Quotes In The Midst of Fury

Coypel, Charles-Antoine | Fury of Achilles

Richard John Neuhaus

In the absence of truth, power is the only game in town. 

Robert B. Greving, The Good News About Fiducia Supplicans, Crisis Magazine

You see, both sides of the fence agree about what (Fiducia Supplicans) says. Whether you are Cardinal Müller or Fr. Martin, whether you’re the bishops in Germany or the bishops in Africa, you see the document as granting some form of Church approval of those living in “irregular situations,” and by “irregular situations” it means what had been called sinful. It has become the latest and most telling Rorschach test of the Catholic Faith. 

Richard John Neuhaus

Socialism is the religion people get when they lose their religion. 

Barbara Nicolosi, NCRegister

In storytelling, the theme is the unifying principle of the whole narrative. This goes back to Aristotle’s Poetics, where the greatest of the philosophers asserted that it is a big idea about life that gives a story a universal truth that is relatable to everyone. 

Conrad Black

The destructive fixation of the envious English-Canadian mind requires that the highest, happiest most agile flyers be laid low. [It is] a sadistic desire corroded by soul-destroying envy, to intimidate all those who might aspire to anything the slightest exceptional.

Marcus Aurelius

It does not matter how many books you have, but how good are the books which you have. 

Fr. Raymond de Souza

Jesus offers something more than the bond of blood; a universal fraternity is now possible, for God is the Father of all. 

The Dangerous Hope for an Empty Hell, Crisis Magazine

If you don’t believe you need to be Catholic to get to Heaven—or, more radically, you believe everyone is getting to Heaven regardless of how they live here on earth (“Hello, Mr. Hitler! Good to see you here in Heaven!”)—then the importance of both practicing the Faith and sharing it with others collapses. Catholicism is reduced to something that makes you feel good; a social club with some cool-looking ceremonies.

Edward Pentin

What is the best way to resolve the confusion and division resulting from Fiducia Supplicans?

Fr. Nicola Bux

Explain that there’s nothing pastoral without “pasto” (meal) because “doctrine is actually like food, the possessor of which is he who distributes it” (St. Gregory Nazianzen). Doctrine, therefore, is pastoral, but if the shepherd does not have it, he cannot do pastoral work. The drama of the Church today is the separation of the pastoral from doctrine, that is, of love from truth. And we are paying dearly for it, as John Paul II predicted. Pope Francis should cancel Fiducia Supplicans and replace the prefect with a man of “sure, sound and pure doctrine,” to use the Apostle’s words to Titus.

E. Pentin

Father Bux, what has been the general reaction to the Fiducia Supplicans in Italy – mostly contrary, in your opinion, supportive or ambivalent?

Fr. Bux

Because of their proximity to the Apostolic See, Italian bishops seem to be like dumb dogs: they approve or they dissent, or they fear “reprisal.” Among the faithful and the non-practicing are those who consider Fiducia Supplicans, and the attempts to justify it, an insult to their intelligence. Then there are those who know the doctrine of faith and morals, especially the norms of Revelation, and ask the first dubium [doubt or question] of the five cardinals sent last summer: Is it possible for the Church today to teach doctrines contrary to those she has previously taught in matters of faith and morals, whether by the Pope ex cathedra, or in the definitions of an ecumenical Council, or in the universal ordinary magisterium of bishops scattered throughout the world (cf. Lumen Gentium 25)?

For sure, Fiducia Supplicans does not belong to the “authentic Magisterium” and is therefore not binding because what is affirmed in it is not contained in the written or transmitted word of God and which the Church, the Roman Pontiff or the College of Bishops, either definitively, that is by solemn judgment, or with ordinary and universal Magisterium, proposes to believe as divinely revealed. One cannot even adhere to it with religious assent of will and intellect.