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John Paul Ii Quotes

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John Paul Ii Quotes

“Each religion makes scores of purportedly factual assertions about everything from the creation of the universe to the afterlife. But on what grounds can believers presume to know that these assertions are true? The reasons they give are various, but the ultimate justification for most religious people’s beliefs is a simple one: we believe what we believe because our holy scriptures say so. But how, then, do we know that our holy scriptures are factually accurate? Because the scriptures themselves say so. Theologians specialize in weaving elaborate webs of verbiage to avoid saying anything quite so bluntly, but this gem of circular reasoning really is the epistemological bottom line on which all 'faith' is grounded. In the words of Pope John Paul II: 'By the authority of his absolute transcendence, God who makes himself known is also the source of the credibility of what he reveals.' It goes without saying that this begs the question of whether the texts at issue really were authored or inspired by God, and on what grounds one knows this. 'Faith' is not in fact a rejection of reason, but simply a lazy acceptance of bad reasons. 'Faith' is the pseudo-justification that some people trot out when they want to make claims without the necessary evidence. But of course we never apply these lax standards of evidence to the claims made in the other fellow’s holy scriptures: when it comes to religions other than one’s own, religious people are as rational as everyone else. Only our own religion, whatever it may be, seems to merit some special dispensation from the general standards of evidence. And here, it seems to me, is the crux of the conflict between religion and science. Not the religious rejection of specific scientific theories (be it heliocentrism in the 17th century or evolutionary biology today); over time most religions do find some way to make peace with well-established science. Rather, the scientific worldview and the religious worldview come into conflict over a far more fundamental question: namely, what constitutes evidence. Science relies on publicly reproducible sense experience (that is, experiments and observations) combined with rational reflection on those empirical observations. Religious people acknowledge the validity of that method, but then claim to be in the possession of additional methods for obtaining reliable knowledge of factual matters — methods that go beyond the mere assessment of empirical evidence — such as intuition, revelation, or the reliance on sacred texts. But the trouble is this: What good reason do we have to believe that such methods work, in the sense of steering us systematically (even if not invariably) towards true beliefs rather than towards false ones? At least in the domains where we have been able to test these methods — astronomy, geology and history, for instance — they have not proven terribly reliable. Why should we expect them to work any better when we apply them to problems that are even more difficult, such as the fundamental nature of the universe? Last but not least, these non-empirical methods suffer from an insuperable logical problem: What should we do when different people’s intuitions or revelations conflict? How can we know which of the many purportedly sacred texts — whose assertions frequently contradict one another — are in fact sacred?”

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Author:Alan Sokal
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“The consecration ceremony usually begins with the "mandate", the commission from Rome approving the event. Msgr. Fischer explained that in the absence of a mandate from Pope John Paul II, whose vision of the Church is a vision of the "new Church" under which the faithful have suffered at the hands of Bishops Navarro and Corso, a mandate clearly exists from the popes of Tradition, the Rome of All Time, to insure the salvation of souls. In this clear wish of the Eternal Church, the mandate is given. Next came the interrogation or the examination of the bishop-elect by the consecrator (and two co-consecrators, who always speak all the words of the ceremony simultaneously with the consecrator). The bishop-elect was asked if he would teach the Scriptures to the people, if he would "receive, keep and teach with reverence the traditions of the orthodox fathers," if he would submit to the authority of the Holy Father (a conundrum - it is no longer possible to answer "yes" unreservedly to both the second and third questions; a "yes" answer to question three regarding the current pope requires a "no" answer to question two, since there exists a clear break between the "orthodox Fathers" and the present pope; a "yes" answer to question two requires a qualified "yes" to question three, "yes" insofar as the pope upholds the tradition spoken of in question two, but "no" insofar as he breaks with the "traditions of the orthodox Fathers" - only muddled modernist thought could produce such confusion) . . .”

CatholicCatholicismCatholic TraditionVatican IiJohn Paul IiVatican 2
Book:The Mouth of the Lion: Bishop Antonio De Castro Mayer & the Last Catholic Diocese
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“Perhaps there could be further discussion on how pathetic it is that the highest office in the Church, the one charged with safeguarding our faith, dares to issue a document like The Message of Fatima with a straight face. It is a measure of their desperate plight, and the importance of Lucy. They have silenced her, and it is her silence that now condemns them. We know she has corresponded with the present Holy Father, and had several face-to-face meetings with John Paul. Yet after all the letters and meetings, John Paul has never been able to claim that Lucy told him Russia had been consecrated to the Immaculate Heart. The most logical reason for the Pope's silence is that Lucy has dared to tell him that he in fact has not consecrated Russia according to the wishes of Heaven.”

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Book:Fatima in Twilight
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“The consecration ceremony usually begins with the "mandate", the commission from Rome approving the event. No such mandate came from Pope John Paul II, a pope with no interest in continuing the traditional Roman Catholic Church, apart from his strong stance against certain modern social violations - birth control, abortion, divorce, homosexuality - his opposition to these practices centered more on his view of the innate dignity of man than the traditional teachings of the Church. The mandate for these consecrations could only come from those earlier popes of tradition, from Eternal Rome, who would have gladly approved the Archbishop's actions to insure the continuity of tradition and the salvation of souls.”

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Book:The Horn of the Unicorn
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“The question weighed on him and continued to weigh more heavily on him: Should he consecrate bishops? The Archbishop prayed for a sign. Admittedly, Our Lord had spoken clearly that a corrupt generation asks for a sign, but this request was out of necessity and of a different kind. The sign would have to be this - the corruption has become so widespread, the Church is in such a perilous state, the episcopacy is so cowardly and inert that no one else is willing to act. Should action be taken? Then the sign came, clear to those with eyes to see and ears to hear. The Sovereign Pontiff's modernist brain percolated with thoughts of a panreligious peace hootenanny prayer jamboree, a staged event with such media appeal that the Holy Father's thespian heart must have beat wildly against his rib cage in anticipation. Over 130 religious leaders, Christian and non-Christian, would gather at the Basilica in Assisi on October 27, 1986, to pray, each to his own god, for world peace. For such an ecumenical extravaganza, the First Commandment could easily be overlooked. For such a display of earthly brotherhood, the solemn decrees and specific teachings of Pope Leo XIII, Pope St. Pius X, and Pope Pius XI, all of whom had condemned such gatherings and forbidden Catholic participation in such gatherings, all of their words could easily be disregarded. Besides, that was way back then and this is NOW! Mother Church herself, in the person of an ecumaniac pope, would organize the event and send out the invitations, in defiance of God, in defiance of His holy Popes.”

CatholicCatholicismCatholic TraditionJohn Paul IiCatholic Church TodayArchbishop LefebvreJohn Paul 2Pope John Paul Ii
Book:The Horn of the Unicorn
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“It is obvious that if many bishops had acted like Msgr. de Castro Mayer, Bishop of Campos in Brazil, the ideological revolution within the Church could have been limited, because we must not be afraid to affirm that the current Roman authorities, since John XXIII and Paul VI, have made themselves active collaborators of international Freemasonry and of world socialism. John Paul II is above all a communist-loving politician at the service of a world communism retaining a hint of religion. He openly attacks all of the anti-communist governments and does not bring, by his travels, any Catholic revival. These conciliar Roman authorities cannot but oppose savagely and violently any reaffirmation of the traditional Magisterium. The errors of the Council and its reforms remain the official standard consecrated by the Profession of Faith of Cardinal Ratzinger in March 1989.”

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Book:Spiritual Journey
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“Therefore if by their past and future Assisi events, Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI have encouraged souls to think that Catholicism is not the one and only way to a happy eternity but merely one amongst many other promoters (even if it is the best) of mankind's "peace and unity" in this life, it follows that both Popes have facilitated the dreadful damnation of countless souls in the next life. Rather than have any part in such a betrayal, Archbishop Lefebvre preferred to be scorned, rejected, despised, marginalized, silenced, "excommunicated", you name it.”

CatholicCatholicismCatholic TraditionJohn Paul IiCatholic Church TodayArchbishop LefebvreBenedict XviJohn Paul 2
Book:Eleison Comments Volume 1
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“Because of this, the original couple would have looked at each other with the 'peace of the interior gaze.' Women, in particular, perceive when they are being viewed merely as an object for another person's gratification. When a woman senses lust in the heart of a man, she feels a restless vulnerability and even resentment. One expert on the female brain noted that a woman's sexual pleasure is greatest 'only if the amygdala - the fear and anxiety center of the brain - has been deactivated.”

SpiritualityCatholicSexualityJohn Paul IiJason EvertTheology Of The Body
Book:Theology of the Body In One Hour
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“Pope John Paul II himself was kind of a rather independent, creative man. I remember being told by somebody who worked very close with him in preparation for his first visit to the United States in 1979, he studied our normative documents, Declaration of Independence, the Federalist Papers, the Constitution. And he was amazed. He called his priests first thing in the morning and he said, he said, I thought America was a pagan country.”

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Author:Chris Matthews
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“Pope John Paul II was fascinated by the United States. And I think he was initially surprised at the vigor of the Catholic Church in the United States. Maybe some of the press that we had gotten he found wasn't true. No, I think he suspected the church in the United States. Did he challenge us to some things? Sure, he did. But, no, I always - I think there was a good alliance. There was a good gel there.”

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Author:Chris Matthews
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“Perhaps the dumbest of these story lines is that [Pope] Francis has re-opened conversation and debate in a Church that had been closed and claustrophobic for 35 years under John Paul II and Benedict XVI. I defy anyone who, over the last 35 years, has spent time on the campuses of Notre Dame or Georgetown, or who has read the National Catholic Reporter, or who has gone to a meeting of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, to make that claim without experiencing a twinge of conscience that says, "I should wash my mouth out with soap."”

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Author:George Weigel
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“These [conservative] people, if they're Americans, look back on the last 35 years of our ecclesial experience and take heart from that. The dramatic reform of seminaries continues. The priests and bishops who take their pastoral model from John Paul II will continue to do so, perhaps learning a lesson or two from Francis along the way - and they'll be the overwhelming majority of the Church's ordained ministers ten, twenty, thirty years from now.”

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Author:George Weigel
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“The "encounter" with the people on the peripheries is intended to draw them into the circle of common care and concern - that call to encounter is, to use a favorite world of John Paul II's, a call to solidarity. And that means, it seems to me, aggressive Catholic efforts to empower the poor - and a profound Catholic challenge to all those cultural forces that are eroding stable families, which are the elementary schools where we learn to take responsibility for our lives, which is the highest exercise of freedom.”

PeopleWorldMeanUseSeemsCareSchoolForceChallengesPoorCommonEffortResponsibilityOur LivesExerciseHighestDrawsConcernCatholicProfoundCirclesEncountersEmpoweringAggressiveStableSolidarityTaking ResponsibilityElementary SchoolJohn PaulPeripheryJohn Paul IiCare And Concern
Author:George Weigel
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