The following is a list of some very important quotes that every Catholic should know. There is so much misinformation these days that these little snippets will serve as a welcome and refreshing "reality check" against the errors and problems of our times.
- "The declared enemies of God
and His Church, heretics and schismatics, must be criticized as much as
possible, as long as truth is not denied. It is a work of charity to
shout: 'Here is the wolf!'
when it enters the flock or anywhere else.
--St. Francis de Sales, Introduction to the Devout Life, Part III, Chapter 29
- "In the Third Secret [of
Fatima] it is foretold, among other things, that the great apostasy in
the Church will begin at the top."
--Mario L. Ciappi, Novus Ordo cardinal and household theologian to John Paul II; quoted in The Devil's Final Battle, p. 33
- "The Church will be
punished because the majority of her members, high and low, will become
so perverted. The Church will sink deeper and deeper until she will at
last seem to be extinguished, and the succession of Peter and the other
Apostles to have expired. But, after this, she will be victoriously
exalted in the sight of all doubters."
--St. Nicholas of Flue, in Catholic Prophecy, edited by Yves Dupont, p. 30
- "In our time more than ever
before, the chief strength of the wicked, lies in the cowardice and
weakness of good men... All the strength of Satan’s reign is due to the
easy-going weakness of Catholics. Oh! if I might ask the Divine
Redeemer, as the prophet Zachary did in spirit: What are those wounds in
the midst of Thy hands? The answer would not be doubtful: With these was
I wounded in the house of them that loved Me. I was wounded by My
friends, who did nothing to defend Me, and who, on every occasion, made
themselves the accomplices of My adversaries. And this reproach can be
levelled at the weak and timid Catholics of all countries."
--Pope St. Pius X, Discourse at the Beatification of St. Joan of Arc, Dec. 13, 1908
- "The apostles and their
successors are God's vicars in governing the Church which is built on
faith and the sacraments of faith. Wherefore, just as they may not
institute another Church, so neither may they deliver another faith, nor
institute other sacraments."
--St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, III, 64, ad. 3
- "I hear around me reformers
who want to dismantle the Holy Sanctuary, destroy the universal flame of
the Church, to discard all her adornments, and smite her with remorse
for her historic past."
--Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli, later Pope Pius XII, to Count Enrico P. Galeazzi
- "Pope Gelasius in his ninth
letter (chap. 26) to the bishops of Lucania condemned the evil practice
which had been introduced of women serving the priest at the celebration
of Mass. Since this abuse had spread to the Greeks, Innocent IV strictly
forbade it in his letter to the bishop of Tusculum: 'Women should not
dare to serve at the altar; they should be altogether refused this
ministry.' We too have forbidden this practice in the same words...."
--Pope Benedict XIV, Encyclical Allatae Sunt, July 26, 1755
- "On December 8, 1869, the
International Congress of Freemasons imposed it as a duty on all its
members to do all in their power to wipe out Catholicity from the face
of the earth. Cremation was proposed as a suitable means to this end,
since it was calculated to gradually undermine the faith of the people
in 'the resurrection of the body and life everlasting.'"
--Fr. John Laux, Catholic Morality (Imprimatur 1932), p. 106
- "It is impossible to approve
in Catholic publications a style inspired by unsound novelty which seems
to deride the piety of the faithful and dwells on the introduction of a
new order of Christian life, on new directions of the Church, on new
aspirations of the modern soul, on a new social vocation of the clergy,
on a new Christian civilization, and many other things of the same
kind."
--Pope Leo XIII, Instruction to the Sacred Congregation of Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs, January 27, 1902; quoted by Pope St. Pius X in Pascendi Dominici Gregis, par. 55, 1907
- "...the great movement of
apostasy being organized in every country for the establishment of a
One-World Church which shall have neither dogmas, nor hierarchy, neither
discipline for the mind, nor curb for the passions, and which, under the
pretext of freedom and human dignity, would bring back to the world (if
such a Church could overcome) the reign of legalized cunning and force,
and the oppression of the weak, and of all those who toil and suffer.
[...] Indeed, the true friends of the people are neither
revolutionaries, nor innovators: they are traditionalists."
--Pope Saint Pius X, Letter "Our Apostolic Mandate" to the French Episcopate, 1910
- "When other Christian bodies
are licensing as preachers young men who have abandoned the foundations
of Christian belief, the Church would rather face the threatened
defection of thousands of minds reputed brilliant or learned, than
sacrifice one iota of the Truth confided to her by her Founder."
--America Magazine, July 24, 1909, p. 110
- "The Son of Man, when He
cometh, shall He find, think you, faith on earth?"
--the Blessed Lord Jesus Christ (Luke 18:8)
