Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen on Judging the Catholic Church by her Members

Judge the Catholic Church not by those who barely live by its spirit, but by the example of those who live closest to it.

Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen

St. Thomas More on Remaining True in the Midst of a Storm

You must not abandon the ship in a storm because you cannot control the winds. What you cannot turn to good, you must at least make as little bad as you can.

St. Thomas More (Utopia)

Tim Staples on the Blessed Virgin Mary as our Hope

Mary keeps our theology from becoming an abstraction, because in Mary we see (faith) concretized, lived out through her whole life, and she’s gone before us, perfected, hence she’s our hope. Jesus, of course, is the hope of glory, but Mary is our hope in as much as what Jesus promised has been fulfilled in her and we can look at her and see that God fulfills His promises, and in that sense she becomes our hope, and we also see in her our own dignity.

Tim Staples – Catholic Answers Live

Peggy Noonan on the Sex Abuse Scandal

There are three great groups of victims in this story. The first and most obvious, the children who were abused, who trusted, were preyed upon and bear the burden through life. The second group is the good priests and good nuns, the great leaders of the church in the day to day, who save the poor, teach the immigrant, and, literally, save lives. They have been stigmatized when they deserve to be lionized. And the third group is the Catholics in the pews—the heroic Catholics of America and now Europe, the hardy souls who in spite of what has been done to their church are still there, still making parish life possible, who hold high the flag, their faith unshaken. No one thanks those Catholics, sees their heroism, respects their patience and fidelity. The world thinks they’re stupid. They are not stupid, and with their prayers they keep the world going, and the old church too.

Peggy Noonan