grace rather than dignifying himself as a split personality, but there was indeed a hidden conflict between the stately ascetic divine revered by his diocese and wife, and the terrified heart, haunted by memories, beset by future fears, which beat beneath his episcopal garb.
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Winifred Peck (Arrest the Bishop?)
“
The bishop was clearly stating in his confirmation homily that Medjugorje had an important choice to make. It could be a “New Jerusalem”—a place of holiness; or, if consumed by the recent boom in commercialism, it could fall into spiritual ruin and become the next “Babylon”19. The statement left followers wondering. Was the bishop finally coming to believe in the apparitions? It certainly sounded as though he did. Alternatively, was he apprehensive of the Vatican commission’s final report, which according to well-founded rumors would be released sometime in 2013? A third factor is also conceivable. Possibly, the bishop was concerned that following release of the commission’s report, a new diocese would be formed, which would incorporate as its centerpiece the parish of Medjugorje, taking it out from under his rigid 19-year history of opposition.
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Wayne Weible (Medjugorje: The Last Apparition)
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In Christ the King parish, Christ was still king. It was the only parish in the diocese where the tabernacle had been retained in its proper position of honor.
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Michael Treharne Davies (The Barbarians Have Taken Over)
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The Diocese is a tight-knit family where everyone looks out for one another. Connected.” She
grinned playfully. “Not unlike your New York Mafia. The only differences, of course, are the corruption and murders.”
“From whom?
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Dean Corbyn (The Jorvik Prophecy)
“
Alfred sent a copy of the Pastoral Care to every diocese in his kingdom. That alone would impose serious restrictions on any tendency to idiosyncrasy that a writer might have.
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David Crystal (The Stories of English)
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beyond the capacity of one house, which is likely, there would be more than one house church in Corinth (1:11), each no doubt having some kind of coordinator. Yet it is significant that he does not speak of churches in the plural but only of a singular church in Corinth—a precursor of dioceses with multiple parishes. If “church” here refers to the sum of house churches, it is easy to see how it could be applied to the one Church universal, as it so clearly is in the letter to the Ephesians.
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George T. Montague (First Corinthians (Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture): (A Catholic Bible Commentary on the New Testament by Trusted Catholic Biblical Scholars - CCSS))
“
demons are extremely legalistic and know who has authentic spiritual authority over them. The diocesan bishop has jurisdiction in his diocese, as do the mandated exorcist and his team. Your parish is considered your spiritual home; your parish priest, your spiritual father. For your spiritual protection, be aware of authority and jurisdiction.
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Kathleen Beckman (Family Guide to Spiritual Warfare: Strategies for Deliverance and Healing)
“
All over the country, bishops broomed out of churches those priests who had once been accused of misconduct. Numerous bishops, including Cardinal Law, began voluntarily turning over to prosecutors the names of dozens of priests accused of abuse. In many states, such a step was already mandatory; others, including Massachusetts and Colorado, were poised to make it so. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops agreed to devote its June 2002 meeting, in Dallas, to the issue of clergy sexual abuse and was ready for the first time to approve mandatory rules for all 194 dioceses in the United States, a step the bishops’ conference had resisted for nearly two decades. The new requirements would likely insist that all priests who sexually abuse minors be removed from ministry and be reported to prosecutors, that dioceses reach out to victims, and that Church workers be trained to recognize and report indications that a child might have been harmed.
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The Boston Globe (Betrayal: The Crisis in the Catholic Church: The findings of the investigation that inspired the major motion picture Spotlight)
“
They failed to contact victims. They left responsibility for follow-up to the priest’s diocese. In short, the psychiatrists saw the Church as their boss. And, Schoener concluded, they wanted the boss to like them.
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The Boston Globe (Betrayal: The Crisis in the Catholic Church: The findings of the investigation that inspired the major motion picture Spotlight)
“
We found the girl’s body and I had to go tell the parents. It was around midnight, but this wasn’t the sort of thing that could wait until morning. I called our contact number for the Catholic diocese in Colorado Springs, looking for a priest to accompany me so he could console this deeply religious family. The priest who answered the phone at the diocese residence said, “We don’t go out at night.” That was it. His team kept banker’s hours. I hung up on the soulless priest and called a good-guy rabbi I’d known for years. I told him that the daughter of a Catholic family had been murdered but I couldn’t get a priest to go with me for the notification. “Why not?” the rabbi asked. “Apparently, they don’t go out at night.” “Bastards,” he said. I had no interest in igniting a holy war, or an unholy war, I just needed someone from the God Squad to be there when I delivered horrible news to these nice people. “Come pick me up, I’ll wing it,” he said. The rabbi wore a yarmulke skullcap but delivered a full round on the rosary in perfect Catholic. He stepped up and had the entire family on their knees praying in front of a Madonna statue in the living room. On the ride home, I told my Jewish friend how impressed I was with his priest impersonation. The rabbi replied: “I keep up with the competition.
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Joe Kenda (I Will Find You: Solving Killer Cases from My Life Fighting Crime (Homicide Hunter))
“
Financial settlements with victims of abuse have put an increasing strain on Church finances. Nationally, the Church paid more than $3 billion to settle abuse complaints between 1950 and 2015. In Boston, the archdiocese paid $154 million to settle with 1,230 victims from 2002 through June 30, 2014, the most recent figures available. Between 2004 and 2015, twelve dioceses nationwide filed for bankruptcy protection.
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The Boston Globe (Betrayal: The Crisis in the Catholic Church: The findings of the investigation that inspired the major motion picture Spotlight)
“
The cause underlying all others is racial. It is explained in their names. The theology of one had its roots in Greek Philosophy; that of the other in Roman Law. One tended to a brilliant diversity, the other to centralization and unity. One was a group of Ecclesiastical States, a Hierarchy and a Polyarchy, governed by Patriarchs, each supreme in his own diocese; the other was a Monarchy, arbitrarily and diplomatically governed from one center. It was the difference between an archipelago and a continent, and not unlike the difference between ancient Greece and Rome.
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Mary Platt Parmele (A Short History of Russia)
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Our Daily Epiphanies You shall be radiant at what you see… Isaiah 60:5 Two people can experience the same event very differently. One might “see” God’s hand at work while another may not. For example, one will curse his bad luck upon having a car accident, while the other will give thanks that God saved him from serious injury. In the end, some will have experienced their lives as a succession of little miracles, and they will count themselves blessed. Others will judge that life has been unfair and cheated them. The difference is typically in the eye of the beholder. If we have eyes to see the daily epiphanies in our lives, we will end up with grateful and joyful hearts. If we do not, we can easily become angry and dissatisfied. Let’s begin this day with a prayer: “Lord, give me the eyes today and every day to see your generous and merciful hand at work.” May every day be for us an epiphany of the Lord. Msgr. Stephen J. Rossetti Msgr. Rossetti is a priest of the Diocese of Syracuse, clinical associate professor at the Catholic University of America and visiting professor at the Gregorian University in Rome. He is author of numerous books, including his latest, Letters to My Brothers: Words of Hope and Challenge to Priests from Ave Maria Press.
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Mark Neilsen (Living Faith - Daily Catholic Devotions, Volume 30 Number 4 - 2015 January, February, March (Living Faith - Daily Catholic Devotions Volume 30))
“
One of the Christians who sees Harry as a positive moral influence is Father Stuart Crevcoure, a Roman Catholic priest with the Diocese of Tulsa, Oklahoma. A passionate Harry Potter fan, Crevcoure said the use of the occult in Potter doesn’t constitute a recruitment program for young pagans.
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Melissa Anelli (Harry, A History - The True Story of a Boy Wizard, His Fans, and Life Inside the Harry Potter Phenomenon)
“
The first thing to do when laborers are lacking is not to apply our intelligence to restructuring a diocese, to reorganize the parishes by consolidating them—which is not to deny the possible usefulness and appropriateness of such a project. Instead, it is necessary to pray that God will raise up many holy vocations to the priestly ministry and the consecrated life. Do
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Robert Sarah (God or Nothing: A Conversation on Faith)
“
Because people understand that the diocese is trying to help the members of that group feel more connected to their church, the church they belong to by virtue of their baptism.
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James Martin (Building a Bridge: How the Catholic Church and the LGBT Community Can Enter into a Relationship of Respect, Compassion, and Sensitivity)
“
As Bob Hibbs, retired bishop suffragan of the Diocese of West Texas, has said, “I need the church. I need the body of Christ to help me recite the Creed and proclaim my belief, especially on those days when I’m not entirely sure I can all by myself.”143
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Demi Prentiss (Radical Sending: Go to Love and Serve)
“
Additionally, more than one hundred thousand of the Christians in Bishop Doeme’s diocese have fled elsewhere for safety, leaving roughly sixty thousand to fend off the radical Islamic militants.
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Carrie Gress (The Marian Option: God’s Solution to a Civilization in Crisis)
“
nothing prepared Catholic America for the flood of 2003, which began in New England but ultimately left no diocese or community untouched, reaching even to the doors of the Vatican itself. Horror upon horror, cover-up upon cover-up, and sacrilege piled on sacrilege—it was like an anti-Catholic polemic from the nineteenth century, except that it was all too terribly true. No atheist or anticlericalist, no Voltaire or Ingersoll or Twain could have invented a story so perfectly calculated to discredit the message of the Gospel as the depredations of Thomas Geoghan and the legalistic indifference of Bernard Cardinal Law. No external enemy of the faith, no Attila or Barbarossa or Hitler, could have sown so much confusion and dismay among the faithful as Catholicism’s own bishops managed to do.
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Ross Douthat (Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics)
“
He apologized for having agreed to change the name of the orphanage from its original, Villa Pacelli, to Villa Francisco Javier Nuño. He explained that honoring the diocese’s first archbishop —a true hero of the Catholic Faith, who survived the bloody, Freemason, anti-Catholic persecution in Mexico, whose own father was executed by federal soldiers, hung from a tree for assisting at his son’s first Mass— meant so very much to the good men and women of Los Altos de Jalisco. He also explained that the humble archbishop, now gone to God, had meant a great deal to him as well.
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Charles T. Murr (The Godmother: Madre Pascalina, a Feminine Tour de Force)
“
Where the African church failed was in not carrying Christianity beyond the Romanized inhabitants of the cities and the great estates, and not sinking roots into the world of the native peoples. Like most regions of the Western empire, such as Gaul and Spain, Africa was divided between Latin-speaking provincials and old-stock natives, who spoke their ancient languages—in this case, varieties of Berber. Unlike these other provinces, though, the African church had made next to no progress in taking the faith to the villages and the neighboring tribes, nor, critically, had they tried to evangelize in local languages. This would not have been an unrealistic expectation, in that already by the fourth century missionaries elsewhere were translating the scriptures into Gothic, and Hunnic languages followed by the sixth century. Evidence of the neglect of the countryside can be found in the letters of Saint Augustine, by far the best known of African bishops, whose vision was sharply focused on the cities of Rome and Carthage; he expressed no interest in the rural areas or peoples of his diocese.3
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Philip Jenkins (The Lost History of Christianity: The Thousand-Year Golden Age of the Church in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia—and How It Died)
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Without dioceses, local parishes and village churches could barely continue, even if the villages themselves could have long survived the constant turmoil and bloodshed. And as we have seen, monasteries and shrines could not last for long in an environment of prolonged warfare. The strength of early and medieval Christianity was that it created a sanctified landscape in which Christian institutions were visible everywhere. The weakness of being so heavily invested in real estate was that it left an almost infinite abundance of tempting targets for plunder and destruction, and once these were gone, so were many of the forces that kept believers attached to the faith. The question must arise as to whether some other kind of organization might have offered a better chance of resisting decline. In theory, we can imagine church structures less dependent on monks and clergy, and lacking the tight hierarchy dependent on the empire’s cities. Retroactively, we could even think of a Christianity that looked more Protestant, in the sense of placing more control and initiative in the hands of ordinary believers, whose decentralized church life would depend less on institutions than on direct access to the scriptures. But such an alternative is difficult to conceive realistically, as monasticism and episcopacy were so deeply en-grained in Eastern tradition, while the Protestant idea of access to the Bible assumes forms of printing technology that would not be feasible until centuries afterward. And the annihilation of European heretics like the Cathars suggests that even quite imaginative forms of clandestine organization could not withstand unrelenting persecution.
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Philip Jenkins (The Lost History of Christianity: The Thousand-Year Golden Age of the Church in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia—and How It Died)
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Other possible approaches demand more respect. For one thing, we must be careful in describing a religion as extinct, either entirely, or in a particular area; churches end, but The Church goes on. A conservative Catholic once criticized my statement that the North African church had ceased to exist. Of course it had not, he argued. True, the dioceses in question happened, at present, to have no clergy, no members or lay believers, and no buildings. But regardless of the number of people it included, the church never ceased to exist as a body at once mystical and institutional.
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Philip Jenkins (The Lost History of Christianity: The Thousand-Year Golden Age of the Church in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia—and How It Died)
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Hi Chuck,” a familiar voice said. “It’s your Uncle Eduard calling. I’m the next person in charge at the diocese right now. I was told I needed to call you right away. What’s up?
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Charles Benedict (My Life In and Out: One Man’s Journey into Roman Catholic Priesthood and Out of the Closet)
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In the days of the early Christians, the Blessed Sacrament was preserved after Mass in order to bring Holy Communion to the sick or to those in prison for their faith. We hear stories, such as that of St. Tarcisius, of Christians risking their lives to carry the Blessed Sacrament to others. Records also show that in the late fourth century, in some dioceses, converts to the faith were invited to adore the Blessed Sacrament exposed for eight days after their baptism. Early
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Paul Thigpen (Manual for Eucharistic Adoration)
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The cause underlying all others is racial. It is explained in their names. The theology of one had its roots in Greek Philosophy; that of the other in Roman Law. One tended to a brilliant diversity, the other to centralization and unity. One was a group of Ecclesiastical States, a Hierarchy and a Polyarchy, governed by Patriarchs, each supreme in his own diocese; the other was a Monarchy, arbitrarily and diplomatically governed from one center. It was the difference between an archipelago and a continent, and not unlike the difference between ancient Greece and Rome. One had the tremendous principle of growth, stability, and permanence; the other had not. Such were the race tendencies which led to entirely different ecclesiastical systems.
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Mary Platt Parmele (A Short History of Russia)
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In 1747, Bishop Gibson of London wrote a circular letter to all the ministers in his diocese, warning against the Methodists. The letter made the accusation that “they persuade the people that the established worship, with a regular attendance upon it, is not sufficient to answer the ends of devotion.” Bishop Gibson’s letter ended with the rhetorical flourish, “Reverend Brothers, I charge you all, lift up your voice like a trumpet! And warn and arm and fortify all mankind—against a People called Methodists.” John Wesley responded with an “Open Letter to the Right Reverend the Lord Bishop of London,” asking first of all whether Methodists were really so dangerous as to deserve to be singled out in this way. “Could your lordship discern no other enemies of the gospel of Christ? . . . Are there no Papists, no Deists left in the land? . . . Have the Methodists (so called) monopolized all the sins, as well as all the errors of the nation?
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Anonymous
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Little did anyone know what addictions and sins I was subjected to as a child from a similar ‘fallen angel’. I couldn’t bear sharing what had happened to me at the group AA meetings—too humiliating. I only shared the secret with a select few and requested it be kept confidential. More than the special attention the priest received, I was overwhelmed with the eerie resemblance he had to my abuser. His pale freckled skin and strawberry-blond hair made me uncomfortable in his presence. I could feel my abuser’s satanic touch when in the same room as that man. But I was in a mechanical state, staying the course, hoping something miraculous would pull me out of my miring in the past. This perseverance contributed to being the turning point of my recovery, that being when I told him what had happened. “What’s the name of this priest, Marco?” Father Todd said. I told him. To which he replied, “He was arrested for molesting another boy, and he did some prison time.” “I did hear about that, Father,” I said. “You should go to the diocese. They’ll appoint a therapist to you. I’ll give you the contact names,” he said, pulling out a pad of paper with all the information I'd need.
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Marco L. Bernardino Sr. (Sins of the Abused)
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As we all know, the Church was born without episcopal conferences, as she was born without parishes and without dioceses, although all these structures have been helpful pastorally throughout the centuries. The Church was born only with shepherds, with apostolic pastors, whose relationship to their people keeps them one with Christ, from whom comes authority to govern the Church.
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Francis E. George
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If the U.S. bishops formed a kind of accrediting association, which is as American as apple pie and a tool for many disciplines and professions, such an association could be useful to a local bishop in fulfilling his responsibilities to a Catholic university in the diocese he serves and could help the university itself find direction in its sense of mission.
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Francis E. George
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He took his mission as head of the Diocese of Rome very seriously and was more active and accessible within the diocese than past popes had been. This was in keeping with his affable personality and focus on pastoral responsibilities.
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Wyatt North (Pope John XXIII: The Good Pope)
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Yet on Christmas Day 1958 Pope John stepped forth from the Vatican and became the first pope since 1870 to make pastoral visits in his own diocese of Rome. He visited two hospitals followed on the next day by a visit to a prison. There, he told the hardened but now weeping inmates that he was their brother, and he embraced a murderer.
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Wyatt North (Pope John XXIII: The Good Pope)
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remember when a former bishop of Colorado Springs told me: “Many of the best Catholics in my diocese left the church for a while — and then came back for adult and right reasons.” One does not hear that kind of wisdom much anymore. Today it is all about being a consummate insider, which now is called “orthodoxy.” Jesus clearly was much more concerned with journey, integrity, and what we would call “orthopraxy” (our 8th principle of practice over theory) more than mere correct ideas or belonging to the correct group.
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Richard Rohr (The Eight Core Principles)
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Not all freedom from the law occurs as a result of legislation. Sometimes there is religious “liberty” from the law when prosecutors fail to enforce the law and instead pander to religious leaders, ergo, perceived voting blocs. For decades, prosecutors across the United States knew about the abuse in the Catholic dioceses, but hesitated to prosecute for fear of Catholic backlash.
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Marci A. Hamilton (God vs. the Gavel: The Perils of Extreme Religious Liberty)
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And so it is important for dioceses to have well-trained priest exorcists, imbued with sanctity and protected by Mary’s virginal mantle. The manifestations of the devil are very significant and widespread today. Under his influence, yesterday’s sins have become virtues. The devil is finally celebrating because he is making substantial gains. We
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Robert Sarah (God or Nothing: A Conversation on Faith)
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Necessary collegial consultation therefore does not abolish the autonomy and responsibility of the bishop in his own diocese. No one should feel obliged or forced by the collegial decision of the episcopate, especially when pressures and campaigns are organized to exert influence on certain persons for the purpose of imposing a point of view that is not spiritual but ideological. Episcopal collaboration becomes deficient if it is biased because of political aims. Each bishop is responsible before God for the way in which he fulfills his episcopal responsibilities toward the flock that the Holy Spirit has entrusted to his protection. Collegiality
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Robert Sarah (God or Nothing: A Conversation on Faith)
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Sometimes it is idleness. Men neglect what they should do, and then are easily persuaded to meddle with what they have nothing to do. The apostle intimates this plainly, ‘They learn to be idle, wandering about from house to house; and not only idle, but tattlers also and busy-bodies, I Tim. 5:13. An idle person is a gadder. He hath his foot on the threshold—easily drawn from his own place—and as soon into another’s diocese. He is at leisure for to hear the devil's chat. He that will not serve God in his own place, the devil, rather than he shall stand out, will send him off his errand, and get him to put his sickle into another's corn. (2.)
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William Gurnall (The Christian in Complete Armour - The Ultimate Book on Spiritual Warfare)
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Meanwhile, the diocese had to raise $16 million. How would it do that? By borrowing $6 million and by pillaging its own parishes-- the very communities whose children had been violated by the disgraced priests. Parish bank accounts were vacuumed, parish properties were sold, parishes were merged.
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Silver Donald Cameron (Blood in the Water: A True Story of Revenge in the Maritimes)
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the story of a priest from another diocese who came into the Archdiocese of Indianapolis to perform an exorcism without my bishop’s permission.
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Vincent P. Lampert (Exorcism: The Battle Against Satan and His Demons)
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Modern society is in the middle of formulating an anti-Christian creed, and if one opposes it, one is being punished by society with excommunication. The fear of this spiritual power of the Antichrist is then only more than natural, and it really needs the help of prayers on the part of an entire diocese and of the Universal Church in order to resist it.”5
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Ralph Martin (Join the Resistance)
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episcopal dioceses, and 6 more in Northern Ireland. The church places particular emphasis on religious education as well as devotion, though the proportion of church members who attend services on a typical Sunday is not much different from the proportion of Anglican church members.
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Philip Norton (The British Polity)
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The result was that Wilfrid was deposed, and his huge diocese was divided between three new appointees:
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Marc Morris (The Anglo-Saxons A History of the Beginnings of England: 400–1066)
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But where, as is the case in almost all dioceses, there exists a church in which the Virgin Mother of God is worshipped with more intense devotion, thither on stated days let pilgrims flock together in great numbers and publicly and in the open give glorious expression to their common Faith and their common love toward the Virgin Most Holy.
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Pope Pius XII (Fulgens Corona: On the Marian Year and the Dogma of the Immaculate Conception)
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In 378, the emperor Valens confronted roving war bands of Germanic Goths at Adrianople near Constantinople. With a massive cavalry charge, the Goths shattered Valens’s army and killed the emperor. It was a disaster of the first order.28 The capital managed to shut its gates against the German invader. However, the price of the Eastern Empire’s survival was the loss of the West. One Germanic tribe after another—Goths, Vandals, Franks, Allemanni, Burgundians—shot westward through the Balkans, overrunning the Rhine frontier and the Roman provinces on the other side, including Italy. The basic framework of imperial government, like the Roman road system dating back to Caesar Augustus, collapsed under the strain. So did law and order. Only the Church held firm. In virtually every town, starting with Rome itself, its leaders became symbols of resistance. Like the young Genovefa (later canonized Saint Genevieve) in Paris, they rallied citizens to stand fast and defend their cities; like Pope Leo I with Attila the Hun, they struck deals with the invaders to spare their congregations. When negotiations failed they organized humanitarian relief for the devastated areas and offered words of comfort and hope when everything looked its bleakest. The Catholic bishop became the one upholder of a social and cultural order to which the people living in his diocese, including pagans, could still cling.
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Arthur Herman (The Cave and the Light: Plato Versus Aristotle, and the Struggle for the Soul of Western Civilization)
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The Cristo Rey Columbus High School is part of what is now a twenty-eight-school network that was founded in Chicago by Jesuit priest John P. Foley in 1995. The schools are strategically located in cities with a needy urban population, a supportive local Catholic diocese, and cooperative, deep-pocketed businesses. Columbus, as an energetic, creative, and generous city, fit the bill perfectly.
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James M. Fallows (Our Towns: A 100,000-Mile Journey into the Heart of America)
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Then, on April 7, the bishop for the diocese of the four counties surrounding San Diego, representing some 512,000 Catholics, an activist in the city’s nonsectarian Pro-Life League, announced priests would refuse Holy Communion to any Catholic who “admits publicly” to membership in the National Organization for Women or any other group advocating abortion: “The issue at stake is not only what we do to unborn children but what we do to ourselves by permitting them to be killed.” He called abortion a “serious moral crime” that “ignores God and his love.” NOW proclaimed this year’s Mother’s Day a “Mother’s Day of Outrage”—in response, it said, to the Roman Catholic hierarchy’s “attempt to undermine the right of women to control their own bodies.” The president of Catholics for Free Choice and the Southern California coordinator for NOW’s Human Reproduction Task Force, Jan Gleeson, recently returned from Southeast Asia as an Operation Babylift volunteer, clarified the feminist group’s position: “It opposes compulsory pregnancy and reaffirms a woman’s right to privacy to control her own body as basic to her spiritual, economic, and social well-being.
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Rick Perlstein (The Invisible Bridge: The Fall of Nixon and the Rise of Reagan)
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We’ve sometimes reduced the Church to a set of ideas rather than an encounter with Jesus Christ and with his brothers and sisters in our parishes, our diocese and the world. Church becomes a debating society, people takes sides and rack up points..." "...What protected us from the differences of opinions, even theological and doctrinal divisions in the past, was that we could fall back on a required set of customs on a common way of life, a way of doing things as Catholics, even when we fought, even when we disagreed.
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Francis E. George
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A measure more generally adopted by the clergy was the Truce of God, by which bishops forbade fighting in their dioceses over the week-end and on a number of church holidays.
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Lynn Thorndike (The History of Medieval Europe)
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When the Coadjutor’s foot is better I beg him to be so good as to make some answer to Monsieur d’Agen about this nun who is turning all his diocese topsy-turvy.
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Madame de Sévigné (Selected Letters)
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And, in a message with the dismissive air of Hillary’s “deplorables” remark, communications director Jennifer Palmieri had noted to Podesta in 2011—before they worked for Hillary—that she wasn’t impressed with elite Catholic Republicans. “I imagine they think it is the most socially acceptable politically conservative religion. Their rich friends wouldn’t understand if they became evangelicals,” she wrote. Palmieri and Podesta are both Catholic, but the message read as a stab at Republicans who chose Catholicism and all evangelical Christians. At a time when Hillary was struggling with working- and middle-class white voters in Rust Belt states, the e-mail was toxic. Philadelphia, Detroit, Cleveland, and Milwaukee are among the biggest dioceses in the United States. Even outside the major metropolitan areas, the industrial Midwest is full of white Catholic enclaves.
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Jonathan Allen (Shattered: Inside Hillary Clinton's Doomed Campaign)
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Until Garibaldi landed in 1860 and the unification of Italy that followed meant that the church’s land was confiscated and many convents were forced to close down, the sisters were the powerhouses of pastry and confectionery. In aristocratic families with many daughters, if only one dowry could be afforded, the other daughters would be sent to the convent, and money would be given to the order to keep them in quiet luxury. But they also needed an occupation, so the tradition of making pastry to give away to the people on saints’ days and festivals grew up. There was a great competitiveness between the convents, each of which had their own speciality, such as virgin cakes, made in the shape of breasts. So hot was the competition, that as far back as 1575 it is said that the diocese of Mazara del Vallo had to prohibit the making of cassata by the nuns during Holy Week because they were doing more baking than praying!
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Giorgio Locatelli (Made in Sicily)
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Soon after their arrival the archers had killed the murderous Earl of Cornwall and William took his place by buying the earldom from the king; similarly, his priestly brother became the bishop of Cornwall’s two-priest diocese by buying it from the Pope. Everything was all done fair and square according to the traditions of the time.
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Martin Archer (The Archers Story Part III: Complete Books Eleven, Twelve, and Thirteen (The Company of Archers Book 3))
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Consider, for a moment, just the physical resources built up by faithful Catholics in America over the years. Scrimping and saving so that they could contribute their hard-earned nickels and dimes, working-class Catholics bequeathed us beautiful churches, parish schools, hospitals, and universities. Now many of those churches and schools are closed, while the hospitals are being sold off to secular corporations. We cannot ignore the spending of over $3 billion to pay the costs incurred by an inexcusable failure to curb sexual abuse among the clergy—a squandering of resources that has now driven ten dioceses into bankruptcy. Parish closings are commonplace in America today, and prelates are praised for their smooth handling of what is seen as an “inevitable” contraction of the Church. A question for the bishops who subscribe to such a defeatist view. Why is it inevitable? The closing of a parish is an admission of defeat. If the faithful could support a parish on this site at one time, why can they not support a parish today? American cities are dotted with magnificent church structures, built with the nickels and dimes that hard-pressed immigrant families could barely afford to donate. Today the affluent grandchildren of those immigrants are unwilling to keep current with the parish fuel bills and, more to the point, to encourage their sons to consider a life of priestly ministry. There are times, admittedly, when parishes
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Philip F. Lawler (The Smoke of Satan: How Corrupt and Cowardly Bishops Betrayed Christ, His Church, and the Faithful . . . and What Can Be Done About It)
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When St. Patrick, having escaped slavery in Ireland, arrived again as a missionary, the country was pagan. By the time he died, the country was Catholic. He came into a “neighborhood”—an entire nation—that could not support a parish. But he did not accept what lesser souls might have considered inevitable. Instead, he changed the conditions of the neighborhood, and soon a parish was created. And another and another and another. During his years of ministry in the once-pagan country, he is said to have consecrated over three hundred bishops. In Ireland today there are seven dioceses—not parishes, dioceses—that trace their foundation to St. Patrick’s missionary work. If as a bishop and missionary St. Patrick could convert an entire nation, why can’t his successors at least strive to match his success? We have material advantages that would have left St.
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Philip F. Lawler (The Smoke of Satan: How Corrupt and Cowardly Bishops Betrayed Christ, His Church, and the Faithful . . . and What Can Be Done About It)
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the bishop, for instance, is the legal executive of the secular corporation that holds diocesan assets. But a bishop, a religious superior, or the chief officer of a Church-administered hospital does not own the assets; he holds them in trust, to be managed for the good of the faithful. Still, because there are few meaningful restrictions on a bishop’s legal authority over diocesan assets, bishops can and sometimes do misuse the resources that have been entrusted to their care. In the years before the sex-abuse scandal came to light, bishops routinely paid large settlements to the victims of priests’ predation, insisting that the cases must remain undisclosed. When the abuse came to light, bishops authorized additional payments of millions to victims as well as millions to the diocesan lawyers who contested the victims’ claims. In all those cases, there was precious little consultation with the laity, with the people who had donated the funds that were being so rapidly dissipated. When the frightening costs of the scandal forced the closing of Catholic parishes and parochial schools, again bishops made their own decisions about which parishes and schools would be eliminated, rarely providing opportunities for lay people—the parishioners and the parents of students in those schools—to participate in the decision-making process. More ominously, several bishops, in order to avoid prosecution for their endangering children and for failing to report crimes, entered into plea-bargaining agreements with local prosecutors. In a few cases, these agreements imposed obligations not only on the bishops themselves but on their successors; their dioceses were required to submit reports to, and clear policies with, local public officials. In other words, these bishops yielded up the religious freedom of the Church to preserve their own personal freedom. The deals they struck might be described as photographic negatives of martyrdom as, rather than laying down their own lives for the sake of others, too many of our bishops surrendered the patrimony of generations of Catholics to protect themselves. That has been one way in which bishops have betrayed the faithful in recent years.
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Philip F. Lawler (The Smoke of Satan: How Corrupt and Cowardly Bishops Betrayed Christ, His Church, and the Faithful . . . and What Can Be Done About It)
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Conscience is God’s diocese, where none has right to visit, but He who is the Bishop of our souls (1 Peter 2:25
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Thomas Watson (All Things for Good)
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Conscience is God’s diocese, where none has right to visit, but He who is the Bishop of our souls (1 Peter 2:25).
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Thomas Watson (All Things for Good)
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Of course, nobody’s asking you to modify your principles in any way, and in no diocese, as far as I know, has the fourth commandment been tampered with. But can we go poking our noses into their ledgers? They may be more or less amenable to our teaching as far as, for instance, the errors of the flesh are concerned—in their worldly prudence they can see where such disorders lead: they consider they’re wasteful, though usually in no higher sense than as a risk, as money thrown away; but what they call ‘business’ appears to these industrious folk their special preserve, where hard work excuses everything, since to them work is a kind of religion. ‘Each for himself and the devil take the hindmost,’ is their rule of life. And we are helpless, it will take years, centuries maybe, to enlighten their minds, rid them of the feeling that business is in the nature of ‘war’, with all the rights and privileges of real war. A soldier on the battlefield does not consider himself a murderer. Nor does a businessman who draws excessive profit from his activities consider himself a thief, since he knows he can never bring himself to take sixpence from another man’s pocket. Men are men, my dear boy, what else do you expect? If some of these businessmen were ever to take it into their heads to follow strict theological precepts on the subject of lawful profit, they would certainly end up in the bankruptcy court. And is it wise to class as inferior, industrious citizens who have struggled so hard to rise socially, and constitute our strongest support in a materialistic world, who take their share of the burden of church expenses, and who—now that in the villages vocations have almost ceased—even give us priests? Big business exists only in name today, it has been absorbed by the banks, the aristocracy is dying out, the proletarian slips through our fingers, and yet you’d like to get the middle classes to provide an immediate and spectacular solution to ethical difficulties which need endless time, prudence and tact to unravel. Was not slavery an even more flagrant breach of God’s law? And yet the Apostles—At your age we like to be intolerant. Be on your guard against that fault. Don’t think in abstractions, see men as they are.
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Georges Bernanos (The Diary of a Country Priest)
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When Cardinal Vidal y Barraquer, faced with the Church’s financial crisis, proposed that the richer dioceses should help the poorer ones, most of the bishops objected furiously.5
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Antony Beevor (The Battle for Spain: The Spanish Civil War 1936-1939)
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In the spring of 1969, the sword struck from Rome. Pope Paul VI decreed a new Mass would be instituted. The letter carrying the news pierced the bishop's heart. This was not just a scandal; the preface to the description of the novus ordo missae gave a new definition of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass that bordered on an unthinkable lapse into heresy. The Great Sacrifice of the Mass became a simple supper. The change in the nature of the sacrament can be understood quickly by simply counting the number of references to "sacrifice" in the Tridentine rite and comparing that number with the number of references in the new Mass. This was not only new; this was the smashing of the ancient ritual of sacrifice and the replacement with a new version.
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David Allen White (The Mouth of the Lion: Bishop Antonio De Castro Mayer & the Last Catholic Diocese)
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Here, in miniature, is a paradigm of the basic misunderstanding in the post-Vatican II Church. To many of the members of the hierarchy and indeed to the pope himself, the problem is a problem of obedience: "We say you will now do this, now do it. We say will not do this, so don't. Obey!" To thousands of priests and hundred of thousands of faithful around the world, the problem is a problem of dogma and doctrine: "You now say X when the Church has always said Y. How is this possible? Explain!" The fundamental stand of the traditionalists consists in a belief that the changes in the Church represent a clear and distinct break with twenty centuries of teaching and practice. In all sincerity, they ask for clarification and explanation before they will consider abandoning what they have always believed and what they have always done. The 1974 letter from Dom Antonio to Pope Paul VI stated explicitly his doubts concerning the new Mass and certain new ideas from Vatican II and quite humbly requested enlightenment from the pontiff. The response in this case was typical - silence. The only other response such sincere requests receive is the thunderclap "Obey!" Such responses suggest that the authorities are completely unwilling or unable to debate questions of doctrine and dogma, either out of fear or out of the painful recognition that there has indeed been a significant change in the traditional teachings and practices of the Church that cannot be discussed or explained to anyone's satisfaction.
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David Allen White (The Mouth of the Lion: Bishop Antonio De Castro Mayer & the Last Catholic Diocese)
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The consecration ceremony usually begins with the "mandate", the commission from Rome approving the event. Msgr. Fischer explained that in the absence of a mandate from Pope John Paul II, whose vision of the Church is a vision of the "new Church" under which the faithful have suffered at the hands of Bishops Navarro and Corso, a mandate clearly exists from the popes of Tradition, the Rome of All Time, to insure the salvation of souls. In this clear wish of the Eternal Church, the mandate is given.
Next came the interrogation or the examination of the bishop-elect by the consecrator (and two co-consecrators, who always speak all the words of the ceremony simultaneously with the consecrator). The bishop-elect was asked if he would teach the Scriptures to the people, if he would "receive, keep and teach with reverence the traditions of the orthodox fathers," if he would submit to the authority of the Holy Father (a conundrum - it is no longer possible to answer "yes" unreservedly to both the second and third questions; a "yes" answer to question three regarding the current pope requires a "no" answer to question two, since there exists a clear break between the "orthodox Fathers" and the present pope; a "yes" answer to question two requires a qualified "yes" to question three, "yes" insofar as the pope upholds the tradition spoken of in question two, but "no" insofar as he breaks with the "traditions of the orthodox Fathers" - only muddled modernist thought could produce such confusion) . . .
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David Allen White (The Mouth of the Lion: Bishop Antonio De Castro Mayer & the Last Catholic Diocese)
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【V信83113305】:Carroll College, located in Helena, Montana, is a private Catholic liberal arts college renowned for its academic excellence and vibrant campus life. Founded in 1909 by the Diocese of Helena, the college offers a values-centered education rooted in the Catholic intellectual tradition. With a student-to-faculty ratio of 11:1, Carroll emphasizes personalized learning, fostering close mentorship between professors and students. The college provides over 35 majors, including strong programs in health sciences, business, and engineering, alongside a commitment to service and leadership. Its picturesque campus, nestled near the Rocky Mountains, offers a stunning backdrop for outdoor activities. Carroll’s tight-knit community, NCAA Division III athletics, and dedication to faith and reason make it a distinctive institution shaping future leaders.,卡罗尔学院毕业证, 学历证书!Carroll College学历证书卡罗尔学院学历证书Carroll College假文凭, 如何办理CC卡罗尔学院学历学位证, 美国大学文凭购买, 卡罗尔学院-CC大学毕业证成绩单, 制作文凭卡罗尔学院毕业证-CC毕业证书-毕业证, Offer(CC成绩单)CC卡罗尔学院如何办理?, 美国本科毕业证
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【V信83113305】:Carroll College, located in Helena, Montana, is a private Catholic liberal arts college renowned for its academic excellence and vibrant campus life. Founded in 1909 by the Diocese of Helena, the college offers a rigorous curriculum grounded in the Catholic intellectual tradition, emphasizing critical thinking, ethical leadership, and service to others. With a student-to-faculty ratio of 11:1, Carroll fosters close mentorship and personalized learning. Its programs in health sciences, engineering, and business are particularly distinguished, alongside strong offerings in the humanities and social sciences. The campus, nestled in the scenic Rocky Mountains, provides a close-knit community where students engage in athletics, volunteer work, and spiritual growth. Carroll’s commitment to "Not for School, but for Life" reflects its dedication to shaping well-rounded individuals prepared to make meaningful contributions to society.,申请学校!CC成绩单卡罗尔学院成绩单CC改成绩, 美国毕业证办理, Offer(Carroll College成绩单)卡罗尔学院如何办理?, 办卡罗尔学院毕业证学位证书文凭认证-可查, 卡罗尔学院颁发典礼学术荣誉颁奖感受博士生的光荣时刻, CC毕业证成绩单专业服务, 美国大学文凭购买, Carroll College卡罗尔学院颁发典礼学术荣誉颁奖感受博士生的光荣时刻
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