Flannery O’Connor on being Catholic to the Core

I am a Catholic not like someone else would be a Baptist or a Methodist, but like someone else would be an atheist.

– Flannery O’Connor

Flannery O’Connor on Catholic Belief

If you’re a Catholic you believe what the Church teaches and the climate makes no difference.

Flannery O’Connor

James T. O’Connor on the Christ’s hard teaching of the Eucharist

“Then the Jews began to argue sharply among themselves, ‘How can this man give us his flesh to eat?’ “( Jn 6:52). And “on hearing it, many of his disciples said, ‘This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?’ ” (Jn 6:60)

Through the centuries the Church has consistently refused to mitigate the shock contained in the words of the Lord at Capernaum. Her pedagogy is like her Master’s. Recognize in all its fullness what it is you are expected to believe and pray that the Father will lead you to accept. Let him accept it who can. Dissent to the Church’s teaching is not only a phenomenon of the twentieth century; it has always existed. And this dissent has touched upon not merely secondary issues but frequently upon those most central to the Catholic understanding of Jesus’ message. None more so than the Eucharist. Many have not been able to accept the Mystery as the Church meditated upon it and expounded it more adequately, but their very unwillingness or inability has been the occasion used by the Spirit to deepen the Church’s appreciation for what Jesus meant.

The Hidden Manna – James T. O’Connor

Optatus of Mileis in Africa on unity under the Bishop of Rome

But you cannot deny that you know that the episcopal seat was established first in the city of Rome by Peter and that in it sat Peter, the head of all the apostles, wherefore he is called Cephas, the one chair in which unity is maintained by all. Neither do other Apostles proceed individually on their own; and anyone who would set up another chair in opposition to that single chair would, by that very fact, be a schismatic and a sinner. It was Peter, then, who first occupied that chair, the foremost of his endowed gifts …. I but ask you to recall the origins of your chair, you who wish to claim for yourselves the title of holy Church.

Optatus of Mileis