GK Chesterson on Christianity

Christianity even when watered down is hot enough to boil all modern society to rags.

GK Chesterson

Winston Churchill on Socialism

Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.

Winston Churchill

G.K. Chesterton on Fighting for what is Loved

You cannot love a thing without wanting to fight for it.

G.K. Chesterton

Catechism of the Catholic Church on God’s Longing for our Prayers

“If you knew the gift of God!”  The wonder of prayer is revealed beside the well where we come seeking water: there, Christ comes to meet every human being. It is he who first seeks us and asks us for a drink. Jesus thirsts; his asking arises from the depths of God’s desire for us. Whether we realize it or not, prayer is the encounter of God’s thirst with ours. God thirsts that we may thirst for him.

Catechism of the Catholic Church – Paragraph 2560

Rev. Herbert H. J. Crees on Critical Thinking

You may have heard it said that Catholics are not allowed to think for themselves; you may even believe it. And as long as you can believe things like that you will remain safely out of reach of any appeal which the Catholic Church could make to your reason. But someone ought to warn you that if you are beginning to think for yourself, you won’t be able to believe it much longer. Your mind, becoming more critical with exercise, will reject this along with a number of other quaint superstitions. Another point you should consider seriously is this: you may be the kind of person who, having once begun to think about a subject, continues to do so logically until he arrives at certain definite conclusions. This phenomenon today is comparatively rare; but if you are that kind of person you will probably accept these conclusions, even though they turn your former opinions upside down, and change your whole outlook. Finally you may decide that these conclusions you have formed are so important that you cannot ignore them, and that you must do something about them. This is one of the penalties of real thinking: and it is a penalty that a man or woman is prepared to face who wishes to live a life which is really human and not just vegetable. If ever you get as far as this in thinking about the Catholic Church, then you will be in very real danger of becoming a Catholic.

By Rev. Herbert H. J. Crees B.A. – To Start You Thinking

G.K. Chesterton on the Thoughtless Keeping of Christmas

The great majority of people will go on observing forms that cannot be explained; they will keep Christmas Day with Christmas gifts and Christmas benedictions; they will continue to do it; and some day suddenly wake up and discover why.

G.K. Chesterton –  “On Christmas,” Generally Speaking

Archbishop Paul Cordes on Real Poverty

The absence of God is worse than material poverty because it kills every firm hope and leaves the person alone with his pain.

Archbishop Paul Cordes – The Rule of Benedict: Pope Benedict XVI and His Battle with the Modern World

St. Cyprian on the Church being inseperable from the Papacy

There is one God and one Christ, and one Church, and one chair founded on Peter by the word of the Lord. It is not possible to set up another altar or for there to be another priesthood besides that one altar and that one priesthood. Whoever has gathered elsewhere is scattering.

St. Cyprian – Letters 43 (40):5 – A.D. 253

St. Clement I on Apostolic Succession

The apostles have preached the Gospel to us from the Lord Jesus Christ; Jesus Christ has done so from God. Christ therefore was sent forth by God, and the apostles by Christ. Both these appointments, then, were made in an orderly way, according to the will of God. Having therefore received their orders, and being fully assured by the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, and established in the word of God, with full assurance of the Holy Ghost, they went forth proclaiming that the kingdom of God was at hand. And thus preaching through countries and cities, they appointed the first-fruits of their labours, having first proved them by the Spirit, to be bishops and deacons of those who should afterwards believe…Our apostles also knew, through our Lord Jesus Christ, and there would be strife on account of the office of the episcopate. For this reason, therefore, inasmuch as they had obtained a perfect fore-knowledge of this, they appointed those presbyters already mentioned, and afterwards gave instructions, that when these should fall asleep, other approved men should succeed them in their ministry.

St. Clement I – First Epistle to the Church at Corinth, Ch 42 & 44, A.D. 96

G.K. Chesterton on “why I am a Catholic”

The difficulty of explaining “why I am a Catholic” is that there are ten thousand reasons all amounting to one reason: that Catholicism is true.

G.K. Chesterton

G.K. Chesterton on Submission to Truth and Authority

We do not really want a religion that is right where we are right. What we want is a religion that is right where we are wrong.

G.K. Chesterton

G.K. Chesterton on the the gates of Hell prevailing against the Catholic Church

It might well be asked, indeed, why any one accepting the Bethlehem tradition should object to golden or gilded ornament since the Magi themselves brought gold, why he should dislike incense in the church since incense was brought even to the stable. But these are controversies that do not concern me here. I am concerned only with the historical fact, more and more admitted by historians, that very early in its history this thing became visible to the civilization of antiquity; and that already the Church appeared as a Church; with everything that is implied in a Church and much that is disliked in a Church … It was certainly not in the least like merely ethical and idealistic movements in our time. It had a doctrine; it had a discipline; it had sacraments; it had degrees of initiation; it admitted people and expelled people; it affirmed one dogma with authority and repudiated another with anathemas. If all these things be the marks of Antichrist, the reign of Antichrist followed very rapidly upon Christ.

The Everlasting Man by G.K. Chesterton

G.K. Chesterton on resisting and embracing the Catholic Church

It is impossible to be just to the Catholic Church. The moment men cease to pull against it they feel a tug towards it. The moment they cease to shout it down they begin to listen to it with pleasure. The moment they try to be fair to it they begin to be fond of it. But when that affection has passed a certain point it begins to take on the tragic and menacing grandeur of a great love affair.

G.K. Chesterton